Poetry in my classroom

I started a unit on poetry in creative writing today. We read a nice essay by Natalie Goldberg, then played poetry poker. I'm not sure how, but one of the boys in my class came up with quite the poem. About periods. As the kids were rearranging the lines they created from their poker cards, this particular young man waved me over and said, "Ms. D, how would you .... uh, what would you say period smells like?"

I lost it. I mean, yay that he was comfortable enough with me to ask that questions, but ewwww. As a class, after much laughter, we (the 16 girls in a class of 19) decided to tell him iron. He tweaked the poem and we were treated to this:

The Red Storm

It's a dreadful dark storm that smells of iron.

Red ooze for breakfast, ensuing chaos

What an arousing ceremony.

Though I stumble and fear the heavy flow.

Velvet fruit and leaping rain. Oh the aroma!

The slippery red stream was a glorious ceremony.

My day, dare I say week, have been made. Creative writing ... oh dear.

Oh, yeah ... just because we were silly, I ended by sharing this poem with the students.