Poetry Friday round-up with Tabatha at The Opposite of Indifference
This week my students and I wrote about our one little word choices. I encouraged them to select an image and create a Canva. I’ll write more about this process on DigiLit Sunday this weekend. Please consider joining the round-up. This week we are sharing about OLW in the classroom.
My newest student, a gifted first grader, wrote this profound poem about the idea of selecting a OLW.
A word is like a leaf,
So fragile,
Everyone chooses a word,
At the beginning of the year,
Little do they know,
Their word is a leaf.
–Lynzee, 1st grade
This student selected the word “Astonish” which is quite a big word for her age, but she wrote a personal acrostic that helped me understand her choice.
My OLW is Present. My student Vannisa helped me write this poem as I was showing how Canva works.
The Time is Now: “Think back over the past year. What does the memory of each month feel like? What is its emotional tone, vibration, form? Write a poem in twelve parts that tries to capture each month’s abstract feeling in a single line or stanza. Like Wallace Stevens’s Thirteen Ways of Looking at a Blackbird,”
I looked through Facebook and blog posts throughout the year to create this poem. It may mean nothing to you, but it was a meaningful exercise for me. I hope you will find peace and kindness in 2016.
12 Ways of Looking at 2015
January:
Sometimes on the bayou in January
light hides behind grey,
the owl hoots before sunset,
shadows disappear
and I watch
for a poem hiding there.
February:
Sounds abound, poetic listening
beads flying to the beat
of the djembe drum.
March:
Wonders lead us
to a masterful old oak
walking his roots
to hear his wisdom.
Watercolor painting of Mr. Al by Jerome Weber
April:
Are you an author,
a poet, an illustrator?
What are you doing in this place?
no faking it here.
May:
Packing up mugs, vases, photos,
stories, memories,
voices of many children,
the heart of one teacher.
June:
A walk in the woods, I come across a doe, eye to eye we are mothers
holding in a moment
nature’s promise.
July:
Life changes in an instant
gun shots in a theater
lives lost, lives changed,
tragedy closes in on home.
August:
She must come, August
and paint me in the picture
of a daughter engaged to a boy.
September:
Miles and miles to go
driving to Chicago
bringing a sister home.
Illinois farmlands
October:
She makes the dust fly!
Eating gumbo with queens
is the way to conquer the world.
November:
Glow like the lemon in the sunlight.
Be the harvest.
December:
Magic tricks, magic windows,
magical gifts, magical white wigs,
the season of magic is here.
Poetry Friday round-up with Irene Latham at Live your Poem.
Merry Christmas Poetry Friday! My celebration began last night at our Christmas Eve service. St. Nick visits each year and tells a story to the children. He also leaves candy in their shoes that they left at the church door. Since it was 80 degrees yesterday, their little bare feet did not get cold.
On Christmas Eve Eve, our choir with some children tag alongs went caroling at two local assisted living facilities. We brought Santa along. I love this picture of Baby Jacques cuddling up to Santa.
Tabatha Yeatts gathers names and addresses to spark a poetry exchange. I received a lovely package from Linda Baie in cold Colorado. She sent a poet’s set from our own Robyn Hood Black’s Etsy shop.
Linda crafted a black-out poem especially for me and mounted it on a Christmas collage. It’s lovely.
passage home
round the lamp
beam each one in his own way,
making others idle
together
giving coats
strong enough
for bad weather.
lined on the inside with flannel,
every one did something
for the season
Friday, December 25th.
This day was Christmas;
all day long, and
a holiday dinner
Old Style celebrated
grand
drank, ate
finished all
another answered
very well
magnificent light
carrying us
fine day
sunshine.
–Linda Baie
May you and yours enjoy this day and always the blessings of Christmas Joy.
Poetry Friday round-up with Diane at Random Noodling
Won Ton and Chopstick is a cutie-pie story in haiku. I shared it with my students this week and a funny thing happened. They were compelled to read it chorally. These short verses about Won Ton, the cat, and his new friend (maybe) Chopstick, the puppy, are clever and witty.
Won Ton and Chopstick by Lee Wardlow
When searching for a website, I came across this great activity for kids. Wish I had found it sooner!
We quickly figured out that it’s not so easy to write a story in haiku. I tried a few drafts about my cat Mimi.
Bow tie mustache bites
at open faucet, waiting
for drip-water to fall.
Oh, that Christmas tree,
lights and hanging ornaments
a feline playground.
