Image by Linda Mitchell Today’s Poetry Friday Roundup is with Carol at Beyond Literacy Link
I have to admit I wasn’t prepared for my lesson on Friday. I really don’t have a good excuse. It just happened, so I opened my desk drawer and pulled out metaphor dice. I wasn’t really sure how this writing tool would work with my young students. This year my gifted classes include third and fourth graders. Do they even know what a metaphor is?
The beauty of Taylor Mali’s Metaphor Dice is their adaptability across every grade level and writing ability. In fact, they can be the just right teaching tool or game you need on a Friday when you don’t have a poem in your pocket.
After a few rounds of metaphor dice writing, my 4th grade student Adelyn said, “Do you ever get so involved in writing that you forget to breathe?” I think that sums up a successful writing session.
Today I am sharing one of my metaphor dice poems.
My birth is a bright songbird singing a morning lullaby.
Each new day is a birth– a chance to discover joy, to hear the bright song of the cardinal or chickadee.
Reading has begun for Cybils Round One. I am judging once again in the poetry category. This is such a treat, to read new poetry books and select my favorites. Stay tuned…
This week we had a special visitor in my 6th grade gifted classroom. One of those serendipitous things about blogging and connecting with authors is exposing my students to real authors doing the work. Taylor Mali joined us on Tuesday. Prior to the visit, he sent a package of create-your-own metaphor dice. Here’s a link to order some. We struggled with deciding which words to put on our own set of dice. We made lists in our notebooks of concepts, adjectives, and objects. I’m glad we had a little struggle because we could ask questions of the master.
Jaden asked, “What is the difference between a concept and an object? Isn’t “father” an object?” Taylor was quick with the answer. He explained that many people like to write about their fathers and mothers in a metaphorical way, more like a concept than an object. He went on to tell the story of a student of his who wrote about their father as shattered glass. “I can still see myself in the shattered pieces.”
We shared our own metaphor poems and he offered feedback. One of the things he noticed in my students’ poems was the absence of their own lives. He talked about how poetry should be beautiful language, yes, but also should be the truth. He suggested ways that they could put more of their own life experience into the poems they wrote.
I tried this idea myself with a roll of my own homemade metaphor dice. The roll I got was “The past is a soft wind.” I was pleased that Taylor’s advice to my kids resonated with me, and I tapped into a true story from my childhood.
The Past is a Soft Wind
blowing wind chimes in the old cypress tree, ringing like a distant train that left the station years ago.
The year we drove to Morton, Mississippi for Thanksgiving and gathered pecans with great grandfather. We thought he was 100 years old. He knew things–
How to crack pecans in the palm of his hand and how many minutes from the engine to the caboose. We stood together watching, counting, waving to the conductor who, as that red house rounded the curve, always waved back.
Today I am cheating and doing this prompt backwards. I wrote a poem that I like from another Taylor Mali prompt. I remembered that I took a picture of the image I conjured in the poem. I am convincing myself that this is fair because I had the image in mind when I wrote the poem. Taylor’s website has a collection of fun prompts for teachers to use with kids. They work even with the youngest students that I teach (8 year olds). The one I used can be found here: Once I was a Flower.
Live Oak Branches, Margaret Simon
Once an owl lifted off from a tangle of branches; it rose above me like a hot-air balloon. It was fall and morning chill sprinkled fog over the bayou. There I was left floating alone– solid, steel canoe.
Margaret Simon, draft
Now it’s your turn. If you want to use the prompt, begin with Once and end with an inanimate object. Or just write whatever the photo muse brings forth. Be sure to leave encouraging comments for other writers.
This response to the Once prompt is from my student Jaden in 6th grade.
Once I saw a moth flew across my face in the path of others it was a fall sunset I stood still I was a light Jaden, 6th grade
Thank you to Two Writing Teachers for creating an amazing community of writers and a safe, welcoming space to write and share.
Every class we begin with notebook time. My students know to open their notebooks as soon as they walk in. I’ve started teaching some little ones, second graders, and it’s not so well established yet with them, but we’re trying. One thing that Brayden knows already is that on Mondays we write a Slice of Life. But first, we played Mad Lib Poetry, created by Taylor Mali, that I read about on this Poetry Friday post from Denise Krebs.
