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Introduce Play into your Art

Posted in Poetry, Poetry Friday, tagged found poetry, International Artist, poem swap on July 12, 2013| 19 Comments »

Last week Tabatha sent me the name of my 3rd Poem Swap for this summer. I was so excited to see Linda Baie‘s name. Linda is a presence in the kidlitosphere. She won the prize (a copy of my book Blessen) for the biggest commenter on my blog during the March Slice of Life Challenge with the Two Writing Teachers. I have embraced Linda as a cyber-friend with hopes to one day meet her in person. She is so kind and supportive, I wanted to do something special for her.

My father had given me back issues of art magazines to use in my classroom, so I pulled one out for inspiration. I found a poem in the words of the magazine. Then I decided to make a collage of pictures. That didn’t work out so well. While my result was something and may have been creative, it didn’t please me. It wasn’t good enough for Linda, so I made another one. This one pleased me. The found poem came from The International Artist. The images came from American Artist.

Introduce Play into your Art
a found poem from the International Artist
Imagine the surface
alive with light
not pure white—a combination
of source and object.

Look out the window.
See a passenger train
in late afternoon,
a spider web
on a dewy morning,
the cornfield
below the horizon,
tree branches
on a rainy night.

If you follow the light,
you will find the sun.
Light is like salt—
a little is all you need.

–Margaret Simon

Poetry Friday is hosted today by Michelle at Today’s Little Ditty.

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Thirteen Ways of Looking at Emma

Posted in Poetry Friday, tagged cats, poetry swap, Tabatha Yeatts on July 5, 2013| 10 Comments »

Tabatha Yeatts invented the Poetry Swap. I have been writing a poem each week to send out to my assigned Poetry Buddy. This week I received a poem from Tabatha herself. And she knows I have cats. The featured cat in my photos is our house cat, Mimi. These thirteen ways of looking at Emma could easily be about Mimi. She enjoyed hanging out on Tabatha’s poem while I wrote at the computer.

Mimi naps on a poem.

Thirteen Ways of Looking at Emma

By Tabatha Yeatts

with thanks to W.S.
for M.S. and E.

I
The tail moved
always —
before,
during,
and after.
There was never a time
the tail’s journey was over.

II
The cat’s nose
in the dog’s ear —
whispering love poems
with her whiskers.

III
Anything can be hidden
on the ceiling.
No one looks up.
Except the cat.

IV
The cat walks across the board game.
The whims of fate
cast furry shadows.

V
Only the spiral circles
of pacing and waiting
can express the longing
the scent of chicken
incites.

VI
The cat’s bones
ripple
like a pebble
dropped
in a water dish.

VII
Sleeping upright,
paws hidden,
tail delicately curving
around her side,
the memory of deity
remains.

VIII
The cat,
guardian, silent companion,
desires to be close to the rabbit,
as the tree guards the moss,
as the leaf guards the air,
as the earth guards the moon.

IX
A plane can take you far from the world,
but a cat can always bring you to it.

X
The cat discerns the approaching rain,
spins, and returns so adroitly
you might never imagine
that was not her original direction.

XI
Next to the cat,
the man sneezes.
The cat licks her side.

XII
One cat stalks a darting fly.
Her sister leaves her sleeping post
only to find another.

XIII
Shadows fall around the cat,
the icy gray fingers of age ruffle her fur;
the cat gets up
and moves.

When Mimi is happy, she flips. We call her “Mrs. Flips.”

Poetry Friday is hosted today by Keri at Keri Recommends.

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Ocean Call

Posted in Poetry Friday, tagged ekphrasis, ocean poetry, poem swap on June 28, 2013| 16 Comments »

I am participating in the 2013 summer Poem Swap that Tabatha Yeatts is organizing. What fun it is to receive a poem in the real snail mail! This week Tabatha sent out a picture prompt suggesting an ekphrastic poem. Some poet will receive this poem this week.

The photo that prompted this poem is Noise of the Waves by Phillip Schumacher.

Ocean Call

If you feel small,
sit on the grass-lined dune
near the sea,

cross your legs,
cup your ear,
listen.

