Kathi Appelt's Poems From Homeroom: A Writer's Place to Start is a collection of poems followed by their inspirations and questions to the reader (or writer) to get them started on their own poetic journey. Some of the poems took me straight back to high school, the only time in my life when I wrote poetry regularly. The reader experiences free verse, haiku, and sestina among other forms of poetry.

As I read the sestina, I was intrigued. Never having read this format before, I was unfamiliar with its structure until I read the author's musings on the poem. However, even without being a poetry buff, I was drawn into the rhythm of the key words. The rhythm was not so obvious to me, but the words kept coming round. One word was "circle" and I had the physical (or emotional) feeling of circling as I read this poem. After reading about the complex structure, I was fascinated and wanted to seek more of this style. Maybe even try my hand?

Which brings the reader to the second section of the book. Appelt describes her inspiration for the poems and sums up the feeling of each poem in a phrase. For example, in "The Research Paper: A Sestina," the work is described in the words, "The longing? To explore." That is just what I longed for as I read the poem.

What follows are questions or issues to ponder and to use to write poetry. The best thing about this is that these are things that people can experience. In other words, Appelt does not tell the reader what to write about, but guides them to see that their own personal experiences can be springboards into poetry. When I closed this book, I wanted to try my hand at poetry again. I think this is what the author intended, and if so, this book is a great success.