My job, my only job, is creating poems and related activities and lessons for kids. A few of the extras I offer to members of Poetry4kids are the ability to search for poems based on their subjects, their reading levels, what poetic techniques they use, and how long they are.
Until now, the length of each poem was determined by how many lines it had rather than how long it would take to recite. Unfortunately, that meant that long poems with short lines were categorized as long, despite the fact that they had very few words. Similarly, shorter poems with very long lines would be classed as short, despite taking longer to read.
Because I’m also the programmer of Poetry4kids, I decided to correct this. I’ve been thinking about it for about six months until yesterday, when someone wrote to me asking for poems that were between 3-5 minutes in length for a poetry recitation contest. That was the nudge I needed to make it happen.
It took a bit of doing, but I have now updated the Poems by Length page to help find poems based on how many seconds or minutes they take to recite. If you are looking for longer poems for a festival or speech contest, I’ve got you covered. On the other hand, if you are looking for very short poems that are easy to memorize or slightly longer poems, they are all there on the newly updated page.
This is one of the few pages on Poetry4kids that I created just for members of Poetry4kids. If this feature (or the others I mentioned above) might be useful to you, I hope you will consider becoming a member. For as little as $1/month, you can support Poetry4kids and help me continue creating literacy resources for kids around the world. I truly appreciate your support!
Poetically yours,
Kenn
