Summer Poems

Nikki Giovanni is one of my favorite poets. Her poem Knoxville, Tennessee:

Knoxville, Tennessee

By Nikki Giovanni

I always like summer

best

you can eat fresh corn

from daddy's garden

and okra

and greens

and cabbage

and lots of

barbecue

and buttermilk

and homemade ice-cream

at the church picnic

and listen to

gospel music

outside

at the church

homecoming

and you go to the mountains with

your grandmother

and go barefooted

and be warm

all the time

not only when you go to bed

and sleep

I asked the students to analyze the imagery in the poem. How she uses the 5 senses to describe what summer means to her. I asked the students to visualize what they see, hear, taste, smell and feel in the summer and then put that into words. Here is what they came up with: