POETRY from The Poetry Foundation

POETRY from the Poetry Foundation is a collection of famous and not-so-famous poems that readers can browse and explore. Each time you open the app, a SPIN button appears. Tap the button and two rainbow-colored stripes scroll along the top of the screen, finally coming to rest on two words -- one indicating a mood (like gratitude or nostalgia) and another indicating a subject (like youth or nature). A list of poems matching that mood and subject then appears on the screen. Users select poems from the list to read. Students can save poems to a Favorites list, but poems aren't tagged with their corresponding mood or subject. It would be helpful if each poem’s tags (like "nature" or "nostalgia") were displayed within the poem itself. That way, users could search for a poem for an occasion by browsing favorite poems tagged “love” or “celebrations,” for example.

The appeal of POETRY is that it’s designed to inspire. The app's structure suggests poetry is written for every mood and every subject -- indeed, so wide an array of emotions and subjects is represented here that it’s easy to get lost in spinning the subject and mood bars. The emphasis on themes is powerfully equalizing: It’s just as likely a reader will encounter works by Emily Dickinson as by far less well-known modern poets. This is a great way to discover engaging new works and to concentrate on content over big-name authors.

POETRY drives home some key skills about reading literature that shouldn't be underestimated. By organizing poems by theme, the app truly emphasizes content over author: Poems of lesser-known poets stand side-by-side with works that have been beloved for centuries, allowing users to focus more closely on the content and quality of the writing. Under the guidance of a good teacher, students could discover insights about the importance in poetry of tone, diction, and other literary devices.

Unfortunately, the app's features are limited: There’s no ability for annotating texts, and opportunities for sharing are limited to a few options for sharing posts to social media. It would also be educationally useful if users could import or access poems not built into the app. POETRY provides a terrific range of authors including Dante, Shakespeare, Dryden, Gwendolyn Brooks, and Paul Lawrence Dunbar -- but with only a few poems included from giants like T.S. Eliot and Walt Whitman, what’s missing is glaring. POETRY would be good for learning in the context of a well-articulated, well-structured poetry unit in the classroom, but it wouldn't be nearly as instructive or engaging without that guidance.