Halloween

Halloween poems

Poetry Out Loud is organized nationally by The National Endowment for the Arts and The Poetry Foundation and administered at the state level by the Maine Arts Commission. The program is underway in high schools across the country. It begins in Maine’s schools where school champions are selected to compete in two regional finals at which ten students are ultimately selected to recite at the state finals. One student, the state champion, moves on from the state finals to represent Maine at the national finals in Washington D.C., where students from all 50 states, the District of Columbia, the U.S. Virgin Islands, and Puerto Rico will compete for a total of $50,000 in awards and school stipends for the purchase of poetry books.

To learn more about the program in Maine please go to the Poetry Out Loud home page. The Poetry Out Loud registration deadline for high schools is November 6.

On the Poetry Foundation website you can find several poems for Halloween.

Halloween Party

BY KENN NESBITT

We’re having a Halloween party at school.

I’m dressed up like Dracula. Man, I look cool!

I dyed my hair black, and I cut off my bangs.

I’m wearing a cape and some fake plastic fangs.

I put on some makeup to paint my face white,

like creatures that only come out in the night.

My fingernails, too, are all pointed and red.

I look like I’m recently back from the dead.

My mom drops me off, and I run into school

and suddenly feel like the world’s biggest fool.

The other kids stare like I’m some kind of freak—

the Halloween party is not till next week.

“Halloween Party.” © 2005 by Kenn Nesbitt. Reprinted from When the Teacher Isn’t Looking (© 2005 by Kenn Nesbitt) with permission from Meadowbrook Press.

Source: When the Teacher Isn’t Looking (2005)