Poems that put the “heart” in heartland and make us proud to live here!

Read: Ted Kooser, “So This Is Nebraska”
Read: Sarah Hall Maney “Iowa Child”
Listen: Jewel Rodgers, “Why Nebraska?”

People who don’t live in the Midwest often ask questions like: Who lives there? What activities do you have? What’s so special about that place, anyway? We might say that we love the wind moving like an ocean breeze through tall cornstalks; that we feel hope as we watch sunsets melt across our big sky; that we are tree roots connecting our neighborhoods and communities.

Like Ted Kooser, write a poem about the beauty of your state. Be sure to include both the beauty nature provides and what has been helped by human hands (gravel roads, loosening barns). Try to end it with an image (like Ted’s hand gliding out over the wheat and houses like a bird).

Like Jewel, write a poem about your state that’s meant to be read aloud – don’t be afraid to make it punchy, funny, and silly in spots! Celebrate the things that make our state unique. Include common slogans or language that is uniquely ours (“Nebraska or Iowa Nice”). The line that Jewel repeats throughout this poem is “Why do I choose Nebraska? I say Nebraska chooses me!” Now you make your own repeatable line or refrain and use it 3 times in your poem.

Maybe you’re an “Iowa Child” like Sarah. Compare yourself – your skills, interests, personality, moods – to the natural environment of your state. Do you run as fast as the wind in an open field? Are you as tall as a newly built barn? Are you smart like the American Crow or Blue Jay?

Whatever you write, your poem should make it easier for you – or someone else – to feel like the Midwest is for all of us!

Level up! While you write, play “Ode to the Plains,” performed by a Junior High Honors Orchestra in the background. Notice how the music changes your mood and writing pace. Use it as an extra source of inspiration!

Sometimes, we are our own best friends. These poems teach us how to embrace, cherish, and tend to what makes us special as we use poetry to create a warm space for ourselves to belong.

Listen: Faith Janaé, “My Name Is Faith”
Read: Donna Ashworth, “YOU”
Read: Wendy Cope, “The Orange”

For some of us, it’s tough to be our own best friend, but when we decide to love ourselves, life often becomes softer, easier. The poet Faith begins and ends her performance with a song – how does that change your understanding of her writing? Faith calls herself hilarious. She says, “I guess…I am the best thing to ever happen to anyone in my life!” Faith’s poem is about how meaningful and beautiful it can be to belong to ourselves. 

Like Faith, write a poem where you speak positively to/about yourself in every single line. Try to address yourself directly at least once. Consider using a handful of your own song lyrics to frame the poem. The poem should feel like coming home to yourself.

Like Donna, write a short, 10-line poem called “You” – tell yourself what you’ve been needing to hear. Celebrate yourself! Congratulate yourself! Make a list of all the people you encounter in a day – parents, friends, pets, teachers, coaches – and think about collecting all those positive ways you make a difference with your smile, your compliments, your help. In her poem, Donna turns those moments into lights – for you, are they a jar of marbles turning different colors in the sunshine? A vase full of unique flowers you gather up at the end of the day? How will those precious moments show up in your poem?

Like Wendy, celebrate the small wins of a really ordinary day – make those plain moments feel special or sparkly and find a way to end with the line: I’m glad I exist.

Level up! Consider using your five senses to make these poems more layered and lovely. Perhaps we already have an image of what belonging to yourself looks like, but what does it sound like? What does it feel like?

Family is what we make it – we may be born into it, or we may find it through friendships or pet adoptions along the way. You get to decide what family means to you. We hope you’ll write about the version of family that holds you, includes you, and loves you without restriction!

Read: AHA, “Ode to my Daughter”
Read: Valerie Bloom, “Granny Is”
Listen: Denice Frohman, “Accents”
Listen: GetLit Teen Poets, “Cat Poem”

These poems from Denice, Valerie, the GetLit Fest, and an incarcerated poet who goes by the name “AHA” all deal with the uniqueness of families – like snowflakes, no two families are alike! Some families create belonging through shared language or accents, and sometimes that family grows when we hear a new student in the hallways speaking that same language. Other family units are ones we create with our pets – cats, dogs, hamsters, reptiles, ferrets, and more. Pets teach us about love, responsibility, and care, and for many people are a VIP (Very Important Pet). Some families may be separated by distance, like military families or parents/siblings who may be receiving medical care. In AHA’s case, the poet is separated due to incarceration and writes an ode – a celebratory or praise poem – to a daughter. Love knows no distance.

