Alaska

Poet Brod Bagert is the author of over eighteen books of poetry for children, young adults, and adults. A former lawyer and New Orleans City Councilman, Bagert penned his first poem as a favor to his daughter, who needed a poem to recite in a school program. Bagert realized that few poems written in children's voices were available, and so wrote one himself. Since then, he has helped change children's poetry in America, focusing on performance as well as the poem itself. According to Timothy Rasinski, a literacy instructor at Kent State University, Bagert's poems allow children to "create art" when they perform them. "Since he is one of the few poets to truly write in the voice of a child, it's easy for students to use his material for expressiveness," Rasinski told the New Orleans Times Picayune in a feature on Bagert. The Picayune noted that part of Bagert's appeal to children was his ability to capture their
swirling moods and emotions: "Bagert's verses often feature the private emotions-raw, complex, humorous-of youthful characters he created."