Brayden answered the prompt, “Name an object that represents your mother” with “butterflies.” This stayed with him, and he wrote his Slice of Life about his mother. “My mother is a butterfly. She is beautiful.”
With my different groups of students, I wrote the Mad Lib Poem 3 times. Here is one of my versions:
I was born in the year of Donny Osmond albums.
My mother was a grand piano and my father, a pointillist drawing.
Is it any wonder that I grew up to be an amazing cross between Alice in Wonderland and a great blue heron?
Take a worried look at me. I am weary and feeling old.
Is it any wonder that I still have nightmares about teaching a whole class of second grade boys?
On Friday with my 6th grade writers, we played three rounds of metaphor dice. This is a great game for this grade level. They grapple with the strange combinations and amaze themselves and me by what they write in 2 minutes. I think this is a great activity for critical and creative thinking.
I liked how this next poem came out as a little love poem.
My heart is a burning kiss, burning like the fire inside that makes bread rise, the heat that helps babies grow, the warmth that feeds the seed which is to say your tender kiss melts my heart into pure gold that withstands the test of time.
I’ve gotten woefully behind in reading a poetry book each day for #TheSealyChallenge, and that’s because school has started. My focus has shifted. So to create a post for today, I sat down with Late Father by Taylor Mali, a gift from Janet Fagel for the summer poem swap. I got lost in the poems that lead us through his life with candor, humor, and grief. Then I googled him and found his website and a link to his Facebook page where I watched a video…In other words, I took too long on this post.
I’ve heard from a few poets that giving the title some of the heavy lifting can be helpful in writing a poem. Irene Latham does this often in This Poem is A Nest. I noticed it in Elizabeth Acevedo’s verse novel The Poet X. (Title: “Another Thing You Think While You’re Kneeling on Rice That Has Nothing to Do with Repentance”) And here it is again in Taylor Mali’s book. Time to pay some attention to this craft move.
From Late Father by Taylor Mali
I’ve Already Worked too Long on this Post
Praise be the poet who, having written a poem every day this week, opens her docs and plops one into a blog post and calls it Poetry Friday.
She must know that I will read it again and again and call myself a faker. Berate the time I spent watching “Outer Banks” rather than writing this poem.
(I got this.)
She must know that poetry can be a playground with a swingset anchored for cloud viewing–even if now there’s rain– the memory of a vision is enough to build a poem on.
LaMiPoFri* by Margaret Simon
*Last minute poetry Friday form coined by Kat Apel.
Just as my school year started, I received my final Poem Swap gift and poem from Janet Fagel. It was all about Taylor Mali, the inventor of Metaphor Dice. She’s friends with him. (Swoon!) She sent me his book Late Father, which I added to my Sealy Challenge stack, and a signed print of his poem Undivided Attention. Janet’s poem for me came as a found/black out poem from this poem. I don’t know if it was intentional or not, but the poem arrived just in time for my 60th birthday.
Earlier in the summer I received a poem swap from Mary Lee Hahn. She made an oracle deck from my own words, phrases she had found in my poems. She color-coded the cards to show which was 5 syllables and 7 syllables. Then she created two poems from my words, a haiku and a doditsu (7-7-7-5). She encouraged me to make these with my students this year. Tucking it away until April when we’ve written lots of poems together from which to choose lines.
Haiku by Mary Lee with phrases from Margaret Simon
Dodoitsu by Mary Lee Hahn with phrases from Margaret Simon
Creating my own haiku from the oracle deck.
Both of these gifts come straight from the heart. This is the whole embodiment of this Summer Poem Swap, organized and led by Tabatha Yeatts. Thanks Janet, Mary Lee, and Tabatha. My hear is full!
I live on the Bayou Teche in New Iberia, Louisiana. I love teaching, poetry, my dog Charlie, my three daughters, and dancing with my husband. This space is where I capture my thoughts, share my insights, and make connections with the world. Welcome! Walk in kindness.
Reflections on the Teche 