Poetry Friday round-up with Tara at A Teaching Life
The multiple pictures of Christmas trees started showing up on Facebook before Thanksgiving. The more pictures posted, the more anxious I became. When we moved into this house eleven years ago, I didn’t get a tree until Dec. 18th, and Christmas came anyway. So what made me think on Dec. 1st that I was running behind? Should I let Facebook run my life? Get a grip.
My tree is here. We ventured out last Saturday afternoon to find the just-right one. It’s up. There are lights on it. That’s all.
I know I will enjoy putting the ornaments on. I will travel through the years and think of all the kids I have taught. I love the ones that mark “Baby’s First Christmas” and other milestones. Many memories in the box. But I can’t make myself do it yet. What am I waiting for? (A chunk of time that seems to get more and more elusive with each new December day.)
Walking down Main Street you may find a poem in a window.
Or you can stop in at A&E Gallery and see that poets have been there.
Space Man and Space Dog
walk the moon alone,
with only each other
to keep company
on the long way home
–Vannisa
Paul Schexnayder has started a series of Circus Gators in his paintings. This makes for a crazy circus poem.
Cirque du Gator
a green gator circus,
a scaly trapeze,
two mingy gymnasts,
and a sharp-toothed dancer.
–Emily
$100 is the price
for a patriotic watermelon sunrise.
A alligator
stealing a watermelon from a chubaka?
Greedy green gator
masking the red white and blue.
–Kaiden
Beauty marks the spot.
An angel from high above is calling.
I won’t let go of your baby boy,
I promise.
–Kielan
I joined in the secret poem walk and wrote to the work in progress.
An empty frame
waits
layers
of color
build
a world,
a circus
of imagination.
–Margaret Simon
A field trip down Main Street can be a poetic treat.
Poetry Friday round-up with Carol at Carol’s Corner.
I signed up years ago for the Poem a Day email from Poets.org. But my inbox gets full of them. I feel like I need a stretch of time to read them all. And then sometimes when I open the poem-of-the-day, I am inspired to write. I get distracted from what needs to be done. I am like an artist in “flow.” Borrow a line. Steal a pattern.
My bumper sticker should read, “I’d rather be writing a poem.”
This one is patterned from Rebecca Lehmann’s poem Natural History using anaphora (repetition) of “Here comes” and “Tell me.”
Here comes light
streaming down the bayou
like a surfer riding the waves.
Here comes wind,
in a stream of its own
wiggling those chimes.
Tell me bent cypress branches,
how year after year
you shed and redress
in brighter green.
Here comes the sun
casting a shadow of the mother oak
I spread my arms wide
in tableau, statue of majesty.
Tell me the child swinging on your rope,
how she came to you when her mother cried,
finding another mother in your shade.
Here comes the land
softened by hard rain
answering our prayer.
Tell me about wet,
how all at once you feel fat
and full like resurrection.
Here comes grey cat
the one with no tail
flipping at my feet.
Tell me what you see
at night on the lonely road.
Whisper your wisdom.
Follow me home.
Poetry Friday round-up with Tricia at Miss Rumphius Effect.
Every once in a while a volume of poetry comes along that blows me away. The National Geographic Book of Nature Poetry is an anthology that will keep my poetry self satisfied for a while. Edited by J. Patrick Lewis, the poems are illustrated by amazing images. This glossy book even smells good.
Laura Purdie Salas posted last week about her poem Brinicle which is included in the Book of Nature Poetry. This was a totally new subject for me, so I took the chance that it was new to my students. They were transfixed by the video she posted. Then we read and discussed her poem. Laura gave us lots to talk about. (free verse, imagery, personification, metaphor, and sounds)
The assignment: Turn your Wonder into Poetry Using Animoto. Since I am traveling to NCTE this week, I wasn’t sure how or if my students would write their poems and make a video. I’ve checked in on their kidblog site, and they have been posting some cool poem videos. I’ll share a few here.
Poetry Friday round-up with Bridget at Wee Words for Wee ones.
Photo by Laura P. Salas
If you haven’t discovered Laura Purdie Salas’s Writing the World for Kids and 15 Words or Less, you’re missing some poetry fun. I love playing with words. Every Thursday, Laura gives us a chance to “wake up our poetry brains” by writing a quick poem in response to an image.
If you are having trouble fitting poetry playtime into your schedule, this may be your answer. Earlier in the year the site was blocked by our school server, but yesterday I tried again and by some miracle (or maybe a little nudging email), the site was open for viewing. I set the timer for 7 minutes and we wrote. Sacred writing time. I am always amazed at what my kids can do in such short blasts of writing.