The wind will call to you
on wisps of white clouds,
over the roar of waves

drowning
your simple thoughts,
inviting you to be one
with the sculptor of things.

–Margaret Simon

For more Poetry Friday, go to Amy’s site Poem Farm.

Poetry Friday is hosted today by Amy at Poem Farm

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Verse Novels

Posted in Poetry Friday, tagged Teachers Write, Thanhha Lai, verse novels on June 21, 2013| 7 Comments »

Poetry Friday is hosted today by Carol at Carol’s Corner.

Last week for Poetry Friday, Mary Lee had a feast of verse novels. These have attracted my interest lately. While I read Out of the Dust by Karen Hesse years ago and have shared Love that Dog, Love that Cat, and Heartbeat by Sharon Creech with my students, the genre feels new.

This week I read Inside Out and Back Again by Thanhha Lai. The book is based on her own life story of coming to America from Vietnam. The verse was simple, yet moving. In a verse novel, each chapter/verse/poem should stand alone yet hold the whole together. Lai does this. The novel made me think about 1975 when refugees were coming in to my own city. I don’t remember how I reacted. I hope I was kind. Not everyone in Lai’s book is kind. Our students can learn from Lai that not everyone looks the same or speaks the same, but everyone should be kind.

Wet and Crying

My biggest papaya
is light yellow,
still flecked with green.

Brother Vu wants
to cut it down,
saying it’s better than
letting the Communists have it.

Mother says yellow papaya
tastes lovely
dipped in chili salt.
You children should eat
fresh fruit
while you can.

Brother Vu chops;
the head falls;
a silver blade slices.

Black seeds spill
like clusters of eyes,
wet and crying.

–Thanhha Lai from Inside Out & Back Again

Last year during Teachers Write camp (which, by the way, begins Monday), Gae Polisner had Caroline Starr Rose, author of May B, as a guest on her Friday Feedback blog post. I was turned on to writing in verse. I have a WIP (Work in Progress) that hasn’t gone anywhere in years, and by turning to verse, I was able to revive it. I am attracted to this genre because it’s a way to combine my love of poetry and writing for children. Here’s a sample verse from my WIP Dear God:

.
Dear God,
Winter can be so boring,
short days, long nights.
But today, snow fell
for hours.
No school.
I watched the snow from the window,
picture perfect,
piling onto the bare tree branches,
sparkling, gleaming.
Benjie and I bundled up,
headed over to the hill by the park.
Neighborhood kids were there with sleds
and makeshift sleds of cardboard.
I helped Benjie climb onto the sled and pushed him off,
down the hill, twenty times at least.
When we finally headed home,
my nose and fingertips were frozen solid.
Mom made us hot chocolate and vegetable soup.
Simone could not play in the snow.
When we passed by, she waved at us from her window seat.
She wore a knit cap and a scarf around her neck,
looking like a snowman herself, pale and hairless.
She wasn’t sad, though.
Her smile was big and sparkled like the snow.

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Writing Marathon

Posted in Poetry, Poetry Friday, Teaching, tagged A&E Gallery, Poetry Friday, Richard Louth, Write your Way writing camp, writing marathon on June 13, 2013| 43 Comments »

Poetry Friday is here!

Today, I am hosting the Poetry Friday blog roundup. Please post your link in the comments. I thought when I signed up for this date that it would be a quiet summer Friday, but it is actually the last day of a writing camp for students. I will check in periodically and post links as they come in.

Writing in the gallery

Leading a writing camp is one of the highlights of my summer. This year we have 9 students ranging from entering 4th through 10th grade. Each of them is in a different place in their writing, yet each has a unique voice. My partner teacher, Stephanie Judice, and I also come from different places. I teach elementary, and she teaches high school. I write poetry. She writes fiction. A perfect match. Every morning, I led the poetry writing, and she led the fiction. Worked out well.

