18 - Poems Can Repeat the Beginning Sounds of Words (Alliteration)

Welcome to my 2020 National Poetry Month Project
See My Last 10 Poetry Projects HERE

Each day of April 2020, I will share three things:

• A dice roll of three word dice
• A video explaining one poetic technique titled POEMS CAN... You can also find these at Sharing Our Notebooks as part of my ongoing Keeping a Notebook project
• A poem inspired by one or more of the dice words and the technique

Here are All of This Month's Poems:

10 Years of National Poetry Month History at The Poem Farm

April 1 - Poems Can Go Down the Page

April 2 - Poems Can Play With Space
April 3 - Poems Can Tell a Story
April 4 - Poems Can Compare Two Things

April 5 - Poems Can Borrow a Pattern from the World
April 6 - Poems Can Define a Word
April 7 - Poems Can Rhyme
April 8 - Poems Can Not Rhyme
April 9 - Poems Can be Written in Stanzas
April 10 - Poems Can Ask Questions
April 11 - Poems Can Be Circles
April 12 - Poems Can Be Songs
April 13 - Poems Can List
April 14 - Poems Can Repeat Words and Lines
April 15 - Poems Can Spell a Word with the First Letters of Lines
April 16 - Poems Can Give Nonhuman Qualities to Humans
April 17 - Poems Can Include Sound Words (Onomatopoeia)

And now, for today's words! 

Day 18 Words

Photo by Amy LV

Thank you to Heinemann for giving away a copy of my book POEMS ARE TEACHERS: HOW STUDYING POETRY STRENGTHENS WRITING IN ALL GENRES each week of April. I will draw names from the previous week each Thursday evening at 11:59pm, and I will announce a winner each Friday. Please leave a way to contact you in your comment as if I cannot contact you easily, I will choose a different name. This week's winner is named atop the post.

If you would like to learn more about other National Poetry Month projects happening throughout the Kidlitosphere, Jama has rounded up many NPM happenings over at Jama's Alphabet Soup.  Happy National Poetry Month 2020.

xo,
Amy

Let's Ride Bikes!

Photo by Amy LV

Please share a comment below if you wish.day 

If you are under 13 years old, please comment only with a parent 

or as part of a group with your teacher and class.

Curled Kitten & a Poetry Peek with Emily

 

 

Students - Today's verse is about our new kitten, Fiona.  I saw her curled up on Georgia's blanket, and I loved the sound of "kitten" and "camouflage" together.  The rest of the poem just grew around those sounds.  It is fun for me to read.

Can you find other similar sounds in the poem?  

Look for consonants that repeat near each other.  This is called consonance. 

Look for vowels that repeat near each other. This is called assonance.

Alliteration is when sounds at the beginnings of words repeat near each other.

When you write a poem, experiment with the sounds at the starts of words and also the vowels inside of words.  Rhyme is not the only way to play with sound.  

Is there a daily image you love?  If so, do not miss a chance to write about it.  I love seeing Fiona curled all around the house, and now I can read this poem to her as she sleeps.

Today I am honored to welcome Emily, a fourth grade poet from Louisana.  Margaret Simon from Reflections on the Teche, is one of Emily's teachers, and I am thankful to share her poem today at The Poem Farm.  It is an acrostic, but it is so well written that you might not even realize this if we didn't tell you.

I asked Emily if she would be willing to share how she writes.  She replied...

My tips for writing a good poem would be the following:

• You do not want to write a "lazy" poem. 
• Think about descriptive words that other people would be able to imagine.
•  Try to use metaphors that are related to your subject.

I don't really know how I do it; I just love to write.  I want to be a poet.

Emily is a poet already, and I very much hope to have the opportunity to read more of her work.  Students - I recommend trying one of these writing tips when you write.  What do you think Emily means when she refers to a "lazy" poem? 

Much gratitude to both Emily and Margaret for this Poetry Peek today.  

