Feelings run in various directions, regarding the Common Core standards, but one thing we notice in the standards is an emphasis on some pretty impressive poetry. We would love to see teaching methods attend to the heart and soul of these poems, using what we call the How to Read a Poem approach.

Beyond that, we believe one great way to engage with a poem is with a dose of good mischief. This partly explains our Common Core Picture Poems. What explains the rest? We’re Tweetspeak Poetry. We do have a reputation to uphold.

Sonnet 73

That time of year thou may’st in me behold
When yellow leaves, or none, or few, do hang
Upon those boughs which shake against the cold,
Bare ruin’d choirs, where late the sweet birds sang.
In me thou see’st the twilight of such day,
As after sunset fadeth in the west,
Which by-and-by black night doth take away,
Death’s second self, that seals up all in rest.
In me thou see’st the glowing of such fire
That on the ashes of his youth doth lie,
As the death-bed whereon it must expire
Consum’d with that which it was nourish’d by.
This thou perceivest, which makes thy love more strong,
To love that well which thou must leave ere long.

—William Shakespeare

Try Your Hand?

Find something to love in Shakespeare’s sonnet and explore it with a drawing or a sonnet of your own.

Want to use our Common Core Picture Poems in your classroom? Download a still image.

Browse more Poets and Poems

Browse our Teaching Tools

Illustration by LW Lindquist.

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Will Willingham

Director of Many Things; Senior Editor, Designer and Illustrator at Tweetspeak Poetry

I used to be a claims adjuster, helping people and insurance companies make sense of loss. Now, I train other folks with ladders and tape measures to go and do likewise. Sometimes, when I’m not scaling small buildings or crunching numbers with my bare hands, I read Keats upside down. My first novel, Adjustments, is available now.

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