Our favorite day is always Wednesday, the writing marathon. The writing marathon was invented by Richard Louth of the Southeastern Writing Project. He was inspired by Natalie Goldberg’s Writing Down the Bones in which she talks about writing in restaurants. She encourages writers to find a space and write continuously for a period of time. So on a writing marathon, the rules are 1) declare yourself a writer; 2) travel from place to place, write in that place, and if appropriate, order something; and 3) share and thank each other. (No criticism or comment, just thank you.)

One of our stops on the writing marathon was the A&E Gallery, a collaborative gallery of a variety of artists owned by Paul Schexnayder. We did two writing periods at the gallery. During the first one, I asked the students to walk all around the space and to collect words that came into their minds as they walked. After collecting words, we found a spot to sit and write. The second prompt was an ekphrastic poem about one particular piece of art. I am sharing the poem I wrote from the gallery walk and a student’s poem from a group of metal faces.

Mermaids float above her majesty, the sea
swirling waves as a potter’s wheel
forming a lily-lined path
to the land of mortals.

On the shore, rusted beauty emerges
from layers of water–a mint for the gatherers of things.

Look with your soul,
feel the release of imagination.
Find your buried hope.
The music in you awaits!

–All rights reserved, Margaret Simon

Metal Faces
Their open metal mouths,
staring into me,
looking past my casual writer’s appearance.
Can they see my conscience?
They read me as if
I were the art on display.
Their wide eyes,
penetrating my heart,
are full of distaste.
Like judges,
and I have earned myself
a low score.
Their scraps
that they call facial features
bore into me,
like they know everything.
And, perhaps they do,
but it doesn’t show.
All they can do
is watch me,
beg for me to stay
when I’m passing by,
so they can look into my soul.

–Kaylie, 12 years old

Go nuts with Charles at Father Goose with a tribute to Jama Rattigan.

At Random Noodling, a Robert Frost poem “Questioning Face.”

Kurious Kitty has some Flag Day poetry.

At KK Kwotes, find Albert Camus.

At NC Teacher Stuff, find a short poem about fathers by William Hamilton Hayne.

Keri is discovering a children’s bookstore in Vancouver, BC.

Matt Forrest has a poem for his daughter.

Jama is featuring a bilingual poetry collection called Laughing Tomatoes and other Spring Poems/Jitomates Risuenos y ostros poemas de primavera by Francisco X. Alarcón and Maya Christina Gonzalez.

Laura Salas has a rodeo poem by Nancy Bo Flood.

Mary Lee is here with a feast of verse novels.

Ruth has a turtle-y post.

Tabatha is thinking about plagiarism.

The Teaching Authors share online resources and April has a poem about giving up privacy in exchange for a free app.

Renee at No Water River has another wonderful video featuring Margarita Engle sharing her verse picture book When you Wander: A Search and Rescue Dog Story.

Linda at Teacher Dance has a poem she heard at a teaching workshop.

Today at The Poem Farm, Amy has a little goodbye poem from a teacher’s point of view along with a Poetry Peek from kindergarten teacher Erin Jarnot and her students from Elma Primary.

Julie is back this week with an original poem called “Anniversary” and some musings about translation and mistranslation.

Bridget Magee is here with an original poem, “Summer Hazard” about one of the perils of living in the desert.

Over at Today’s Little Ditty, Michelle has a dream poem written by her dad in honor of Father’s Day.

Robyn Hood Black is here with Full Hearts, Empty Nests, and Emily Dickinson.

MM Socks has an original poem today Woodrow’s Shadow.

Doraine Bennett has Winslow Homer and J.G. Whittier.

Irene Latham has a menagerie of Valerie Worth poems.

A traveling poem over at The Florian Cafe this Friday morning.

Author Amok is celebrating with a picnic-full of third graders’ food poems. Chocolate pie, anyone? We can’t end school without some teacherly wisdom. I’m also featuring a portion of poet Joseph Ross’s beautiful post “The Gifts of Teaching.”

Karen Edmisten has a Billy Collins poem to share.

Cathy has an original cat poem.

Lorie Ann Grover offers a haiku today, Whispered through Steam.

Joy at Poems for Kids Joy has an original poem about her flag for Flag Day.

Here’s Becky with Math Poetry.