This week's Poetry Friday roundup is over at Today's Little Ditty with Michelle.  Head on over for some new poems and to visit with some new and old friends too. 

Please share a comment below if you wish.

Paper Airplane - Flying with Alliteration

Paper Airplane on Snow

Photo by Amy LV

Click the arrow to hear me read this poem to you.

Students - Where did this poem come from?  I am not the person to ask. Honestly, I don't know.  I sat down to write, and it was there.  I mostly enjoyed playing with the sounds on this one: twirled/trees, sigh/softly, lying/lines.  There are many ways to play with sound in writing, and you can may have noticed how many times I repeated initial consonants within these lines.  This technique is called alliteration, and if you read closely, you can find two more places where I used it!

Today I am happy to tell you about a new poetry teaching resource (mentioned once before here) by poets and teachers Sara Holbrook and Michael Salinger.  Well known and loved educators Sara and Michael offer us poems by a variety of poets as well as direct lessons in many poetic techniques. With the poems all ready to go, and slides illustrating each technique, this book/DVD set is not only smart and fun; it's rich and full too.

Available through Corwin

I asked Michael to tell me a bit about why they organized this set as they did. Michael said,

This new resource is the result of a couple things. Sara and I are often asked for our PowerPoints after we present at teacher conferences or PD events. We always respectfully declined, because the slides would lack context – we use our graphics as mnemonic devices but without the accompanying explanation they just wouldn’t do the job. So we knew people liked our illustrative approach and thought it was fun. This new resource is a way for us to put together 20 lessons as slide presentations with all the teaching points included.

Secondly, we have lately been doing more work with content area teachers outside of the language arts classroom. More and more we are finding that STEM teachers are being asked to include literacy instruction in their lessons. We think these presentations and the accompanying teaching suggestions will be a nice little tool for teachers in all content areas.

We’re really excited to be able to offer this resource and we are thrilled that Corwin recognized the value of presenting these 20 literacy lessons as projectable heads up learning opportunities.

So, there you have it!  A way to invite the spirit and knowledge of Sara and Michael into your classroom...and incorporate technology too.

Lee Ann Spillane has opened the pages of her inspiring notebooks this month over at Sharing Our Notebooks.  Head on over for the illustrations, ideas on beautiful annotation, and true notebook love.  (A giveaway too!)

Today Keri is hosting today's Poetry Friday fiesta at Keri Recommends.  Visit her place to read the poetry offerings and to wish her a Happy Birthday!

Please share a comment below if you wish.

Cat's Cradle - Art for Two

Two Artists

by Amy LV

Students - Don't you love spiderwebs?  I know, they make a mess and sometimes we have to clean them up (my husband was vacuuming a bunch of them yesterday), but none of us can deny that they are amazing.  Every once in a while, I find myself pondering the beauty that such a tiny creature can spin.

Today's poem is full of a poetic technique that I am thinking about lately.  It is called alliteration, and you can see it in line four where I use the 'n' sound in two words - 'nimble' and 'neat.'  Alliteration is when a writer repeats the same beginning sound over and over again.  Can you find any other places where I have used alliteration?  Sometimes the alliterative words do not come to me upon a first draft; they come through revision.

You can see the process of writing today's poem below.  I wrote most of it last night as I lay half-asleep on the couch.  Sometimes a sleepy state lets my creative side speak up more loudly.

Draft of "Cat's Cradle"

Later, I brought myself up to bed.  In the middle of the night, I got up for a drink of water, and on my way back to bed...I thought of a good rhythm for the last line.  This is what I wrote into my notebook in the dark of night, hoping I would be able to read it in the morning. Fortunately I could read it!

Always have a notebook by your bedside. I was just given this wonderful new notebook by my wonderful teacher colleagues and friends in the Webster Central School District. Today's poem is the first poem I've written in its new pages!

Please share a comment below if you wish.

To find a poem by topic, click here. To find a poem by technique, click here.

