Poetry Friday round-up with Laura Purdie Salas
Day 5 is with Janet at Live your Poem
National Poetry Month is in full swing. My students are steeping in poetry. They are writing and reading poems every day.
Amy Ludwig VanDerwater is a favorite in my classroom, so I shared her site The Poem Farm on Wonder Wednesday. She is writing poems every day about the Wonder of the Day from Wonderopolis. The thing that caught my students’ eyes was Amy’s abecedarian poem, To Make Compost.
Some of my students took the challenge to write an abecedarian poem. Emily was inspired to write about animals in a zoo. She imagined all the animals and searched for verbs and adjectives to describe them.
Koo-Koo Zoo
Any zoo has animals
But ours are special we have:
Caring Cats
Dancing Donkeys
Eager Elephants
Flying Ferrets
Giggling Giraffes
Howling Hummingbirds
Ignorant Iguanas
Jogging Jellyfish
Karaoke Kangaroos
Laughing Llamas
Magic Monkeys
Nerdy Newts
Offended Octopi
Parachuting Parrots
Quizzing Quails
Racing Rhinos
Sailing Snakes
Tap Dancing Tigers
Untidy Unicorns
Vanishing Vultures
Wrestling Walrusses
X-raying Eels
Yodeling Yachts
Zipping Zebras–Emily, 5th grade
Vannisa worked for 2 days on her poem. She used a dictionary to help her find the words she wanted to say. She was looking for unique words to express her philosophy of kindness.
All of your actions are
Beyond what you thinkContinuous caring
Decreases your selfishness
Exercises your soulFollow
Good
Hearts
Into a
Jungle where
Kindness and
Love are
Major,
Never wastedOn a fast
Pace,
Quickly
Racing,
Spreading,
Tailoring
Under and over
VinesWildfire-spreading,
X-ing out negativity,
Yawing around the city,
Zigzagging everywhere, is love–Vannisa, 6th grade
I am writing a poem a day to images. This is a picture of flowers growing in our front flower bed taken through the arrowslits in the entryway to our house. Our house is like a castle, complete with a turret with arrowslits. When I Googled arrowslits, I the word embrasure came up as a synonym. Here is a draft of my first ever abecedarian.
A window
Beyond the
Downstairs
Embrasure
Flowers burst open
Give light to the view
Here, I stop
Invite spring in
Just to
Kiss blinking stars
Linger outside for this
Moment
Never would I’ve imagined
Open stars landing here
Popping and
Quickening to life, they
Return to
Stand
Tall each year
Under this
Veranda of the castle
Wings waiting to fly
eXciting space with
Yearning and
Zest
–Margaret Simon
Reflections on the Teche 
A
Blog has
Character beyond
Description:
Everywhere you write,
For yourself and readers,
Good words chewed like fine food, nourishing
Health and happiness and creative
Inspiration.
Just listen to the music of the dance,
Knowing you are invited to
Learn about the world through
Many voices, many stories, many
New ways of seeing the world, always
Open to
Possibilities.
Quell your qualms, for writing has
Real value beyond the shape and tecture, and
Somewhere, someone will read your words
Though it might seem terribly silent at times,
Until that moment when they write a note that lets you know with
Veracity that your Truth resonates
With their Truth,
eXceeding the notion of one writer/one story;
You are writing the World together, dancing the
Zydeco Write!
Kevin
— Cheated at X.
:0
Impressive work from students and teacher.
Impressive on all counts (your students, yours, and Kevin’s)! An abecedarian takes perseverance 🙂
Well, these are just wonderful. I think I’ve only ever written two abecedarians–the second of which is about librarians–which I’m sharing on my blog on Tuesday! I love how the form stretches us out of the common words we use and forces us to embrace something new!
Wonderful poems. I think your “c” esCaped your embrasure. I especially like the X-raying eels and X-ing out negativity. The X line is one of the hardest!
I can’t believe that with as many times as I read it I didn’t even notice I missed c. I think I’m leaving it alone, though. This is a challenging form.
It looks it. I may have to try one. I actually thought it was enChanting that your C had esCaped. 🙂
It went into the progressive poem line 3 times.
Well, clearly it was needed elsewhere. 🙂
Love this and the poetry you inspire.
Wowza! It’s an abecedarian party over here! I think this form is quite neat and almost feels like doing a puzzle.
Emily did a double one, like doing double dutch!
“Never wasted
On a fast
Pace.” – Absolutely to Vanissa – so much wisdom.
And yours, Margaret, is lovely. I feel I am there. The way you describe them as stars is perfect, reminding me of my snowdrops.
Kevin’s in the comments is for bloggers everywhere –
“Though it might seem terribly silent at times,
Until that moment when they write a note that lets you know with
Veracity that your Truth resonates
With their Truth,”
Abecedarians all around! Happy Day 8! xo
An abecedarian that doesn’t sound contrived is always a win. Congratulations to all the poets featured here.
What everyone else said…and a picture of your house, please!!
After Kevin’s comment, what else is there to say? These are all wonderful, Margaret. Vannisa is wise beyond her years, and I love the imagery in your “blinking stars” and “wings waiting to fly.”
[…] « NPM16 #8 Poetry Friday Abecedarian […]
Well done, Margaret–and students! You abecedarian flows beautifully, Margaret, not forced at all. Its ABC form would have surprised me if I hadn’t known.
Margaret, what can I say but this is a wonderful post filled with amazing work. Thanks for letting me know about the history of abecedarian poetry. I love that Vanissa is using a dictionary to help her with her writing. Reminds me of the way I loved the thesaurus. I left a comment for you and Kevin on Twitter.
[…] Notes: This poem is my first abecedarian, an ancient form of poetry, of which Psalm 119* is an example. An ABC by Chaucer is a 14th century abecedarian. Older abecedarians had whole stanzas for each letter. Modern ones often have each line start with a different letter. I was inspired to write one by Margaret Simon and her students at Reflections on the Teche. […]