This paper outlines a poetry program for fifth grade students that was intended to help children increase their awareness of their environment, bring order to their own experiences, and increase their sensitivity to the physical base of language. To measure change in the children's use of figurative language in prose writing, each child was asked at the beginning of the unit to write a description of one of two selected pictures. The teaching approach, aimed at stimulating children to compose original verse, was organized around three activities: (1) listening as the teacher read selected poems on familiar topics, (2) discussing the author's use of figurative language, especially simile and metaphor, and (3) composing original verses on the topic, with conscious use of simile and metaphor. At the end of the five week program, each child again wrote a composition describing the alternate picture from the pretest. Comparisons indicate that there was a significant increase in the use of figurative language after the poetry program. (MAI)