Today is the eighteenth of April!
Is it a poem or a story? It's both!
Yes, it is possible to tell a story in verse rather than prose. There are many poems written that are stories in verse, or you could write your own. Two storytellers I know do this quite well. Waddie Mitchel does Cowboy Poetry. Dressed in western gear, he tells stories with a twang and a rhyme. Pippa White tells marvelous historical tales in rhyming verse that she has written herself.
And one of my favorite tales is The Jabberwocky by Lewis Carrol. It's nonsensical words that Carroll made up and coined, and it tells the tale of a father who warns his son about a monster that the son goes out and slays. I tell it to my students to demonstrate that even nonsense words can make sense if the teller embodies the story.
Nursery Rhymes all tell short stories. The great Edgar Allen Poe tells of The Raven, Annabelle Lee, and many others in rhyming verse.
And since today is April 18th... One of my favorites is Paul Revere's Ride by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow. It tells the story (now completely accurate as Longfellow takes "poetic license") of Paul Revere's historic ride to warn the colonies that "The British are coming." Longfellow immortalized Revere and the phrase, "One if by land, two if by sea."
LISTEN, my children, and you shall hear
Of the midnight ride of Paul Revere,
On the eighteenth of April, in Seventy-five;
Hardly a man is now alive
Who remembers that famous day and year.
He said to his friend, ‘If the British march
By land or sea from the town to-night,
Hang a lantern aloft in the belfry arch
Of the North Church tower as a signal light,—
One, if by land, and two, if by sea;
And I on the opposite shore will be,
Ready to ride and spread the alarm
Through every Middlesex village and farm,
For the country folk to be up and to arm.'
That is the first of thirteen stanzas! If you are inclined to read the entire poem, here is the link.
- National Storytelling Network? You should be.
Please help us congratulate our highly deserving 2016 NSN ORACLE Award recipients:
Saturday - April 23rd from 1:00 – 3:00 in PAC 740.
Friend, colleague, storyteller and coach 
