Poetry Matters by Ralph Fletcher

Nonfiction
4th or 5th Grade

Poetry Matters is a book all about how to write poetry. Fletcher uses biographical, autobiographical, and nonfiction writing to help aspiring poetry writers. The book is divided into two sections. The first section is about how to decide what to write your poem about and the ways to help develop those ideas. The second section is about writing the poem, revising it, and what to do once its finished.

The first chapter of the book talks about how Fletcher became interested in poetry and what made him decide to write this book. In the next three chapters he talks about how emotion, image, and music relate to poetry. Before the first section ends there is a chapter about deciding what to write your poem about.

The beginning of the second section talks about how to write the poem and then it goes on to talk about how the use of words can impact your poem. After talking about the beginning stages of writing poetry it discusses how to edit the poem to get it the way you want it. Towards the end of the book Fletcher spends a little while discussing types of poetry (ex. haiku). The last chapter of the book gives children ideas as to how to share their poetry.

This book has many other features that would help young poetry writers. For example, the last pages of the book contain a huge list of poetry books that children might be interested in. Also, throughout the book there are interviews from poets to help students get an idea as to how they handle writing poetry.


I will use this book to help students with a poetry unit. I will design the unit based around this book. Each student will have a copy of the book, one that I hope they can keep. I will encourage students to write poems based on the advice Fletcher gives. At the end of the unit we will use one of the strategies Fletcher presents on how students can share their poetry. I will allow the students to vote on which strategy they would like to do. I want the poetry unit to each year to be based on what the students are curious about.