Returning with a Daydream

Let the Cat Out of the Bag!

Photo by Amy LV

I'm back from Screen-Free Week, a week that I spent free from my blog, Facebook, and Twitter.  I did use my cell phone, did take care of work related e-mails, and I read a few other blog posts.  But my screen time was seriously diminished, and that was a gift.

Here are the last two sketches from Drawing Into Poems, my daily drawing/seeing/writing study into poetry from April  (I took a break for Screen-Free Week).  You can read more about this month-long project here on my April 1 post.  I am so happy to have taken this time to slow down and focus on my seeing.

Day 29 - Rocking Chair

Click to enlarge the drawing.

Day 30 - Mancala Board

Click to enlarge the drawing.

Here is my last poem inspired-on-purpose by my April sketches. This one comes from the fountain sketch I made on my last day in Fort Worth Texas for the Texas Library Association Conference.

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

Students - Well, I was away for a week, and it is good to be back!  But it was good to be away too.  I transplanted a lot of roses and spent some cuddly time with our kittens, went for lots of walks, worked on a new manuscript, and fried up some dandelion fritters.  All of these were good reminders for me to balance screen time with screen-free time.

You'll notice that today's poem has four short stanzas.  It's quite close to what I jotted in the margins of my fountain sketch, but the part about spitting is new.  New and necessary! You'll also notice that I've repeated the phrase "I want" three times.  (Wishes seem to be on my mind lately.)

Parents - You might be interested in the post I wrote for the Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Books blog including some ways to be screen free with children, and I also have a post at Pragmatic Mom about writing poetry at home with children.  Please feel free to share these if you find them useful.

Much much gratitude to my friend Renee LaTulippe for her enchanting story about FOREST HAS A SONG this week over at her magical blog, No Water River!  Renee knows how to make a person feel very special, no question, and this post made me beam.  I feel very lucky.  FOREST is also very happy and grateful to receive an enthusiastically lovely review from Wendy Lawrence over at the family that reads together.

I had a fabulous time at the Texas Library Association Conference last week.  It was an honor to be part of two panels, both organized by Sylvia Vardell, and it was a delight to see old friends too.  Thank you, Sylvia, for all of your hard work and hospitality, and thank you to Marianne Follis, Chair of the Children's Round Table (of the TLA), for having this idea and having us all to this wonderful conference.  Over at Poetry for Children, you can watch video clips of poets reading at the 9th annual Poetry Round Up here and see all kinds of photos of P*CON here.

Friends at TLA from Left to Right

Editor Rebecca Davis (WordSong), and Poets Charles Waters,

Me, Charles Ghigna, Rebecca Dotlich

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Z is for ZAIRE

Z is for ZAIRE

Photo by Amy LV

 

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

ZAIRE is the first word in the Z section of my children's dictionary.

Students - Well, when I opened my dictionary to another geographical location...I was surprised.  This has happened two other times, with J is for JAMAICA and N is for NORTHERN IRELAND.  Each time I got a little worried.  "What would I write?"  But then I read...and then I learned...and then I wrote.

For today's poem, I began reading and learned that Zaire had been called the Congo and was only known as Zaire from 1971 - 1997 when it again became the Congo. Reading Wikipedia, I learned that the name Zaire comes from the Portuguese word Zaire which comes from the Kongo word nzere or nzadi, which means "the river that swallows all rivers."  Isn't that gorgeous?

When I told Mark this name story, he said, "You should write about the river!" And so I did.

Reading along, I was reminded that Langston Hughes mentions the Congo River in his most beautiful of river poems, The Negro Speaks of Rivers.  If you click on the title, you can read the poem and hear him read it over at Poets.org. 

I did a little bit of math with this poem too.  The Congo River is the world's deepest river at over 220 meters (220 feet), and I imagined four-foot-tall first graders standing on top of each other's shoulders.  With all of the calf/head overlap, it would take more than 200 to reach the bottom of the Congo River. Wow.

So, there you have it.  I pointed to a word, read some research, talked with my husband, listened to a classic poem, did some math, and wrote.

That last sentence sums up my past month.  For this Z poem is the final poem of my April 2012 Dictionary Hike.  This month I met and wrote with Lisa, Christophe, and Georgia, enjoyed a V is for VULTURE poem by Michele, and learned about children opening their own dictionaries and making word baskets.  It was a zesty month, and I feel grateful to everybody who stopped by. Tomorrow, April 30, I will list out all 26 alphabet poems.

Today I welcome actor and poet Charles Waters!

On April 12 (K is for KNICKKNACK), I wrote about wonderful words and shared Wilfred J. Funk's list of most beautiful words.

Charles left this post in the comments:

Well, last night he wrote to me with the poem!

Luminous Lullaby

Children listen, hush, hear that

Golden melody that chimes at dawn?

This luminous lullaby loves

murmuring through mist

Sending tranquil thoughts your way

Every day.

© Charles Waters

On the April 12, 2012 entry of The Poem Farm, Amy posted (among other neat things) the 10 most beautiful words according to Wilfred J. Funk, and it inspired me to attempt to write a children's poem using  those ten words: dawn, hush, lullaby, murmuring, tranquil, mist, luminous, chimes, golden, and melody.  My aim was to use them in a way where it flowed into the poem so well that you wouldn't have thought I wrote it as a challenge to myself but instead as a moment of thankfulness to the blessings of nature.

Thank you, Charles, for sharing this poem full of beautiful words here today.  

Tomorrow is the first chalking celebration over at Teaching Young Writers. Join organizer-Betsy, Linda from TeacherDance, many others, and me as we chalk, photograph, and share poems. 

Over at The Poem Farm's sister blog, Sharing Our Notebooks, there are two new peekable notebooks. So if you are a notebook-keeper, a notebook-keeper-hopeful, or a teacher who uses notebooks in your classroom, please don't miss Suz Blackaby's post about her process and word tickets or Allan Wolf's post about wall writing and butt books.  The drawing for Allan's ZANE'S TRACE will take place on Monday evening.

Tomorrow, April 30, you can find the whole April 2012 Dictionary Hike here.  And I will be somewhere else. Two other places actually.  I will be at Author Amok with Laura Shovan as a part of her series of 30 Habits of Highly Effective Poets sharing a bit about my revision process.  And I will be in a secret place. Really, they told me that I must not tell!  So please come back tomorrow, and I will tell you.

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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