All About Books with Janet has a doggy poem “I Didn’t Do It” written by Patricia MacLachlan and Emily MacLachlan Charest and illustrated by Katy Schneider.

For some hippity-hoppity froggy fun, go to Reading to the Core.

Little Willow posted Afterthoughts by Edwin Arlington Robinson at her blog Bildungsroman.

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Matinal Oceania

Posted in Poetry, Poetry Friday, tagged Natasha Trethewey, poetic forms, Sandra Sarr, Terza Rima on June 7, 2013| 6 Comments »

Poetry Friday is hosted this week at The Opposite of Indifference with Tabatha Yeats

Today, for Poetry Friday, I have a guest post from Sandra Sarr. Sandy is completing her MFA program this summer from the Northwest Institute of Literary Arts, Whidbey Writers Workshop. To hear her talk about this low residency program, I feel her enthusiasm. While working on her MFA, Sandy has been writing a novel, “The Road to Indigo.” (To read about our meeting and my poem for her, click here.) Sandy’s MFA program required that she write in all genres. She wrote this poem while taking a poetry class. I was intrigued by this Terza Rima for a number of reasons. One, I am especially interested in learning about form, and two, I loved diving deep in the ocean with her turtles. And three, Sandy uses our nation’s Poet Laureate, Natasha Trethewey, as a mentor. I have also included Sandy’s commentary about her process. Even though Sandy’s concentration is in fiction, I personally think she is also a wonderful poet.

MATINAL OCEANIA
After Natasha Trethewey

SANDRA SARR

Underneath, turtles sweep in threes—
their sea wings caress the deep warm wet
long night fading in day’s dreams.

Out past the pull of tide, newlywed
swimmers shadow angels. Dawn-lit bay
gives way to the abyss where night ones fed.

Shore fades. Two pursue three out way
past breaking waves. One more mile, breathe deep,
clasp hands, sprout wings, turn back, now pray.

Today, this longing—this primal need
to taste what came first—urges a feast
of what drifts out, flows in, floats out, flows free.
–Sandra Sarr, all rights reserved

About the poem:
“Matinal Oceania,” represented Washington State in YARN literary journal’s 2012 National Poetry Month’s project, Crossing Country Line by Line.

In “Matinal Oceania,” sea turtles wing their way through the morning ocean. Newlyweds shadow them into unknown—even dangerous—depths on an ancient primal path in which they innocently pursue their watery origins as a species and their uncertain destiny as a couple.

The tidal waters off the coast of West Maui inspire the poem’s unnamed setting. I choose Natasha Tretheway’s “Vespertina Cognitio” as inspiration for poetic form and go further by adding rhyme in a braided aba, bcb, cdc pattern of end words. “When the rhyme patterns link up, weaving a bracelet of sound across the stanzas, we’re reading terza rima,” writes poet Wendy Bishop in Thirteen Ways of Looking at a Poem. I arrange my terza rima’s stanzas in step-indented format to evoke in the reader a sense of flowing waves reflecting the poem’s subject. (I apologize, in WordPress, I was unable to format the step-indentation.)

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Altered Books 2

Posted in Poetry, Poetry Friday, tagged altered books, preposition poetry on May 31, 2013| 4 Comments »

I’ve written about altered books before. I really enjoy losing my self in this project. I started working on one with my students and was determined to finish it. I left the art supplies out in the classroom, so I could paint a page, let it dry while I did paperwork, until eventually I had collected all the poems I wrote this school year. Most of them were posted on our class blogs as models. Now I have a keepsake for the year as well as my own personal book of model poems.

Found poem about bees

Found Poem about Bees can be read here.

I am From poem

Mother Nature (A Preposition Poem)

Poetry Friday is hosted this week at Betsy at Teaching Young Writers.

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What if?

Posted in Poetry, Poetry Friday, Teaching, tagged gifted education, poetry, student writing on May 24, 2013| 21 Comments »

Poetry Friday is hosted this week at Jama’s Alphabet Soup.

