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STANLEY KIESEL: And it's hard to measure this kind of thing. I don't know what'll rub off on whom. Appreciation with a capital A, like culture with a capital C, I try to steer away from things like that. But I guess it's true. Let's call it exposure.

[CHILDREN TALKING]

STANLEY KIESEL: Now let's do a stretching poem. Here's a stretching poem.

(SINGING) With my hands on my head.

What is this here?

This is my hat rack or teacher, my dear.

Hat rack or hat rack or doodly doo.

That's what we sing in school.

That's what the poet likes to do. He likes to make up different names for things.

CONNIE GOLDMAN: How do you expand the whole idea of what poetry might be and make them comfortable enough, allow them to be comfortable enough so that they can feel that they can play with words or sounds or ideas?

STANLEY KIESEL: Well, the word comfortable is important, right? They have to feel comfortable. And they have to get pleasure.

So as I mentioned before, one aspect is to read to them things that I feel won't be too difficult. And that's kind of hard to find. A lot of poetry written today is very sophisticated. And not only that, but when you go into an elementary school, especially there's a lot of poetry that just might be too difficult. So I try to find poems written by poets who are alive today that will really appeal to the kids on all kinds of levels.

Also, I try to read poems written by children because kids really get excited about when they find out that kids their age write poetry. Go into a school-- like today, I may read some poems by kids. If I see eight-year-olds, I'll read poems by eight-year-olds in another school.

Kids are flabbergasted. They're just amazed that things like this are going on. They think a poem is something that's written, that's printed in a book, and it's by an adult, you see? It's got this kind of sacred, holier than thou kind of thing.

So I always say to kids, can kids be poets? And the kids usually say no. And I say, sure, they can. Kids write good poems.

Do kids poems get published in books? And they say no. And I say, sure. I say here's a book and here's an eight-year-old poet. And here's his poem.

And then they're flabbergasted. And they really dig that. They love it.

All right. Before we start anything, let's just do a poem that I found that I kind of like. Now this is a rhyming poem. But you know, not all poems have to rhyme.

It's kind of interesting, though, the things that poets like to write about. Is it possible to write a poem about a crumb?

CHILDREN: Yeah.

STANLEY KIESEL: Sure. Is it possible to write a poem about the dirt on somebody's shoe?

CHILDREN: Yes.

STANLEY KIESEL: Sure. Sure. You can write a poem about anything. Is it possible to write a poem about food and drink?

CHILDREN: Yes.

STANLEY KIESEL: Oh, sure. Here's a couple of them that I found by a poet named David McCord that I like. I'll tell you what. I'll say a line, and you copy me, OK? Just for fun.

Cup, what's up?

CHILDREN: Cup, what's up?

STANLEY KIESEL: Why, it's cocoa scum.

CHILDREN: Why, it's cocoa scum.

STANLEY KIESEL: And who likes that?

CHILDREN: And who likes that?

STANLEY KIESEL: Some.

CHILDREN: Some.

CONNIE GOLDMAN: Are the kids often apprehensive when you walk into a room and they know a poet is coming? Do you have to fight the battle right off the beginning?

STANLEY KIESEL: It depends. I don't anymore. Because this is my third year and I've been in many, many schools. And even if you don't hit all the classes, kids talk about you.

And I'll go into a room and the kids who may have never seen me before will say oh, there's that funny man, or there's that poet, or hi, Mr. Poet, or Mr. Poemer. You know, kids call me Mr. Poemer, that sort of thing.

Generally, the reaction is I don't have to fight a battle. But there are certain schools in certain areas where I have to fight a very fast battle the first five minutes. And if I don't win that battle, then I've lost, and I might as well walk out. But I make sure that I win. I've got to, you know?

OK, we're going to write a poem together. And I'll tell you what it's going to be. I'm going to write the name of the poem on the board, and then you have to--

CHILD: Write all the months.

STANLEY KIESEL: Well, all the months? You know all the months. That's too easy.

I'll tell you, we're going to use our imagination. You know where that is. Where is your imagination?

CHILD: In your head. In your head.

STANLEY KIESEL: In your head, yeah. Yeah, right. And you've got a bony imagination in your brain, right?