Like The Poem Farm on Facebook for more poems, articles, and poemquotes!

Snipping Snowflakes

Hope's Window
Photo by Amy LV

Students - Snipping paper snowflakes is one of the simple pleasures of life!  If you live in a snowy place, it is a way to bring snow inside.  If you live in a place with no snow, it is an easy way to create some.  Last week, when my daughter Hope was sick, she cut lots and lots of snowflakes out of red, green, and white paper.  You can see some of them above, in our living room windows.

If you're interested in knowing how I snipped this poem out, take a peek into my notebook below.  You'll see that I first started writing about fog and clouds and my notes turned to something I saw last night, raindrops on a twig.  Then, looking at the window, I began writing about Hope and her snipping...

Click to enlarge image.

...and then I began poem-ing!  One thing that helped me write today was something I did last night.  Before bed, I read aloud many many poems from J. Patrick Lewis's new IF YOU WERE A CHOCOLATE MUSTACHE.  Falling asleep with the rhythms of our Children's Poet Laureate in my head was a wonderful thing to do, and it is something I highly recommend.  Read ALOUD the work you admire, and those rhythms will sink into you.

Click to enlarge image.

If you have ever wondered about snowflakes all being different from each other, visit Wonderopolis to read all about the chances of that happening.

To learn about how to make paper snowflakes, visit Martha Stewart or High Hopes.

Over at Design Sponge, you can read a great tutorial about making doily snowflake garlands.

And at Spoonful, you can find a recipe for sweet tortilla snowflakes.  We will make these today!

There may be no snow in Holland, NY right now...but we can make our own!

Available through Amazon

I am so happy to have Mary Lee Hahn as a guest over at Sharing Our Notebooks this week.  If you have not yet visited her notebook, please don't miss it!

And for those of you who knew that I was away for a bit, I am now back to posting on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays.  It is good to be home!

Please share a comment below if you wish.

To find a poem by topic, click here. To find a poem by technique, click here.

Like The Poem Farm on Facebook for more poems, articles, and poemquotes!

Indian Summer - Celebrating Weather

summerintofallintowinter

October 25, 2012

Photo by Amy LV

 

Click the arrow to hear me read this poem to you.

Students - Yesterday was the most magnificent day here in Western New York. It was an Indian Summer day, a wondrous day reminding us of summer's joys before we turn to the beauty of winter.  Sitting outside in  one of our family's fold-up chairs, my hand and pen turned to weather, and I knew that this poem would try to save a snip of sun and warmth for chilly days.

This is a free verse poem, a poem with no regular rhyme or meter.  Still, though, when I write free verse poems, I take care with each word.  See if you can find any words with the same beginning sounds near each other.  Then see if you can find any repeated words.  Any rhymes?  My favorite part of this poem is the idea of pretending that Fall is a dancing girl...with two competing partners.  That idea makes me smile, and I like watching the play of it in my mind.

The most important to do when writing poems like this one is to read them over and over.  Aloud.  Hearing how each word tumbles gently or bashes into the next helps me know when to make changes.

Many poems celebrate weather.  Weather is a special kind of mirror for each day, determining what we do and sometimes even how we feel.  Pay attention to weather where you live, maybe even writing notebook entries or drawing sketches of weather observations.  Then, mind and heart full of sun and wind and blowing rain and snow...shine some words onto your page.

For the past two weeks, Nina Crittenden has been Sharing Our Notebooks, and today I am happy to announce that Tara at A Teaching Life has won Nina's generous book and notebook giveaway.  Tara, please send me an e-mail with your snail mail address, and I will pass it along to Nina.  Thank you again, Nina!

Linda over at TeacherDance is hosting today's Poetry Friday extravaganza. Visit Linda's extremely warm and generous blog to read all about what's happening on this Poetry Friday.

Please share a comment below if you wish.

To find a poem by topic, click here. To find a poem by technique, click here.

