Moving Windows: Evaluating the Poetry Children Write

by Jack Collom

How do you assess such a personal art as poetry? Basing his discussion on the best poems he has collected from his students over the years (included in this book), Collom provides a poet's view on what makes them exceptional. This cheerful and direct approach offers numerous exercises and specific examples of what works, throughout the text, with a summary of his philosophy and methodology at the end.

200 pages, Paperback

First published September 1, 1985

About the author

Jack Collom was born in Chicago in 1931 and grew up in nearby Western Springs, where he spent much of his boyhood walking in the woods and bird watching. After graduating from the Forestry School at Colorado A&M College, Collom joined the US Air Force and wrote his first poems in Tripoli, Libya. He lived in Germany a Zeitlang, then returned stateside and worked in factories for twenty years. He was an adjunct professor at Naropa University in Boulder, Colorado and worked extensively with schoolchildren for thirty-five years. Collom was the author of twenty-four books and chapbooks as well as editor (with commentaries) of three books of writings by children. Collom was twice been awarded the National Endowment for the Arts Fellowship, in part for his experimental nature writings. He had four grown children and was married to the writer Jennifer Heath.