How To Write A Poem: Kwame Alexander

In this evocative and playful companion to theirNew York Timesbestselling picture bookHow to Read a Book, Newbery Medalist Kwame Alexander teams up with poet Deanna Nikaido and Caldecott Honoree Melissa Sweet to celebrate the magic of discovering your very own poetry in the world around you.

Begin

with a question

like an acorn

waiting for spring.

From this first stanza, readers are invited to pay attention—and to see that paying attention itself is poetry. Kwame Alexander and Deanna Nikaido’s playful text and Melissa Sweet’s dynamic, inventive artwork are paired together to encourage readers to listen, feel, and discover the words that dance in the world around them—poems just waiting to be written down.

Author: Kwame Alexander
Illustrator: Melissa Sweet

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Hardcover, Quill Tree Books, 2023
32 p, 8.75 × 10.25 in.