Like The Poem Farm on Facebook for more poems, articles, and poemquotes!

Uh. Uh. Uh. Alliteration!

Consonant Parade

by Amy LV

Alliteration

Alliteration is the repetition of sounds at the beginnings of words or in stressed syllables.  Tongue twisters are alliteration on a wild day, with many many sounds repeating themselves...so much so that they are difficult to say!

Students - One way I often revise my poems is to ask, "Is there a place where I might sneak in a wee bit of alliteration?  Is there a word I could change to have two sounds near each other?"

For example, in "Soap Hope," line nine could have read I place the sliver.  But I slide the sliver sounds more slidy, more soapy, more fun! 

Try looking at one of your poems searching synonym substitutes.  Add the art of alliteration to a line!

 

from July 2010

from July 2011

from November 2011

from May 2011

Throughout this month, I have been posting daily poetry lessons and revisits of last year's poems from here at The Poem Farm.   This will continue during the whole of National Poetry Month, and you can see the previous posts below.

This Month's Poetry Revisits and Lessons So Far

April 1 -   Poems about Poems

April 2 -   Imagery

April 3 -   Poems about Animals We Know

April 4 -   Line Breaks and White Space

April 5 -   Poems from Everyday Life

April 6 -   Free Verse

April 7 -   Poems from Wonders & Questions

April 8 -   Classroom Poetry Peek & Circular Poems 

April 9 -   Poems about Science

April 10 - Rhyming Couplets  

April 11 -  Riddle Poems 

April 12 -  List Poems 

April 13 -  Poems for Occasions

April 14 -  Concrete Poems

April 15 -  Poems about Food

April 16 -  Quatrains

April 17 -  Poems about the Seasons

April 18 -  Today - Alliteration

How much wood would a woodchuck chuck?

(Please click on POST A COMMENT below to share a thought.)

First Autumnwinter Snow - Poem #223

First Dusting - November 6, 2010

Photo by Amy LV

Poem Drafts for "Overnight"

by Amy LV

It snowed here yesterday!  Our family woke to fristyfrost on the grass and powdered sugar on the rooftops.  Henry and Georgia went out and danced, and Henry threw the first snowball of this season.  A tiny one, right at our front door!  All was melted and gone within a few hours, but we know it will be back soon...for good.

Students - If you look above, you can see the handwritten drafts for today's poem.  We were on a long car trip yesterday, and I scribbled as Mark drove (much safer than scribbling as I drove!)  "Overnight" began as a one stanza poem, but as I read it over and over again, I realized that it needed something more.  You might have noticed that the last two lines of the first stanza are the same as the first two lines of the second stanza.  Why?  I just liked them and wanted to say them over again.  Reading and rereading, I still liked hearing them next to each other.  I feel like they give the poem a kind of marveling feeling, just like we had when we awoke one day ago.

After writing this poem, I dug back in to play with the sounds, to see if I could play with alliteration, or repeating of initial sounds.  For example, the third line originally read, "snuggled in the pines", but it now reads "snuggled in spruces".  "In darkness as I dreamed" (line 5) was originally "in the dark as I slept". 

Teachers - if your students have written a whole lot of poems, you might challenge them to dip in again and play with the words of one or two lines, examining each word closely and asking, "Might I choose a different word, a word with sounds to match the beginning sounds I have already used?"

You might also notice all kinds of little jottings on the side of this poem.  That's a habit - jottings and alphabets and numbers and word lists.  Everywhere.

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My Poem Writing Year - Soap Hope - #110

This is a pet peeve poem!  Whenever I find only a sliver of soap in the shower, part of me loves its thinness, and part of me longs for a fresh new bar.  What is better than a new bar of IVORY with the words still etched deep?

Students - what drives you crazy?  Keep on the lookout for those tiny daily things that make you say, "Oh darn!" and then write.

(Please click on COMMENTS below to share a thought.)