Tomorrow, Irene will be hosting this week's Poetry Friday roundup over at Live Your Poem. Each Friday, all are invited to share poems, poem books, poetry ideas, and friendship in this open and welcoming poetry community.
Read, my friends...
xo,
Amy
Tomorrow, Irene will be hosting this week's Poetry Friday roundup over at Live Your Poem. Each Friday, all are invited to share poems, poem books, poetry ideas, and friendship in this open and welcoming poetry community.
Read, my friends...
xo,
Amy
One of the most meaningful, interesting, and important parts of being a writer, whether we share our writing or not, is deciding what to write about...choosing an idea. And sometimes we can fall into the trap of believing that we need to have a GOOD idea, an IMPORTANT idea, a SPECIAL idea. But we do not need this at all. We just need to begin writing.
We can begin by starting down one of many possible paths, but one of these paths is simply the path of observation. We look around. We look at one object. We write about this object. Now, you may be wondering, Just what might we write about any object? Well, we can write in any genre, and we might:
For me, the best part of writing is the surprise part. I like beginning NOT KNOWING what I will write, NOT having a great idea to begin, but rather, allowing an idea to show up on the page like a surprise guest.
As for my poem today, I was trying to think of a writing idea when I realized that I should water the garden. As I did so, I admired the sprinkler and so...the sprinkler became my main character of today.
This poem is short and it does not rhyme. However, it does use a lot of sound repetition, namely of the short i sound. The poem, including title, has 20 words, and 10 of them include the short i sound, my favorite sound in the English language.
I would love to read and share any poems you write from just looking around, choosing an object, and allowing the object to bring you to new places, thoughts, and wordplay.
Linda is hosting this week's Poetry Friday roundup over at Teacher Dance. Each Friday, all are invited to share poems, poem books, poetry ideas, and friendship in this open and welcoming poetry community.
xo,
Amy
ps - For those of you who, like me, are fans of English Professor and Musician Gart Westerhout, he is back with another song version of one of my poems, "Summer Mystery," from two weeks ago. Hear him sing that poem about my generous neighbors here.
Heidi is hosting this week's Poetry Friday roundup over at my juicy little universe with a celebration of looking closely at our world. Each Friday, all are invited to share poems, poem books, poetry ideas, and friendship in this open and welcoming poetry community.
xo,
Amy
ps - Claude has become quite cuddly in the mornings. He raises his paw into the air as if he is in school, and I must pick him up for a snuggle. This morning, he thought he'd keep my notebook warm as I typed.
Hello Friends!
If you are just back to school, welcome back to school! I wish you and your new teacher and new friends a joyful and meaningful year ahead, and I look forward to writing together and perhaps meeting some of you and reading your work.
You will notice that The Poem Farm has a new search feature. Thank you so much to Marisa Saelzler who helped me so perfectly with this. You may search by topic, poetic technique, or type of poem. To learn more about this, click the FIND A POEM tab above.
Students - Today's poem is about a small, surprise event that happened just this week at The Poem Farm. I went to get my mail from the big blue mailbox, and the small newspaper box next to it held one big tomato, two small cherry tomatoes, and a few flowers. It seemed they may have been left the day before, and the whole scene in my newspaper box made me so happy. Right away I knew that I would write about the generosity of this mystery-giver.
As you write this week, you might wish to look out for kindnesses - surprise or not - or to remember past kindnesses you have given or received. Somehow just thinking and writing about such memories makes our todays better.
One thing you may notice about this poem is that I repeat a lot of words. This repetetion just seemed to happen on its own at first, but then, I so enjoyed the feeling of the poem's words rolling over on themselves that I just kept at it, repeating words on purpose. Which repeated words do you find?
If you want to try this with your own writing, just begin writing with an ear for repetition. You might begin a line with the last word of the line before. You might repeat a whole line or thread up words from earlier in your poem. There are many ways to repeat, and repetition adds a song-like quality to your poem.
September 19, 2024 Update - My talented friend, English Professor and Musican Gart Westerhout is once again back with a song version of a poem. Please enjoy "Summer Mystery," sung by Gart. Thank you, friend!
Buffy is hosting this week's Poetry Friday roundup over at Buffy Silverman with an early book celebration for her forthcoming beautiful STARLIGHT SYMPHONY and a poem about a walking stick. Each Friday, all are invited to share poems, poem books, poetry ideas, and friendship in this open and welcoming poetry community.
Happy Septembering!
xo,
Amy
ps - Yes...I did find out who the mystery tomato-giver was. It was two wonderful girls who live on our road...so many thank yous to them. The tomatoes were deee-licious!
Students - Today's small free verse poem grew from a real experience that I had this week, one that I keep thinking about. I simply wished to hold onto this bittersweet memory (so sad, but so many people stepped in to help) by shaping the minutes and hours of that day into a poem to keep. I realize now that it is a bit of an advice poem, offering advice to myself and possibly to readers.
Consider paying close attention to your own life this week, to the small lessons you learn when you listen to your heart. Where have you been? What have you seen and heard? How have you grown? How might you shape this all into a memory or memory-and-advice poem for yourself or others?
Feel free to use the words You might....
Our lives and stories matter. When we write about them, we learn. And once in a while, we may even teach without even knowing it.
As you may remember, a few weeks ago I had the good fortune to write color poems with the third graders of Greenacres Elementary School Greenacres Elementary School in Scarsdale, NY. We are lucky that Teacher Amy Correnti and her students are generously sharing their crayon color poems with us today. Enjoy these poems, noticing how one hue can bring a person to a character, to a moment, to life!
Thank you, Poets, for sharing with us today. I know that many of us will look for colors and see them in new ways this week thanks to you.
Denise is hosting this week's Poetry Friday roundup over at Dare to Care with a sacred seven poem and information about some upcoming poetry happenings. Each Friday, all are invited to share poems, poem books, poetry ideas, and friendship in this open and welcoming poetry community.
Michelle Kogan is hosting this week's Poetry Friday roundup over at Michelle Kogan along with a celebration of poems by poets with May birthdays...including herself. Happy birthday, Michelle! Each Friday, all are invited to share poems, poem books, poetry ideas, and friendship in this open and welcoming poetry community.
Thank you, Adela! Thank you, Greenacres! Thank you, Greenacres second grader who suggested a wonderful idea for a future poem! Thank you, Michelle! Friends, may you be found by ideas!
xo,
Amy
ps - Guess what I found on Thursday morning on the hotel sidewalk? Cerulean.
Linda is hosting this week's Poetry Friday roundup over at A Word Edgewise with her generous clunker exchange. Each Friday, all are invited to share poems, poem books, poetry ideas, and friendship in this open and welcoming poetry community.
I encourage you to write in your own notebook for 5-10 minutes a day, perhaps at the same time every day. You do not need to know what you will write about before you begin. Simply begin, and as the days go by, you will find that you notice more and more in this inspiring world.
Next week I look forward to a week-long writing residency at Greenacres School in Scarsdale, NY. I have not been there since before COVID, and it will be wonderful to see everyone again!
xo,
Amy