listen - day 9

   

As I strive to become a better listener and to connect more with my sense of hearing, National Poetry Month 2026 finds me writing daily, handwritten, index card poems inspired by sounds and listening.. I have begun a new notebook to collect the sounds I notice throughout the month, and I will reflect on them in short poems. My ears - and my heart - are open wide. 

 

I invite you to join me in this project, on any of my projects from the past 16 years, or on a project of your very own. To do so, simply write a poem each day of April in any way you wish. Share or don't share, as you wish. Your poems are your poems. Your projects are your projects. And if you wish learn a bit more about writing poetry, I welcome you to the short lessons in the tab above: COAXING POEMS VIDEOS - 2024.

 

National Poetry Month 2026 Poems 

April 1 - listening, listening

April 2 - clicking kitty

April 3 - spring morning 

April 4 - tea

April 5 - team

April 6 - from far away 

April 7 - on a day of April snows 

April 8 - breakfast

 

Here is poem 9 - 

 

 

Students - Because this month's poems are very short (index card sized), each word must carry its own weight. After photographing today's, I changed the word sound to the word whirr, and at least for now, I think it works better. I really don't want to use the word sound or listen in a month of sound and listening poems. Remember that you can always change a poem even AFTER you thought it was finished. 

  

This is my first poem of the month that addresses another. Such a poem is called an apostrophe poem or a poem of address. So far no other people or human voices have entered the poems. I wonder if they will.

 

To learn about many of the wonderful National Poetry Month projects happening online this April, visit the generous Jama Rattigan at Jama's Alphabet Soup. 

I wish you the joy of revision today!

xo,

a. 

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Write a Love Song to Something

A Spring Joy

Photo by Amy LV

Students - There are so many things to love in the world! Today I love my little packets of seeds. I find it quite incredible that each one of the little seeds will grow into a big flower that can attract bees and butterflies, grow its own seeds, and inspire humans to paint and love it.

We spend a lot of time on computers and other devices these days, and today I encourage your writing selves to fall in love with not-digital things. You, too, may wish to write a love poem to one of the objects or beings you love. Maybe a plant. Maybe an animal. Maybe an art supply. Maybe a cloud. Only you can know and decide.

As writers, our interests beyond writing give us ideas and a reason to love life. And so now, I am turning off my computer and phone and heading out into the rain.

Michelle is hosting this week's Poetry Friday roundup over at More Art for All with a beautiful original painting titled Red-winged Blackbird at Montrose Point along with two poems inspired by it. Each Friday, all are invited to share poems, poem books, poetry ideas, and friendship in this open and welcoming poetry community.

xo,

Amy

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HELLO MY NAME IS - Day 2

 Happy National Poetry Month!

(Feel free to search for poems in the sidebar or watch videos in the tab above.)

Hello, Poetry Friends! This month I am sharing poems written in the voice of Little Red Riding Hood, and I invite you to join me in writing in the voice of someone else too. You might choose a fairy tale character or a book character or a person from history or anyone else real or imagined. These are your poems, so you make the decisions. Each April day, I will share my poem and a little bit about writing poetry. Mostly, we’ll just be writing in short lines with good words and not worrying about rhyming. Meaning first. Our focus this month will be adopting the perspective of another…for 30 days. I invite you to join me in this project! To do so, simply:

1. Choose a character from fiction or history or somewhere else in the world of space and time, and commit to writing a daily poem in this person's voice for the 30 days of April 2025. You might even choose an animal.

2. Write a new poem for each day of April. Feel free to print and find inspiration from this idea sheet that I will be writing from all month long.

Teachers, if you wish to share any HELLO MY NAME IS... subjects or poems, please email them to me at the contact button above. I would love to read what your students write and learn from how they approach their own projects.

LITTLE RED RIDING HOOD'S POEMS SO FAR

April 1 - First Poem

And now for today!

Students - Today as LRRH, I chose to play with repetition. And too, I decided to share Little Red's real name. As I am pretending to be Lou, I am thinking about how she might choose to start her own new poetry collection, and sharing her real name felt right. I did think hard about her name as I wanted it to mean something. I looked up words that mean all kinds of things and decided on Warrior Wolf Woods because these three words make me easily think of LRRH (Lou).

Do feel free to use the grid as I am doing...in the same order, or in a different order, or not at all! Each of us are the experts on our own writing, so I encourage you to play and have fun pretending, just as I am.

