Issue 10.25 ~ poetry comix!!!
Welcome to
WHISPERshout Poetry Magazine,
Issue 10.25.1, October 2025
BAM KA-BOOM HOW BEAUTIFUL! Here at WHISPERshout we are huge fans of POETRY COMICS by Grant Snider and LIMELIGHT by Renee LaTulippe and Chuck Gonzales. These are books that mix illustrations and text to create poems that work like mini comic books or graphic novels. We love how the panels and gutters of a comic resemble the line and stanza breaks of a poem. Many kids participated in POETRY COMIX workshops this fall; you can enjoy their work below!
WE ENCOURAGE YOU TO SUBMIT YOUR WORK, TOO, by clicking the “submit a poem” button at the right… and we encourage every reader to comment on the magazine down below! Want to try your own? Go here to download printable poetry comics pages!
POETRY COMIC #1 - Morgan, 3rd grade
Just 8 words in 8 panels—that’s all it took for Morgan to capture the strength of love in this multicolored family. And the 8 words rhyme, too! (We all know that poems don’t HAVE to rhyme, but our ears sure love it when they do.) In poetry and in comics, what you don’t say and show is just as important as what you DO include. How do you know that this mama often tells her kids she loves them?
POETRY COMIC #2 - Lucas, 1st grade
The word “comic” means funny—someone or something that makes us laugh! In many of the most popular comic book series, however, the stories are dramatic and dangerous, involving superpowers and saving the world from villains. Other comic strips, the kind you read in the Sunday newspaper, are like this one by Lucas—just a clever joke! See how simple yet consistent his drawings are? The surprise comes from the stop sign and the tree not just having feelings, but SHARING the same feeling.
POETRY COMIC #3 - Molly, 3rd grade
Here Molly uses repetition to create a rhythmic pattern for her poem, and the drawings include essential details that develop the relationship between the girl and her pumpkin. Isn’t it interesting that for this kid (who could be herself), the carved jack-o’-lantern face is what ruins her pumpkin, her ONLY pumpkin? The way Molly builds emotion in this poetry comic is masterful.
POETRY COMIC #4 - Ronin, 5th grade
Ronin’s poetry comic introduces a somewhat sinister hooded character with a sizeable weapon always at his side—but this character longs for something ordinary and human: HOME. In this comic Ronin uses scale and focus very effectively, with some panels showing his character in close focus and others from a great distance. And look at the #2 footsteps panel, which manages to show time, travel and frozen loneliness all in a few pen strokes!
POETRY COMIC #5 - John, 2nd grade
In his comic, John does what Renee LaTulippe does in LIMELIGHT—this poem is in the voice of a tree! It’s a seasonal poem and also a science poem which includes factual information, and also hints at the close relationship between trees and humans—look closely at panel #5!
POETRY COMIC #6 - Lindsey, 2nd grade
And here is a poem in the voice of a dog! (Animal comics are popular—any Garfield fans out there?) We can tell from all the written details that Stella is probably a real dog, and we can tell from the drawings that Stella is very well cared for and appreciated by her human.
POETRY COMIC #7 - Anna, 3rd grade
Anna goes to a school with a remarkable courtyard garden that grows tomatoes and peppers, pomegranates and persimmons, along with 10-foot cornstalks! Here she addresses the cornstalks directly in a musing, introspective way similar to many of the nature comics in Grant Snider’s book. She calls us all to respect Mr. Cornstalk’s “famous corn”!
POETRY COMIC #8 - Joseph, 4th grade
It’s very fun to consider all the superheroes and superpowers there could be in the world. In this comic, Joseph turns a strange (but true) playground find into a narrative poem about an unexpected friendship—between an abandoned bow tie and its savior. There is so much humor and kindess in panel #8!
POETRY COMIC #9 - Jasmine, 3rd grade
One of Renee LaTulippe’s poems is in the voice of the “Audition," reminding Jasmine of her experience with a stage performance. In her comic, though (in which Jasmine tried drawing her own panels), the panic and anxiety is just a dream, a state we enter beautifully in her first line, “as i turn and turn my brain tinkles”—like bells, she said!
POETRY COMIC #10 - Maya, 3rd grade
Grant Snider’s poetry comics are organized by season, and many show his characters (we called them Red and Orange) closely observing their surroundings. In her poetry comic, Maya slows down time to give us directions for noticing with our ears—everything from the tiny cricket to the sound of the sun!
Those are our ten poems for this issue—maybe one jumped out as your favorite! If so, let us know in the comments below. Look for another POETRY COMIX issue soon, and in November, maybe you’ll see YOUR poem featured! Click the SUBMIT button below to get started.
Thanks for reading!
The Editorial We
If you are a teacher developing a poetry habit in your classroom, you might find that an issue of WHISPERshout Magazine is all the lesson you need.
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