National Poetry Month | Reflections on the Teche

Posts Tagged ‘National Poetry Month’

NPM16 #12 Dancing with a Paintbrush

Posted in Poetry, Slice of Life, Teaching, Writing, tagged #imagepoems, music poems, NaPoWriMo, National Poetry Month, Poem a Day on April 12, 2016| 6 Comments »

Join the Two Writing Teachers blog for March Slice of Life Challenge.

We brought out the paintbrushes and watercolor paints. Each table had a stack of white paper. I turned on the music. Painting flowed in time with the beat.

This is dancing with a paintbrush. When the music stops, we title the piece of art and list three words that come to mind. This continues for three rounds. The songs are all instrumental, one sounds oriental, another symphonic, and another Irish.

Following this painting activity, we write.

Freedom of expression, playing with words, making associations with music and poetry, the resulting poems went in all kinds of directions. (My students share their poems on Kidblog.)

In reading Tara Smith’s book review of Writing with Mentors, I pulled out this piece of advice: “Mentors Show Students How to Play: In order to grow as writers, students need safe places to play with writing – places that aren’t assessed or evaluated or given a grade. They need places where their work can be messy, where thinking outside the box and being wild with ideas is encouraged.”

When I was struggling to write a poem with my painting, I turned to a favorite author, Mary Oliver. From A Thousand Mornings, “Poem of the One World” begins “This morning/ the beautiful white heron/ was floating along above the water.”

Writing beside this master poet helped me to follow the rhythm that my own words wanted to take.

This longing
the beautiful white egret
wanders from known to unknown waters

And then
onto the shore of this
one stream we all swim in

where everyone
is part of the blue vein
where we can throw a stone in

which thought made me feel
for a small moment
welcomed home.

–Margaret Simon, after Mary Oliver

The abstract painting that led to my poem.

Follow the Progressive Poem to Today’s Little Ditty

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NPM16 #11 The Rope Swing

Posted in Photography, Poetry, tagged image poems, Louisiana wetlands, NaPoWriMo, National Poetry Month, Nature poems, Poem a Day, River of Words Teacher's Guide on April 11, 2016| 3 Comments »

Last week I led myself and my students into image poems. We imagined a scene in nature (or on water) and wrote to this list of line prompts from the River of Words Teacher’s Guide.

Prompts for the Teacher:

~ Think about this spot. Sketch it if you like.

~ Picture yourself in this location.Write a line or sentence that describes what you are doing and exactly where you are: “Sitting on a sandbar on the banks of the Calcasieu River in IndianVillage, Louisiana.”

~ In your imagination, look up.What do you see? Begin this line with “Above me” or “Over my head.”Try to use a simile in this line.

~ Now look into the distance, as far as you can see.Write what you see.

~ Describe a sound you might hear in this place.

~ What is on your right?

~ Hone in on a single detail in this scene.Try to describe it, using an unusual or vivid verb in the line.

~ Shift your perspective and your position—stand up, flop down, walk away—and notice another detail in the landscape: the quality of light, the time of day, a seasonal plant or animal,for example.

~ Finally, read over your images and see if you can conclude with a reflective line that somehow captures how you feel about being in this place.(You might caution students not to rush this line; it may occur to them later as they compose their poem).

Swinging by the bayou on the grandmother oak,
legs curled around knotted rope,

Above me branches drape like outstretched arms
holding strong,

Sky opens up to a flash of egret flickering through the trees.

The echo of a far-off motor drums the quiet.

The holding tree is the oldest oak I know.
Hanging moss twirls in a wind-dance.

Jumping from the rope-grip,
my feet fall on fronds of greening fern.

My swinging is a brief sparkle in this grandmother’s eye.

–Margaret Simon

Here is Vannisa’s poem. She pointed to a postcard from Marjorie Pierson’s collecting of wetlands photographs as her inspiration. Click here to view the image.

Standing in the shade,
on the edge of a swamp
where there are cypress trees
with snakes and alligators
lurking within the waters

Over my head,
thick branches and leaves
sway over me as a roof,
with moss dropping down
like the strings of balloons
that fly to the ceiling

In the distance
more trees and gators are
still creeping underneath

Insect buzzing
filling my ears,
the tweets of birds
travel from above

On my right,
a tree trunk
with bugs crawling in a line
making their way up and around

Mother duck and her ducklings
swim all over
yawing around places where
mother knows it’s unsafe

Moving away from the shade,
the water reflects
the afternoon sun into my eyes,
glistening in the light

This artistic landscape
won’t be able to stay forever,
you won’t notice it,
but the wetlands are quickly washing away.