The end of the school year is always bittersweet. This year was especially so. One of my students finished sixth grade which means she is moving on to middle school. We have been together since she was in third grade. I love all my students, but sometimes one comes along who connects a little deeper. We become more than teacher and student. Kaylie is one of those students. Kaylie loves what I love. We shared books and favorite authors. We became writing partners. She read and commented on my writing as much as I did hers.

Kaylie’s mother wrote me a note saying that Kaylie was crying about leaving. She told Kaylie that I was like a mother bird that has prepared her birds to fly. It was time for her to fly. Kaylie stopped crying and said, “That was a great metaphor, Mom.”

I am so grateful for this special relationship. Kaylie wrote a poem for me. She put it in a book she made on Snapfish including pictures of us through the years. (Yes, I cried.) I wrote a response to her using her form. I put it into an accordion book, also with pictures. Call and response, so to speak. These poems are very personal, so I hesitated printing them here. But sometimes the deeply personal touches a universal theme.

What if
By Kaylie
What if you asked me-
just wondering-
If you wanted me to write
about our four years together?
What if you wanted me
to put that into a poem
Like the one you’re reading now?
Would I write about peanut butter,
nonsense talking sticking in my mouth
like the real stuff?
Or, that dreaded summer reading?
Would I tell you that I hated that?
Would I remember Daisy and Poncho,
the most beautiful spider story
I have ever heard?
Hmm…let me think…
I would definitely have to mention
all that writing: stories, poetry,
every letter, every word from my pen
inspired by you.
I would try not to talk about the tears
that shed when I left, though.
No.
I will only think of what you showed me,
and how I will use it in my life.
If you told me to write a poem about all of that,
just to remind you of me now and then,
I think this poem
would do just that.

By Kaylie

What if?
What if you wanted me to write a poem
about our four years together?
Four years, really? Hard to believe.
No wonder you are so much a part of my life.

I know you. You know me.
Greater than a teacher and student,
yet not a mother and daughter.
(Even though I caught myself sometimes calling you my daughter.)
My poem would have to say how
teaching you was easy, fun, delightful.
I watched you blossom from a tiny, shy seed
to a dancing flower singing,

“Anything you can do, I can do better.”

And yes, you can. You can be
whatever you want to be.
Be who you are.

You are a writing teacher’s dream,
but more than that…
You trusted me with your heart,
your mind, your creativity.

If you wanted me to write a poem about our time together,
I would write through tears,
wipe them away
and say
You are ready
to fly,
sweet bird.
Your wings will
soar!
–Margaret Simon, all rights reserved

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Who is your Persona?

Posted in Poetry, Poetry Friday, tagged gifted education, Out of my Mind, persona poem, The One and Only Ivan, writing about book characters on May 10, 2013| 9 Comments »

As we continue to make our way through the alphabet, this week we worked on persona poems in my classroom. I started the lesson by sharing Margaret Atwood’s poem, Siren Song. We discussed the poem and why it is a persona poem. Also called a mask poem, the writer takes on the persona of a famous person, historical figure, or character and writes from that person’s perspective. I gave them some line starters, such as, “My song is…” “My prayer is…” “I am from …” They were allowed to use the computer to find more information. I asked them to include known facts and little known facts.

The students who impress me most are those who take my assignment and run away with it. The poem grows into something much bigger and much more meaningful than I could’ve imagined. Two of my students decided to write about a book character. What I love about each of these examples is the poem stands alone, even if you do not know the book it is from. Two popular books in my class this year have been “The One and Only Ivan” by Katherine Applegate and “Out of my Mind” by Sharon M. Draper. I hope these poems make you want to pick up and read these books if you haven’t already.

For more persona poems, visit our kidblog site.

The One and Only Ivan
by Brooklyn

I am an artist,
hairier than most artists you know.
The food I crave is a banana,
because
I am a gorilla.

I know what you
guys are thinking.
A gorilla is
not capable of
making art,
but I am.
I know what you’re
saying ,
most of the time.

I am from
the forest,
but I live
in
The Big Top Mall.
It is caged, but
I somewhat
enjoy it here.
I have friends
animal and human.
Yes, this is
true,
and believe me
when I say,
they like me too.