Not everyone followed the rules. Tobie tweaked them a bit and quickly produced a rhyming poem that has 15 words in each stanza. I told him I couldn’t post it in the comments on Laura’s site, but I would share it here.
X marks the spot of chests of gold
They who find it prove themselves bold
X marks the spot of ye treasure
As he who finds gets thee pleasure
The spot to find depends on thee
the shadow of branches of a tree
He who finds it grants one wish
Most men want an excellent dish
As one wise man steps up to thee plate
He wishes for ye wishes eight
So if ye find the sacred treasure
Be wise with your choice, others or pleasure
–Tobie
Can trees really walk
Or dance while we’re not watching?
Disco, cha cha, frozen in place.
Emily
Giver of life
Lush green leaves
Shade for the creatures
Thank you trees
For life.
Erin
Shadows copying
Shadows dark
Shadows curly
Shadows straight
A big family of shadows
Kaiden
On these writing days, Laura and other writers chime in with comments on each other’s poems. Here’s what Laura had to say about my three writer’s offerings. “I love these, Emily, Erin, and Kaiden–thanks for sharing! I like the three different moods/techniques. Emily’s is full of whimsy, Erin’s of reverence, and Kaiden’s of pattern. And all full of imagination:>)” Real feedback from a real author! So cool!
Poetry Prompt
This week, listen to a poem new to you–by a contemporary poet or a bygone poet–and jot down the words, phrases, and images that are most striking or memorable to you. Then write your own poem inspired by this list of words. How do you transform someone else’s poetic intuition and choices into a work that demonstrates your personal idiosyncrasies and specific aesthetic sense?
The word Listen caught my attention in this prompt. How does listening change your perspective? Reading and collecting words is easy. Would listening work as well?
One of my favorite poets is Naomi Shihab Nye. I’ve had the privilege of seeing her live and meeting her in a workshop setting. But this is a new school year, and I hadn’t brought her voice into the room yet. I selected a video from the Dodge Poetry Festival, one I had actually attended, so I could tell the kids, “I was there!” If you haven’t heard this poem, it is hilarious and much more so from the actual voice of Naomi Shihab Nye. She wrote things her 2-3 year-old-son actually said.
I instructed my students to collect words while they listened. Some lists were long. Others had nothing. So I asked the ones who wrote to share their words. “If you don’t have any words, you can steal these.”
I love this kind of writing prompt because you never know where the words will take you. A few of the students wrote their own random poems, a list of nonsensical sentences. This was OK with me because the intent of the experience was to hear poetry and play with language. We don’t play enough with words. Poetry is playing. You can read all of the poems on this padlet.
I want to share a few here also. My poem is written for that student who constantly sings aloud in the classroom. You know the ones who have a beat to their step.
Music leaps into her ears
down to her toes.
Tap, tap!
Her feet gallop across the floor.
Bit-a-bit-bit!
Notes fill the cup,
spill over her lips
like dictionaries for songs.
I would miss her singing.
I would miss her jumping feet.
I would miss loving her.
–Margaret Simon
Erin is only in 4th grade. When I read her poem, which she wrote covering two white boards, I told her she had the wisdom of a 65 year old. I also told her that she created a question/ answer form in her poem.
What is love?
Love is when you want a person to be your Valentine
so bad you want to gallop away with them.
What is love like?
Love is like a swing.
It can bring you up
or take you down.
Is love hard?
Love is like a peanut,
hard on the outside
but sweet on the inside.
What can love do to you?
Love can make you talk gibberish.
Love can make you dance the night away to soulful music.
What can love feel like?
Love can feel hard like a pecan cookie
or be soft like an ooey, gooey chocolate chip cookie.
What can love make you feel like?
Love can make you feel
like you are close by your
Valentine when you are truly
one thousand miles apart.
Love can be the best
or worst thing in the world.
–Erin, 4th grade
Emily is also one who is wise beyond her years. She picked up on Naomi’s opening when she said that we are all born poets, just some of us keep it up.
Life
It is hard being a person
But, living is a gift that is given,
and all metal was liquid first,
and all people have to find their way to be.
Everyone is born with poetry,
but not all people stick with it.
You know when you find your thing
when you have music in your legs
and jazz in your toes.
Margaret Simon lives on the Bayou Teche in New Iberia, Louisiana. She is a retired elementary gifted teacher who writes poetry and children's books. Welcome to a space of peace, poetry, and personal reflection. Walk in kindness.
Reflections on the Teche 