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NEA Advice

Great Poetry to Read Aloud 

Plant the seeds for growing a love of poetry with these titles that will captivate when read aloud.
Black male teachers reads aloud to young children in a library Adobestock
By: National Education Association
Published: March 22, 2024
This resource originally appeared on NEA.org

This list of recommended titles includes collections of poems that highlight diverse cultures, introductions to a variety of poetic forms, and lots of playful language for read aloud fun. 

Find these titles and many more recommendations of great poetry available at your local library through World Cat. 

Picture Books and Elementary 

BookSpeak! Poems About Books by Laura Purdie Salas 

A Hatful of Dragons: And More Than 13.8 Billion Other Funny Poems by Vikram Madan 

Honey, I Love and Other Love Poems by Eloise Greenfield 

How to Write a Poem by Kwame Alexander and Deanna Nikaido 

Imagine by Juan Felipe Herrera 

Just Like Me by Vanessa Brantley-Newton 

The Poetry of US: More Than 200 Poems That Celebrate the People, Places, and Passions of the United States edited by J. Patrick Lewis  

Remember by Joy Harjo 

Song of the Wild: A First Book of Animals by Nicola Davies 

Tap Dancing on the Roof: Sijo (Poems) by Linda Sue Park 

Middle Grade 

Counting in Dog Years and Other Sassy Math Poems by Betsy Franco 

Hypnotize a Tiger: Poems About Just About Everything by Calef Brown 

I'm Just No Good at Rhyming: And Other Nonsense for Mischievous Kids and Immature Grown-Ups by Chris Harris 

I Remember: Poems and Pictures of Heritage compiled by Lee Bennett Hopkins 

Joyful Noise: Poems for Two Voices by Paul Fleischman 

Everything Comes Next: Collected and New Poems by Naomi Shihab Nye 

Night Garden: Poems from the World of Dreams by Janet S. Wong 

One Last Word: Wisdom from the Harlem Renaissance by Nikki Grimes 

Out of Wonder: Poems Celebrating Poets by Kwame Alexander with Chris Colderley and Marjory Wentworth  

Woke: A Young Poet’s Call to Justice by Mahogany L. Browne with Elizabeth Acevado and Olivia Gatwood 

Young Adult 

Beauty Is a Verb: The New Poetry of Disability edited by Jennifer Bartlett, Sheila Black, and Michael Northen  

Call Us What We Carry: Poems by Amanda Gorman 

Dizzy in Your Eyes: Poems About Love by Pat Mora 

A Fire in My Hands by Gary Soto 

For Everyone by Jason Reynolds  

Inheritance: A Visual Poem by Elizabeth Acevedo 

Living Nations, Living Words: An Anthology of First Peoples Poetry collected by Joy Harjo 

Red Hot Salsa: Bilingual Poems on Being Young and Latino in the United States edited by Lori Marie Carlson 

Say Her Name by Zetta Elliott 

Wearing My Mother's Heart by Sophia Thakur 

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