–Vannisa, 6th grade

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NPM16 #10 Found Poem

Posted in Poetry, tagged Amy Ludwig Vanderwater, found poem, NaPoWriMo, National Poetry Month, wonder poems, Wonderopolis on April 10, 2016| 4 Comments »

Also inspired by Amy, quick watercolor in the sketchbook.

The kidlitoshpere is wildly growing with poems. Amy Ludwig VanDerwater is writing daily to wonders from Wonderopolis. I found a poem in her post, How Sweet is Honeysuckle?

The line “Words live on like echoes” came from Barry Lane’s song “Sammy Miller” from Force Field for Good.

I wrote two poems today,
one from an open window with honeysuckle
and rhyme, but this time the poem
felt not ready to be shared.

Words live on like echoes…

I need to let a poem sit
read words over and over
Trust the feeling,
Move on.

Words live on like echoes…

Poems make me happy.
Poems make me sing.
I pretend to be a mother hummingbird.
I like the sounds of words.

Words live on like echoes…

Poems make me fall in love
with hummingbirds. I want to
plant a garden of milkweed,
trumpet honeysuckle,
& love poems
for you.

Words live on like echoes.

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NPM16 #9 Celebrating Collaborative Progressive Poetry

Posted in Celebration Saturday, Poetry, Writing, tagged #imagepoems, Kevin Hodgson, NaPoWriMo, National Poetry Month, Poem a Day, Progressive poem on April 9, 2016| 16 Comments »

Ruth Ayres invites us the celebrate each week. Click over to her site Discover. Play. Build. to read more celebrations.

It’s my turn!

Today is Saturday, time to celebrate with Ruth Ayres and my fellow bloggers, but first I must stop and post a line to the Progressive Poem, the brainchild of author Irene Latham. This year’s poem has taken on a pattern. It rhymes, too, but I am grateful I don’t have to complete a rhyming line. All I have to do is set up the next stanza. The pattern of first lines began with Laura’s “A squall of hawk wings stirs the sky.” Then Penny made the decision to repeat this pattern in “A cast of crabs engraves the sand.” So all I have to do is fill in the blanks “A __da__ of __de___ __da-da____ ___di___ __doe___.” Where do we want to go next? From observing the sky to the ocean we have watched hawks and hummingbirds and crabs.

I have been working with images for my poem a day project. My friend, Kimberley, in Maine sent me this picture of purple crocuses in her yard wilting in the recent cold snap. I decided to keep us in the natural world but move into the plant world.

photo by Kimberley Moran

A squall of hawk wings stirs the sky
A hummingbird holds and then hies
If I could fly, I’d choose to be
Sailing through a forest of poet-trees

A cast of crabs engraves the sand
Delighting a child’s outstretched hand
If I could breathe under the sea

I’d dive, I’d dip, I’d dance with glee

A clump of crocuses crave the sun.

In the spirit of poetry and connecting through blogging, Kevin Hodgson left a comment on my abecedarian post yesterday that honored me as a writer, but also honored the entire blogging community. Thanks, Kevin!

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 texture, 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

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NPM16 #5 Ansel Adams inspires

Posted in Poetry, Slice of Life, Teaching, tagged Ansel Adams, NaPoWriMo, National Poetry Month, River of Words Teacher's Guide on April 5, 2016| 8 Comments »

Join the Two Writing Teachers blog for March Slice of Life Challenge.

Day 5 is at Penny and Her Jots

Writing poems can be serious business. The first day back after spring break I asked my students to think hard about poetry. We read together a poem from the Teaching Guide for the River of Words Young Poets and Artists on the Nature of Things. (Handout 4:Writing from film) I highly recommend this guide for great poetry lessons written by my friends Harriet Maher and Connie McDonald.

The poem spoke in an ominous tone about the destruction of our earth. Students picked out these word, demented, shattered, purged, and monsters, as negative tone words. They noticed that the poem was a sad commentary on what we humans do to our earth home.

