• Provide books, handouts, and other resources to allow participants a choice of poems for the activity (see Find Out More for suggestions)

• Write on newsprint:
• What do you think the poem is about?
• How does it make you feel?
• How does hearing the poem enhance its meaning?
• Be prepared to divide the group into pairs or small groups.

Participants take turns reading a poem aloud to a partner or a small group. After each reading, the listeners provide feedback on the "performance." When the exercise is finished, participants gather for a large-group discussion.

Have youths form pairs or small groups, and explain the exercise:

• Take a few minutes to find a poem to read aloud. Each of you can read a poem of your choice or everyone in your group can read the same poem in his/her own way.
• First reader: Practice your poem quietly to yourself, and then read your poem aloud to the other(s).
• Listener(s): Respond to the reading with answers to the following questions (on the newsprint):
• What do you think the poem is about?
• How does it make you feel?
• How does hearing the poem enhance its meaning? Its power?
• Repeat the process until each member of your group has had a chance to read.

When the exercise is finished, gather the entire group and lead a discussion based on the following questions:

• Did the poems that members of your group chose seem to have been written more for the eye or for the ear? Why do you think so?
• Do certain words jump out at you when you hear a poem? By contrast, what makes you notice certain words when you read a poem to yourself?
• In what ways might reading a poem aloud resemble acting in a play? Does it matter whether or not the reader is the author? Explain.
• Knowing that a poem of yours will be read aloud, what writing techniques might you use when you compose the poem? What characteristics or features might you avoid when you write the poem?