Finding the poetic high: building a spoken word poetry community and culture of creative, caring, and critical intellectuals.(20th Anniversary Issue: Winter 2006)

When the author started teaching in a self-contained 5th grade classroom, he quickly discovered that despite how these children loved their poetic words, nowhere was there an opportunity to explore their identities as poets within the Language Arts content standards nor in the adoption of his district's scripted curriculum. The poetry in a solution means to use one's own base thesis as well as the antithesis of the obstacle in order to give birth to a new synthesis. Five years ago when he entered the classroom full time, he brought the poetry of his life into learning community. Then, he lets the poetry of the youth guide him into both organically and purposefully taking advantage of every opportunity possible to infuse poetry into everybody's lives. He wishes he could say that he had everything planned from the start, but like language and life, the poetic culture evolved through time.