Then I played the first 8 minutes of the documentary of Ansel Adams.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jvt1ImIKi0U

While we watched the video, we collected words and phrases. We all wrote poems. Many of the students’ poems reflected the negative tone of the poem we read together. My favorite student poem is from Erin. She wrote how the silence was too loud. You can read her poem here.

Free image from Wikipedia.

Ansel Adams, 1902-1984

The artist transformed
moments into wild majesty
expressing in
exalted language of photography
how small we really are.

Among the tall trees
or the great mountains,
our humanness is separate–
a communion in the presence
of mystery.

Even in the absence of color,
in shades of black and white,
fragments are shattered
into a mosaic of truth.

We understand the fragile nature of things.

–Margaret Simon

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NPM16 #4 A Day in a Poem

Posted in Photography, Poetry, tagged #imagepoems, NaPoWriMo, National Poetry Month, Poem a Day on April 4, 2016| 6 Comments »

Day 4 is at Random Noodling with Diane

I first “wrote” this poem by speaking to my phone in the notes app. I didn’t start with a photographed image. If I could have, I would have taken a picture of the heron, but as we watched the scene, my cat snuck out and scared it off.

Instead I took a picture looking up at our church.

Sunday

On this day
I have plans,
compartments in my mind
like squares on the calendar.

But first, I look out
at the heron on the bayou.
He stretches his neck
into the bright morning sun.

I sip my warm coffee,
listen to the news,
the call of the mourning dove.

I will worship today
stick my neck out long
to catch the rays of the sun,
listen to an orchestra on the lawn.

–Margaret Simon

Here is a link to a padlet from JoEllen McCarthy from The Educator Collaborative with links to great #PoetryLove sites.

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NPM16: #2 Celebrate Poetry

Posted in Celebration Saturday, Poetry, Writing, tagged columbarium, NaPoWriMo, National Poetry Month, Spanish moss, spiritual journey on April 2, 2016| 12 Comments »

Ruth Ayres invites us the celebrate each week. Click over to her site Discover. Play. Build. to read more celebrations.

In the month of April, the whole Kidlitosphere lights up for National Poetry Month. There are so many exciting projects going on.

The gatherer of all Kidlit poetry postings is Jama at Jama’s Alphabet Soup.

Today the Progressive poem is here with Joy.

Click the NaPoWriMo button for more about daily writing prompts and poem sharing.

I am writing a poem-a-day to images. You can join me by leaving a poem in the comments or a link to your blog. Use #imagepoems on Twitter. Today’s image is Spanish moss. It hangs all over the trees in my neighborhood.

Spanish Moss

Columbarium

Moss crawls like skeletons in the trees,
a lacy tent for playful squirrels.
Even my cat, usually lolling and lazy,
joins in the chase, paws at the waving ghosts.

The moss speaks to the heavens,
the heavens that opened up with wind
and a storm yesterday when we placed
your ashes in the dovecote

outside the church
where you can live forever
in the eyes of God, or, at least, I’ll
say hello when I pass by on Sunday.

We do not know what time
has prepared for us
to walk in or to walk out
with ashes on our foreheads,
and now you are ashes in the tomb.

What does this say about the squirrels?
Do they know something?
Who are they chasing?

–Margaret Simon

Process: When I wrote the poem to this image of moss, I had returned from a funeral for a church member. I did not know him well, but every funeral is a deeply spiritual experience. And I was moved by the sudden wind and heavy rain that fell immediately following the placement of his urn into the columbarium. I looked up columbarium on Wikipedia and found the word origin of “columba” refers to the compartments used for doves, dovecote. I somehow think Charles will like playing in the trees with cats and squirrels. And now that I have written it, I will say hello to him when I pass each Sunday.

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National Poetry Month Day 1

Posted in Poetry, Poetry Friday, Writing, tagged #imagepoems, NaPoWriMo, National Poetry Month, Poem a Day on April 1, 2016| 17 Comments »

#imagepoems Day 1 image

Today is April 1st and April Fool’s Day. I have fooled myself into thinking I can write a poem every day in April to an image. This first image was a joke played on me when I entered the bathroom at Ann Taylor Loft. “Watch out for the mannequins.” I was warned. I imagined they had wisdom to share. I also tried to play with the “in” sound. (Note: If you are playing along with me, put your poem or a link to it in the comments.)