Like AHA, write something small and celebratory – an ode to someone you miss, an ode to someone you love, an ode to someone who makes you feel valued, like you belong.

Like Valerie, pick a special family member in your life that you love and look up to, someone who makes you feel like you’re essential to their life. Maybe this is your grandmother, uncle, or foster parent. Title your poem what you call them: Uncle Joey Is, Carrie Is, etc. Then, use a collection of images to describe them. These images will show us how they treat you and others around them. Maybe they are handwritten thank you cards, doors held wide open, or laughter that pulls you in like a boat to the shoreline.

Like Denice, write a poem about the language your family speaks at home. Or about the special words and phrases that only your family knows – let your reader in on the inside joke! Poetry can be funny! Show us how those words are a legacy, passed on from grandmother, to mother, to child. Show us how those words build bridges and connections across generations.

Like the GetLit Teens – write a poem about your pets, or the pets you’d love to have! Try to channel their intense love! Don’t just describe “a cat” but your cat. Tell us that she looks like a chocolate donut in the sunlight, or that she sounds like an opera singer when she’s hungry. Help us understand how you and your pets belong together.

Level up! Not everyone feels like they belong in their family, and if you feel this way, it’s totally valid. So, challenge yourself to write beyond the idea of “family” and design a future where you belong. Speak from a place of hope, like Amanda Gorman in her poem “A New Day’s Lyric” which you can listen to or read along with. What would you say to someone struggling with the idea of family? How could you turn their gaze towards the light? Toward a better day and a new year?

If you want to become a better friend to the earth, we suggest visiting your favorite parks, ponds, and trails to, “Take nothing but pictures, leave nothing but footprints, kill nothing but time.” This is a wonderful recipe for belonging to the Earth!

Read: Mary Oliver, “Fall”
Read: Hannah Emerson, “I Live in the Woods of my Words”
Read: Grace Nichols, “Cosmic Disco”
Listen: Joy Harjo, “Remember”

Like Mary, pick your favorite season or time of day – maybe dusk around a campfire with your cousin, basking in mid-day sunshine at the city pool, or looking forward to the first day of winter and all the amazing snow sports that arrive with it! How can you be a friend to that season or hour? Be specific. Make us feel like getting outside helps us belong to something bigger than ourselves.

For Hannah, a nonverbal writer with Autism, poetry and nature are one and the same – she lives inside a forest of her own creation where she can communicate however she likes. Maybe you are on the spectrum and want to build a world for yourself with your words – like Hannah, is your world the woods? A Great Plain? A noisy riverbank? A quiet meadow?

If you’re stumped, we recommend throwing a dance party for the sky! Everyone belongs on the dance floor Grace creates, even Saturn, stars, and the Moon! Try your hand at throwing a party for your community garden, complete with dancing carrots and card-playing cucumbers.

Joy Harjo’s poem reminds us that we are visitors in this land, that we must tend to it and take care of it if we want it to last. Indigenous peoples, like Joy, are the original caretakers of the land, water, and animals; they have deep knowledge from listening to and learning from nature for thousands of years and their traditions teach us how to live as part of nature, not separate from it. Can you go outside and practice listening to the earth? Do you hear birds? Do you feel a breeze? Do you see an insect? Tell us about the experience!

Like Joy, pick a strong verb that you want to use as your title and use throughout your poem. Joy chose “remember”- try to choose something different! Maybe listen, look, notice, gaze, or feel. Use that word to give instructions to your reader about how they can better belong to the earth by being kind to animals, taking care of hiking trails, and respecting water.

Level up! Consider using your five senses to make the forest, the block, the Spring, the hiking trail, the campsite come to life. Be sure you don’t leave out any details!