April is National Poetry Month. This past week on WNYC Morning Edition, we've asked for your poems on the theme of "history" inspired by historical happenings, real or imagined.  

Amy Penwell is a school library media specialist at Riverton School in New Jersey. Her third grade students recently participated in an online poetry workshop with Kate Messner, author of the popular "Ranger in Time" kids books and "History Smashers" graphic novel series. Penwell joined WNYC host Michael Hill to share how getting kids into poetry doesn't have to be an impossible task.

Below is a poem submitted to Penwell by third grader, June Donnelly, and another from listener Michele Herman of Manhattan.

The Mountains of Zion

by June Donnelly
 

The chocolatey muffin starts the day

The Rocky Mountains of Zion

Drippy slippery, tick spray slipping down my leg.

A high fall from the mountain, never to happen.

Clickety! Clack! the horses go

Buttery and creamy chocolate muffin

Muddy trail from the rain outside the air smells like the cold winter

Hot burning sun that the wind cools down

Independence Day

By Michele Herman

After hot dogs

and fireworks

to celebrate

being free,

every year

I turn on the TV.

I’m a sucker

for “1776” –

I say I’m going to bed,

hand on the remote,

and then see it through

to the final vote.

I always side

with Adams

and Franklin,

of course,

and that goofball Lee

on his horse,

the bad guys

being fops in pastels,

male Southern belles

desperate to preserve

a way of life

they don’t deserve.

and I look down

at myself, always

cotton clad,

and remember

that someone

far away

is being had

to make my clothes

from a cotton mill,

which is why

I began to buy

from Goodwill.