Look Around & Choose an Object

Garden Watering Time

Video by Amy LV

Hello Friends! First I would like to thank the community of Ripley Central School (Grades K-6), in New York State, for spending Wednesday with me. It was such a treat to begin these autumn days with thoughtful writers and teachers. I look forward to our future time together, and today's poem came from something I shared in our upper grade assemblies.

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:

• Describe the object with our senses
• Compare the object with something else in the world
• Tell about a personal memory related to this object
• Teach something about this object
• Share beliefs connected to this object
• List words this object brings to our minds and write from these
• Invent the beginning of a story inspired by this object
• Begin a poem about this object

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.

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If you are under 13 years old, please only comment 

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ONE LINE CROW - Day 1

Happy National Poetry Month!

(For new poetry writing videos, see the COAXING POEMS tab above.

 

This month I am studying crows, sharing a new crow poem each day of April. The number of lines in each poem will correspond to the date, with a 1-line poem on April 1...and a 30-line poem on April 30. If you'd like to play along, simply choose a topic that you'd like to explore for 30 days. It might be a subject that you already know a lot about or perhaps you'll explore something new.

I invite you to join me in this project! 

To do so, simply:

1. Choose a subject that you would like to stick with for 30 days. You might choose something you know lots about...or like me, you might choose something you will read and learn about throughout April.

3. Write a new poem for each day of April 2024, corresponding the number of lines in your poem to the date. For example, the poem for April 1 will have 1 line. The poem for April 14 will have 14 lines. The poem for April 30 will have 30 lines. OR....invent your own idea! And if you start later in April, just play around however you wish.

4. Teachers and writers, if you wish to share any ONE MORE LINE... subjects or poems, please email them to me or tag me @amylvpoemfarm. I would love to see what your students write and to know that we are growing these lines...and our understandings of different subjects...together.

One Line Crow

Photo by Amy LV

Students - Today's poem, only one line long, relies on two techniques:

1. The title adds more information to the scene.

2. I used a lot of alliteration, speficically assonance - the repetition of vowel sounds - to hold it together.

The facts I found to help me were: crows nest in pines (and lots of other places), crows lay clutches of 3-9 eggs, crows' eggs are spotted. They are also blue-green in color, but I did not include this fact in the poem.

I am keeping a new notebook for this project, and from time to time, I will share some notes or a draft with you. You can see that on the left of each page, I am recording crow facts from books, websites, and videos. On the right, I am writing the drafts of poem lines. Today I was a tiny bit surprised to learn that a one line poem was more difficult for me to write than a many-lined poem. 

April 1 Drafting

Photo by Amy LV

Thank you for joining me on this first day of ONE LINE CROW...

To learn about more National Poetry Month projects and all kinds of April goodness, visit Jama Rattigan at Jama's Alphabet Soup where Jama has generously gathered this coming month's happenings. Happy National Poetry Month!

xo,

Amy

ps - If you are interested in learning about any of my previous 13 National Poetry Month projects, you may do so here.

Please share a comment below if you wish.

Know that your comment will only appear after I approve it.

If you are under 13 years old, please only comment 

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

Spinwishes - Writing from Objects

My Kaleidoscope

Photo by Amy LV

 

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

Sutdents - Today’s handful of words is a small tribute to the feeling I have each time I look into the end of my brass kaleidoscope.  It had been a long time since I picked this old treasure up, but recently I held it to my face in wonder once more.  I peeked into that magical cylinder, and like jacks sprinkling a sidewalk,
questions poured out:

• Where did this glass come from
• Does everyone see the same thing in here?
• Will these patterns ever repeat in such a way again?
• Who made this whirling work of twinkling art?
• Why can’t I see the world in kaleidoscope patterns all the time?

As a notebook keeper, I tuck wee snips of beauty and surprise into my blank pages every day, uncertain if they will one day grow into something “sharable.” Sometimes they turn into poems or essays right away.  Sometimes they never do.  And sometimes they do, but it just takes many months or years for them to grow up into something ready for others to read.  That is the beauty of a notebook.

A notebook is a place to save things that you just may need, or you just may not...but either way, you've got them.  (This is how I feel about all of the candles and chocolate chips I have stocked up for the oncoming storm!  For a laugh, see my old WBFO essay about readying for storms.)

Writing verse brings me joy in that line-by-line, I am surprised by which words decide to show up for the party.  I began “Spinwishes” as a celebration of an object - a brass kaleidoscope - and ended up with a bit of a funny wish, not something I had planned at all.  The contrast of lovely geometric lace to that of a person walking with kaleidoscopic eye sockets makes me smile.

Try this yourself.  Just choose an object near to you.  Look at it closely.  Pick it up in your hands and examine it from various angles.  Ask yourself some questions about it.  Feel it in your hands. Let some new thoughts rise in your mind. Now...mind open...write!

If you do not see a post from me on Wednesday, please know the VanDerwater family does not have power...  If this happens, know that I will be back as soon as possible...and writing by candlelight until the lights return!

Please share a comment below if you wish.

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

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W is for WOKEN?

W is for WOKEN

Photo by Amy LV

Seal Dreams

by Amy LV

Students - Do you notice anything strange today?  Well, I made an embarrassing little error.  Opening my dictionary to a letter for today's poem...I opened to the wrong letter.  I forgot V, the letter of my OWN LAST NAME.  So, today's poem is a W poem, and tomorrow will be a V poem.  Then things will all be right again.  (I do know the alphabet. I do!)

Even with this silly mistake, I'm quite happy with today's word.  It's a funny and old-fashioned sounding word, a word we don't use often.  I had to look it up in a few different places to hear some varied sentence examples.

This short little verse has a wee bit of special sound work inside of two lines.  In line 5, QUILTS and SILVER have the IL sound, and in line 7, CRIED and FIND both have the long I sound.  Sometimes writers repeat vowel sounds, and this is called assonance.  Sometimes I revisit a poem after I have written it to work more purposefully on my vowel sounds.

Try it.  Look at a sentence or poem line that you recently wrote, maybe something in your notebook.  Now just study the vowel sounds.  Do any repeat? Can you find a way to include a bit of assonance in one of your lines or sentences?  It's a good brain exercise, one that becomes more natural with dedicated practice.

Do not miss this week's funny and informative post at Sharing Our Notebooks. Author and poet Suz Blackaby is sharing her notebooks as well as a neat writing exercise. Stop by to read her words and to enter the giveaway for her book, NEST, NOOK, & CRANNY.

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!