Now here's what the title is going to be. Oh, boy, I love the way she's watching. She's really listening. Here's the name of the poem.

[WRITING ON CHALKBOARD]

CHILD: Can't read.

STANLEY KIESEL: Well, I'm going to help you. Baby Talk poem. Babies do talk. Babies do talk. I want somebody to tell me something that their baby says, somebody who raises their hand because then I can hear them better.

Denise, what's your baby say? Dada? What does Dada mean?

CHILD: That's dad.

STANLEY KIESEL: It may mean father, right? That's a real word. That's a baby talk word. Let's put that in our poem, OK? Dada. OK. I want another baby talk word.

CHILD: Mama.

STANLEY KIESEL: Goo goo. Now when the baby says goo goo, what does he mean? Goo goo goo goo. What's baby want? What's baby want? Goo goo goo goo.

CHILD: He wants something to eat or something to drink.

STANLEY KIESEL: He wants something to eat or something to drink. All right, let's put goo goo up here. Goo goo. Remember the name of our poem?

CHILD: Baby talk poem.

STANLEY KIESEL: All right.

CHILD: Dada, dada, dada, dada, dada. Goo goo goo goo gaga. Doo doo doo doo doo dah.

STANLEY KIESEL: Right? That's just part of our poem.

[LAUGHTER]

That's pretty good.

Well, there are a number of things that are trying to be done to get involved in the smaller towns, the rural areas. The state arts council, under the aegis of their literature panel, are trying to send poets on poetry readings in various small towns and not particularly big name poets or poets from the Twin Cities.

But let's take a poet who lives in Babbitt. If there's a poet who lives in Babbitt, we'd like him to do a reading in Babbitt, maybe at the public library or at the civic center, and invite business people and the various people in that area to come and hear him read. There's a lot of activity here in Minnesota statewide to bring artists into a lot of these areas.

CONNIE GOLDMAN: You must think it's possible that there's something creative with words that can come out of every child you deal with.

STANLEY KIESEL: Oh, no doubt about it. In fact, the kids that are most creative are sometimes the most-- are the kids who can't read and can't write, can't spell, and their handwriting is terrible, but they have great imaginations. Oh, sure.

We don't know how many of these kids are going to write poetry when they grow up. Very few of them may become serious poets. And who cares? And what does it matter?

The important thing is maybe some of these kids attitudes will have changed by the time they become young adults. They'll take a poet rather seriously and rather than laugh or feel silly or think he's somebody who has nothing to do with their life. Maybe because people, poets come into the classroom that these kids will realize that the poetry is something that's still being done today and being done by young people, too, as well as older people. So I think that's one of the important things about my job in the schools.

CHILD: But I don't know why the big guys can do better than children.

STANLEY KIESEL: That's not really true. You mean big poets?

CHILD: Yeah, like men and women.

STANLEY KIESEL: Not always. You know, there are a lot of kids poems.

CHILD: Kids can't make up any rhyming words that make a poem [INAUDIBLE].

STANLEY KIESEL: They can. I've read rhyming poems to you guys written by kids. I have some written by some kids that are great. Do you know that there are a lot of poems written by kids that are published in books?

CHILD: Yeah. I've read some. But not with me, I can't make good ones.

STANLEY KIESEL: But you know, you're only seven. And you've said you've only written four poems. Maybe your 8th poem or your 10th poem would--

CHILD: Only two of them were rhyming ones and were real good.

STANLEY KIESEL: But you don't have to write a rhyming poem. You could write a poem that doesn't rhyme. It can be just as good. Do you know that Robert Frost, the man I told you who was on the stamp, he wrote a lot of poems that didn't rhyme. He wrote a lot of poems that did rhyme. And some of his poems that didn't rhyme are just as good as the rhyming ones. Guess how many poems Robert Frost wrote? Guess how many poems Robert--

CHILD: 60.

STANLEY KIESEL: I bet he did write 60. I think he's written hundreds of poems. Why do some kids turn out to be poets when they grow up and other kids don't? I wonder why.

CONNIE GOLDMAN: Stanley Keisel, Poet-In-Residence in the Minneapolis Public Schools, an experiment in poetry in the classroom and arts enrichment in education. I'm Connie Goldman.