Thank you for joining me for Day 2 of HELLO MY NAME IS...

To learn about more National Poetry Month projects and all kinds of April goodness, visit Jama's Alphabet Soup where Jama has generously gathered this coming month's Kidlitosphere poetry happenings. And if you are interested in learning about or writing from any of my previous 14 National Poetry Month projects, you can find them here. Happy National Poetry Month!

xo,

Amy

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If you are under 13 years old, please only comment 

with a parent or as part of a group with your teacher.

HELLO MY NAME IS - Day 1

 Happy National Poetry Month!

(Feel free to search for poems in the sidebar or watch videos in the tab above.)

Hello, Poetry Friends! This month I am sharing poems written in the voice of Little Red Riding Hood, and I invite you to join me in writing in the voice of someone else too. You might choose a fairy tale character or a book character or a person from history or anyone else real or imagined. These are your poems, so you make the decisions. Each April day, I will share my poem and a little bit about writing poetry. Mostly, we’ll just be writing in short lines with good words and not worrying about rhyming. Meaning first. Our focus this month will be adopting the perspective of another…for 30 days. I invite you to join me in this project! To do so, simply:

1. Choose a character from fiction or history or somewhere else in the world of space and time, and commit to writing a daily poem in this person's voice for the 30 days of April 2025. You might even choose an animal.

2. Write a new poem for each day of April. Feel free to print and find inspiration from this idea sheet that I will be writing from all month long.

Teachers, if you wish to share any HELLO MY NAME IS... subjects or poems, please email them to me at the contact button above. I would love to read what your students write and learn from how they approach their own projects.

And now for my first poem as Little Red Riding Hood.

Students - For most days of this month, I will be using the idea grid referred to above. Today I chose to write about why Little Red Riding Hood might choose to write at all. It is interesting to consider why any of us write, and so we'll let LRRH start her own poetry notebook with thinking about herself as a writer. Many of us are inspired by friends, and she is too.

Today's poem is written in nonrhyming couplets (two lines), and you'll notice that the second line of each is a little aside, a bit of extra information (in parentheses). I could delete these lines and the poem would still make sense, but LRRH has a few extra things to say.

Thank you for joining me on this first day of HELLO MY NAME IS...

To learn about more National Poetry Month projects and all kinds of April goodness, visit Jama's Alphabet Soup where Jama has generously gathered this coming month's Kidlitosphere poetry happenings. And if you are interested in learning about or writing from any of my previous 14 National Poetry Month projects, you can find them here. Happy National Poetry Month!

xo,

Amy

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A Thank You To...

Bookshelf at Home

Photo by Amy LV

Students - This week has been Banned Books Week, and so I decided to write a poem for the greatest champions of books...librarians. When librarians stand up for books, they stand up for you and for me and for all of the ideas we share and for all of the ideas we do not share. Librarians stand up for thought and for freedom. All of my gratitude to them. Librarians are the lifeguards of thought.

To whom are you grateful? This may be one person or it may a whole group of people who do a particular job or who share a characteristic. Thank you notes can be personal and given to one person or general and written for all to read such as mine today. If you write a thank you poem, you may choose to write your poem in your own voice...or you may choose to write it in the voice of another as I did today. Your voice need not even be human! Feel free to title it as I did..."A Thank You to..."

I look forward to Saturday when I will have the good fortune to learn the educators of The Literacy Connection, a professional organization in Ohio. We will be reading and writing poems together, discovering the many ways that poems can teach us about writing and life as we dig into my book POEMS ARE TEACHERS and the poems of so many. 

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

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29 - Poems Can Address - Speak To - Someone or Something (Apostrophe)

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)
April 18 - Poems Can Repeat the Beginning Sounds of Words
April 19 - Poems Can Describe a Person, Place, Thing, or Idea
April 20 - Poems Can Emphasize a Word with a One-Word Line
April 21 - Poems Can Give Advice
April 22 - Poems Can Be Written in the Voice of Another
April 23 - Poems Can Borrow a Writing Structure or Format
April 24 - Poems Can Slow Down Toward the End
April 25 - Poems Can Play with Words
April 26 - Poems Can Compare and Contrast
April 27 - Poems Can Include Facts
April 28 - Poems Can Answer "What If..."

And now, for today's words! 

