Sunday, April 2, 2017

Writing the Rainbow Poem #2 - Lavender


Welcome to my National Poetry Month project for 2017!  Students - Each day of April 2017, I will close my eyes, and I will reach into my box of 64 Crayola crayons.

Aerial View of Crayola Box
Photo by Georgia LV

Each day I will choose a crayon (without looking), pulling this crayon out of the box. This daily selected crayon will in some way inspire the poem for the next day.  Each day of this month, I will choose a new crayon, thinking and writing about one color every day for a total of 30 poems inspired by colors.

I welcome any classrooms of poets who wish to share class poems (class poems only please) related to each day's color (the one I choose or your own).  Please post your class poem or photograph of any class crayon poem goodness to our Writing the Rainbow Padlet HERE.  (If you have never posted on a Padlet, it is very easy.  Just double click on the red background, and a box will appear.  Write in this box, and upload any poemcrayon sharings you wish.)

Here is a list of this month's Writing the Rainbow Poems so far:


And now...today's crayon.  Lavender!

Lavender Sky
by Amy LV




Students - I did not know where to begin with Lavender. I do grow lavender in my garden and adore it for its beautiful silvery leaves and sturdy useful purple blossoms (you can even mix the buds in sugar to make lavender sugar).  But somehow that idea didn't feel right.  For me, writing a poem is all about finding the "hidden door" that leads the way in.

Crayola's version of lavender is not the way I imagine lavender.  I see it more like this:

How Amy Imagines Lavender

But, I was not going to get my color-seeing differences get in the way of writing a poem.  So, I made a list in my notebook. And this list led me to lavender sky.

Lavender Notebook List
Photo by Amy LV

One thing I always think about when writing a poem is line breaks.  My first draft of this poem had more line breaks than the version you read above.  It looked like this:


Somehow, this felt too long to me.  And too choppy.  So I tried combining pairs of lines together, and I found that I liked rhyming every end word.  It felt like fun.  Try this with one of your poems.  Keep the words the same...and just switch up the line breaks.  Then, talk with a friend about what you both notice and think about the different versions.  I'd be interested in hearing what you discover.

If you are Writing the Rainbow with me, you might choose to connect the color you choose today to something you do - or something an imagined character does - on a regular basis...or not.  Colors can take us anywhere.  And if you'd like to join in with Lavender, please do!  Here's our WRITING THE RAINBOW PADLET.

Don't miss the links to all kinds of Poetry Month goodness up there in my upper left sidebar.  Happy second day of National Poetry Month.  What is outside YOUR window?

Please share a comment below if you wish.

9 comments:

  1. When I saw the crayon color "lavender", my mind imagined a few other things, but not sky! What a nice surprise. We have them too, and I love that you had a child speak to all she was seeing against that beautiful sky. Fun to surprise!

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  2. i have seen a lavender sky a few times... it's magnificent! Yay for the padlet! xo

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  3. Thanks for sharing your process notes for "Each Morning." Definitely the shorter lines are the keeper version. I'm sitting in an airport on a layover... reading your post and I am delighted with the lighthearted, playful, imaginative mood you have teased me into, right down to your "Goodbye."

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  4. I love the rhythm of your lavender poem and the stream-of-consciousness feel, which I'm sure was not as easy as it appears. Surprising yet satisfying ending, too!

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  5. Here's another vote of appreciation for your process notes and two versions to compare side by side.

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  6. A fun poetry theme for April. You're so creative, Amy.

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  7. I love this idea, Amy. I am going to share it with my students and invite them to "Pick A Crayon, Write a Poem"!

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  8. Loved peeking inside your notebook at your brainstormed list. So glad that lavender sky made it into your poem.

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  9. Amy, I enjoyed reading through your process to get to the final version of your poem for #NPM17. The rhythm of the poem allowed my mind to float into a lavender-variegated sky.

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