I am not how you think
gorillas are.
I am not mean,
or scary.
I am not trying
to escape and run after you.
I want you to be my friend,
but you can’t hear me
when I say,
“Hello,
my name is Ivan,
what is your name?”
all you hear is a
roar,
and a hum,
and a grumble.

My song is
the thumping on my chest,
which you
hear wrong.
It doesn’t mean I’m mad,
I’m only trying to say “Hi”,
but most of you run.

You would never know how
nice I am,
if you always run away.

All I ever wanted,
was to talk and communicate,
without my paintings,
which look like
a black blob,
with a yellow patch,
and a gray bubble,
me.

So here is my prayer,
don’t judge me by my looks,
look at me with
your soul,
not your eye,
and hear my words,
and be my friend.

As Melody from Out Of My Mind
by Kaylie

Elvira, Elvira
I wish I could tell you
That it hurts when you tease me
I wish,
for once,
that you would understand
what I go through.

Elvira, Elvira,
Born in Ohio soil
Raised with a disability
I want to be noticed,
But in a good way.

Elvira, Elvira,
You gasp when you see me,
Pushed in my wheelchair
By my mother.
But I’m still human, Claire.

Elvira, Elvira,
I tap out the words,
LOOK. AT. ME.
See me, for who I am.
A smart girl.

Elvira, Elvira,
You don’t know the taste
Of music like I do.
Pleasant, flowing, green, resounding.
The song passes through my fingers.

Elvira, Elvira,
I want to be like you.
They don’t know
How hard it is
To have cerebral palsy.

Elvira, Elvira,
I wish I was appreciated.
Here I am,
Being Melody,
Being myself.
Don’t you hear?

Poetry Friday is hosted this week by Anastasia at Booktalking.

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Mother’s Day Poetry

Posted in Poetry, Poetry Friday, Teaching, tagged color poems, I Love you the Purplest, metaphor, Mother's Day writing on May 3, 2013| 14 Comments »

We are still writing poems in my classroom even though April is over and May is here. This week we worked on poems for our mothers. If you are a mother of one of my students, stop reading now and save it for after Mother’s Day. You don’t want to spoil the surprise.

I love the beautiful picture book, I Love You the Purplest by Barbara M. Joosse. The watercolor images by Mary Whyte are amazing. The story is sweet about a mother going fishing with her two boys. The boys want to know which one she loves best, and the mother cleverly answers, “Julian, I love you the bluest. I love you the color of a dragon fly at the tip of its wing.” The other boy, Max, she loves the reddest, the color of the sky before it blazes into night.

After reading the book to my students, we talked about colors and what they can symbolize. Each student selected a color and made a list of possible things to use in a poem. There are some great resources for this lesson on Writing Fix. You can find a list of color metaphors as well as a printable form.

Specifically for the Mother’s Day poem, I asked the students to write about their mothers. They wrote some great poems. They typed and printed and painted a background for their poems on a canvas board. I think many mothers will be brought to tears by these gifts of love.

Momma,
I love you the pinkest
The color of a baby girl’s blanket
A freshly bloomed rose
The color of a small little piggy
And brand new point shoes
The color of breast cancer awareness
An October birthstone
The perfect pink for you ………
The color of your three little girly ballerinas
–Rhyan, 6th grade

I love you, Mom, the Greenest.
An emerald when a miner pulls it freshly out of the wall,
Leprechauns running around their pot of gold,
The grass when freshly mowed,
Lettuce from the sky,
The four-leaf clover on the ground,
The pickle on your burger,
The leaves you feel when you feel a tree.
I love you, Mom, the greenest.
–Tobie, 2nd grade

Mom, I love you the orangest.
I love you like the blazing sunset,
like the fire in my eyes,
like a melted orange ice pop,
dripping down my fingers.
I love you as orange as the way
your red hair used to look.
Mom, I love you the orangest.
Matthew, 3rd grade

For more Mother’s Day poems, go to our kidblog site. My students love comments.

Poetry Friday is hosted this week by Elizabeth Steinglass.

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