Welcome to the first day of a weeklong look at poems that explore the nature of hope. In the darkening days of impending winter and dark times in the world in general, teachers and student need some hope in their reading and writing.
If we’re going to talk about poems about hope, we have to start with the grandmother of them all, that perennial high school anthology favorite, “Hope is the thing with feathers” by Emily Dickinson.
Though short and classic, it’s not an easy poem for students reading it for the first time, and like most of Dickinson’s poetry, it has hidden depth.
I’ve always loved how Dickinson withholds the word “Bird” until the second stanza, opting instead for imagery we associate with birds – feathers, perching, singing – in the opening stanza.
Let’s approach the poem creatively rather than analytically as a mentor text for imagining what hope is and can do. (And shhhhh, this kind of creative work propels hearty analysis of the original without even naming the skill!)
Challenge students to write their own quatrain, starting with: “Hope is the thing with _________/ that ___________.”
What, like feathers, can suggest a particular “thing” without ever naming it?
“Hope is the thing with talons” or “Hope is the thing with branches” each convey different aspects of hope to explore through an extended metaphor. Changing the article or preposition could be interesting too: “Hope is a thing of glass” or “Hope is a thing behind curtains.”
This poetry pause is easy to differentiate. Students who handle the first stanza with ease may continue to write a poem of three stanzas. Students who need a bit more time can still craft a metaphor, without directly naming the “thing” in a single stanza.
Demonstrate your own stanza writing on the whiteboard or projector. Let students see you wrestle with ideas, words, and rhythm as you do.
Looking for more poetry pauses like this one?
Check out my book, Poetry Pauses, from Corwin or from Amazon.
Also, as a companion to this series of posts, check out the re-release of the pre-recorded, thirty-minute webinar, Poetry for the Dark Days with 10 poetry pauses, published in neither the blog nor the book, to help see us through the literal and figurative dark days this winter. It’s available now through November 1, 2025 for download. Once it’s yours, you can watch it at whatever time works for you 😊
Note: Amazon links in this post earn the author a small commission.
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