Day 29 Words

Photo by Amy LV

The lessons from this month can mostly all be found in my book POEMS ARE TEACHERS: HOW STUDYING POETRY STRENGTHENS WRITING IN ALL GENRES. This book includes poems by over 50 contemporary poets and over 100 students between grades 2 and 8 along with my thoughts and book and resource suggestions.

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

Antoinette Calls Out Her Window!

Photo by Amy LV

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Dear Reader, - Poems of Address

Open Notebook

Photo by Amy LV

Students - Today's poem is known as a poem of address or an apostrophe poem.  In such a poem, the writer writes to a person, thing or idea not actually in the room.  It is interesting to write this kind of poem because it allows us to talk to objects like the cookie we wish to compliment or the spelling word that keeps tripping us up.  We can even write poems to the idea of Peace or Worry or if we wish, to a person who died long ago.

I have been a writing teacher for many years and since I am a writer too, I think a lot about the kind of response that helps me, the kind of listening and advice I wish for and hope to offer the writers I meet.  So this poem is to all of the readers-of-writing, mine and others'.

Erin is hosting this week's Poetry Friday roundup at The Water's Edge with a Where I'm From poem. Each week we gather together, sharing poems, books, and poetry ideas all at one blog.  All are always welcome to visit, comment, and post.

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Hello & A Poetry Peek from Missouri

My New Notebook
Photo by Amy LV

Students - This week I filled up the last pages of my notebook and bought a new notebook, the one you see above.  I am excited when I complete a notebook, but I also feel a little bit sad to say goodbye. (I feel this way about novels too!)

I wrote today's poem as a poem of address, or a poem written TO something else.  Sometimes it is interesting to pretend that another person or animal or object is listening to you...and to write directly TO it. This poem sounds like I really do talk, except for the rhyme part, and it is something I often think about.  Each time I begin a new notebook, it feels strange to enter this new paper room, to write on these new paper walls.  I do get comfy in a new notebook after a while.  It takes a few pages of writing in a notebook before I feel at home.

If you don't know what to write about, consider writing TO a person or animal or object.  Or think about a feeling related to your own writing life.  Or perhaps, make a list of many different events in life (riding your bike, having a haircut, playing with a dog) and the feelings that go with these events.  Approach a topic from a feeling place...and off you go!

Today I could not be happier to welcome co-teachers Emily Callahan and Nicole Johnson and their 44 second grade poets from Crossroads Academy Quality Hill Academy in Kansas City, Missouri.  Some of you might remember Emily Callahan from when she was a fourth grade teacher at a different school.  Back in 2016, she and her students taught us all about Popcorn and Poetry, which has caught on in many new places. 

How lucky we are to have these poet guests! Enjoy every moment.

If you wish to learn about this class's poetry journey through slides, do so here.

Or if you'd rather learn by watching a five minute movie, you may do so here.

Click the Box to Enlarge


Enjoy a peek at this thoughtful class poetry anthology...fingerprints on the cover!

Second Grade Poetry Anthology - Read HERE
Book by Second Graders of Crossroads Academy Quality Hill


Do not miss this chance to read this book by three authors.  What a challenge!

 IT'S ALL GREEK TO US - Read HERE
Book by Authors Jude, Christian, and Matthew


Watch Ben's movie book to learn about cats and 20 ways to approach a topic.
(Thank you, Ben, for your generous dedication!)

Wow!  I am very grateful to these students for their posts here today.  Thank you, writers and teachers!

If you did not have a chance to read last week's beautiful fourth grade poems, shared by teachers Lauren Coffey and Patricia Nesbitt of McNeill Elementary in Bowling Green, Kentucky, please be sure to head on over and dive in. We are fortunate to have so many gorgeous words to wallow in...and teachers, I invite your class to share in this space too.

Deep gratitude to all of the generous sixth grade bloggers from Michelle Haseltine's class of Brambleton Middle School in Loundon County, Virginia.  For the whole month of May, they took OVER my other blog, Sharing Our Notebooks, filling each day with pictures, ideas, and endless enthusiasm and fun.You can visit over there to find all kinds of ideas for your own summer notebooking.  What a blast!  I'm currently seeking blog takeover classes for the 2018-2019 school year. Teachers, if you're interested, please let me know.

Buffy is hosting this week's Poetry Friday roundup at Buffy's Blog where you will find a cool seed storm!  Each week we gather together, sharing poems, books, and poetry ideas all at one blog.  All are always welcome to visit, comment, and post.

Please share a comment below if you wish.

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

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