Wisdom of the Mannequins

Appreciate the bare skin of things.

Sometimes it pays to be a skinflint.

Stand up straight and let your hips glide.

Don’t underestimate the power of a soft brush of blush.

Listen with a tinted ear.

You want to fit in the skin you’re in.

Bend, blend, and be happy.

–Margaret Simon

Poetry Friday round-up with Amy at The Poem Farm.

The Progressive poem begins at Laura’s site: Writing the World for Kids.

Jessica Bigi is joining in the poem-a-day image poems with this taste of spring today:

Moonbeam crowns
Embroidered bumblebee gowns
Brassy trumpet jazz
Teacup gardens steeping
Sweet is spring’s song
Spades Queens Kings

–Jessica Bigi

Art by Jessica Bigi

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SOL16: #31 Bold

Posted in Poetry, Slice of Life, Writing, tagged April, image poems, NaPoWriMo, National Poetry Month on March 31, 2016| 14 Comments »

Join the Two Writing Teachers blog for March Slice of Life Challenge.

Join the Spiritual Thursday round up at Reading, Teaching, Learning.

Today is the last day of March. I find it hard to believe that I have actually written a blog post every day in March. The Slice of Life Challenge is just that, a challenge. Thank you for reading and responding.

Appropriately for this day, Spiritual Thursday’s one little word is Donna Smith’s word BOLD. Being bold is what it takes to put yourself and your life out there for the world to see.

So here I am thinking about continuing a bold move toward the month of April. April is National Poetry Month. What should I do but write a poem a day? I’ve posted my blog here at NaPoWriMo and committed to the challenge. I will be writing poems to images. #imagepoems

Would you consider joining me? No pressure. No rules. Just drafting and playing with words inspired by images. You can use your own images or write about mine. If I get my act together, I may post the next day’s image in the post.

I draw inspiration from other brave writers like Elisabeth Ellington. She wrote a two word poem about her son yesterday. Read the post here.

This is my bold statement about the Slice of Life Challenge in a two word list poem.

I’m here
this page
torn out
left open
for you
a slice
of life
nothing special
ordinary days
my story
your story
we connect
ideas flow
ideas stop
one moment
in time
leads to
friends talking
laughing with
crying with
loving with
each other
Slices done
bold words
left here
for you
and me.

Image for April Fool’s Day:

I was shopping in Ann Taylor Loft. This is what I found in the bathroom.

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More Poem Videos

Posted in Digital Learning, Gifted Education, Poetry, tagged digital poetry, gifted classroom, National Poetry Month, poem movie, poetry project on May 10, 2015| 4 Comments »

Please use this button on your site for DigiLit Sunday posts

Button created by Leigh Anne Eck for sharing Digital Poetry.

For the month of April, National Poetry Month, my students were totally absorbed in poetry, reading and writing poems, even singing poems. As a second grader, Andrew needed more support for his poetry project. He had never made a video before. I sat with him as he produced an Animoto video of his original two voice poem after the book Seeds, Bees, Butterflies, and More. But hands off. I never touched the keyboard. He expertly traveled from one tab to another, choosing images, downloading to the computer, and uploading into Animoto. Sometimes I marvel at how adept students can be at the computer.

https://animoto.com/play/ZrabDZGPMWBmJ4DCAsNTAg

Sometimes when creating the video, my students will let the image and sound lead to revision. I know this is true for me, too. I’ll write a rough draft and when I get to the movie making stage, I revise and adjust to create a visual as well as a written poem. Emily did this with her poem “Cammy, the Elderly Camera” which she wrote after a poem in Cat Talk by Patricia MacLachlan and Emily Maclachlan Charist.

https://animoto.com/play/G1TT5mJqQtl0AutGxfQLUg

Jacob wanted to write a poem after God got a Dog by Cynthia Rylant. He wrote that God got a genie. He chose the video of a surfer crashing into the waves from the Animoto video files to show that the genie lost his powers. To me, that is creative thinking.

https://animoto.com/play/wFGWauN1C78WB3ZujFQa4A

Animoto is really easy to use. The videos look professional when they are complete. I encourage you to give Animoto a try.

Link up your Digital Literacy posts. Read and comment.