Let an Object Inspire a Question

A Gift from K to Me

Photo by Amy LV

Students - Isn't that quilt square beautiful?  A friend just sent it to me...and she made a matching one for herself.  So even though we live far away from each other, we can look at our quilt squares and feel our friendship.  I love it.  In fact, I love it so much that it made me want to write a poem as a way of thanking my friend K.

Sometimes an object can give a person a big feeling.  This quilt square made me think about how much I love handmade gifts, both receiving and giving them.  It made made ask a question to all who read the poem - an invitation to remember any handmade gifts from our pasts.

You might want to try this.  Walk around your home or outside or look around inside your backpack or desk and choose an object.  Think about the questions it inspires.  List these questions, choose one, and write!

This poem almost grew up to be a Shakespearean - or English - sonnet.  But it stopped growing at line 12.  See, if this were a complete sonnet, there would be a rhyming couplet (two lines) at the end.  And as I wrote this, I chose to leave the question hanging rather than to wrap it up with a couplet including my reflection. Yes, the poem had a mind of its own!

I could not be more grateful and excited to share that my new READ! READ! READ! illustrated by Ryan O'Rourke, has made the 2017 Nerdies List for Poetry and Novels in Verse. It is a wonderful list and a wonderful honor. Thank you, Nerdy Book Club!

(Click to Enlarge)

Over at my other blog, Sharing Our Notebooks, you can find a wonderful peek into Julie Patterson's notebooks. Leave a comment...and you just may win a book. Do so soon as there will be a new post up after January 1.

Heidi is hosting today's Poetry Friday roundup over at my juicy little universe with a beautiful celebration of poems about trees...and a photo of some lovely handmade gifts too. Please visit! We meet weekly, and everyone is invited.

Happy glorious last Poetry Friday of 2017 to all of you!  I am very grateful for this community...for those of you I know personally and those of you whom I have not yet met.  See you in 2018!

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

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

Christmas Night and Books

from CHRISTMAS PRESENTS 

Edited by Lee Bennett Hopkins

Illustrated by Melanie Hall

Students - Today's poem takes me back to my childhood. And while the setting for this poem is Christmas night, it could be about any busy time followed by a quiet time.  I do love busy-ness, and I also cherish the quiet after busy-ness. Quiet time to curl up with a book and maybe a pet.

When I was a little girl, I loved to curl up near our Christmas tree with a book, to sit in the glow of those colored lights and read the night away.  

This year, I find myself inspired by the literary tradition of Iceland, a country of readers and of book-givers at Christmas time.  Curious?  You can read about the Christmas Book Flood here at npr.

A book and quiet.  A tree and a cuddly pet.  These are some things I look forward to this week.

Today's little poem is the first poem that I ever had published in a book - ten years ago!  CHRISTMAS PRESENTS, edited by Lee Bennett Hopkins and illustrated by Melanie Hall, is a lovely book for this season, and I love owning the original painting for this page.  My husband Mark gave this piece of artwork to me ten years ago, and it was a fantastic and wonderful surprise.

Over at Sharing Our Notebooks, I am still happy to have Tanny McGregor with her superneat notebooks.  Please stop by and leave a comment to be entered into her generous drawing.

The very kind and wise Irene Latham is hosting today's Poetry Friday roundup at Live Your Poem.  There you will find all of this week's poetry offerings, all around the Kidlitosphere.

I wish all of you wonderful surprises, happy busy-ness, kindness, art, and magical quiet time for reading and snuggling.

Please share a comment below if you wish.

Decorating - Short and Sweet

Our Table

Photo by Amy LV

Students - If you came to visit on Friday and I was not here, I am sorry!  We had sickness in the house and that came first.  Writing is close to the top, but family is at the top.  

Today's poem is about something I am spending lots of time doing lately - baking and eating cookies.  We giggled last night as a friend kept finding broken cookies (hee hee, not really finding) and dipping them into frosting like chips in dip.  And we laughed at the way we decorated some cookies all fancy and some all crazy.  There is something about cut out cookies that just sings celebration.  Here, in the photo above, are some cookies for you, made just last night!

This is a pretty short poem, and I woke up with the first stanza in my head. That doesn't happen often, but once in a while, a wee line will just visit, and if I'm quick, I write it down.  Writing is like that.  Sometimes you have to squeeze your brain like a sponge, and sometimes a line comes up and taps you on the shoulder.  The secret, I think, is being ready for either: the squeezing or the tapping.

Through the end of 2015, I'm so happy to host Tanny McGregor over at my other blog, Sharing Our Notebooks.  Please stop by and check out her amazing notebooks, and feel free to comment to win a copy of one of her books.

While I am a few days late to the Poetry Friday party, please know that Diane is hosting this week's Poetry Friday roundup over at Random Noodling. Noodle on over to Diane's cozy home on the web and find out what's happening poetry-wise all around the Kidlitosphere this week.

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Our Nativity - Stories in Daily Pictures

Our Family's Nativity Set

Photo by Amy LV

Students - This poem is true.  That's all there is to it.  I just wrote the truth.  Our family is Christian, and last week, when I set up our Nativity set on the second Sunday in Advent, I was struck by all of the stories it holds.  I remembered back to the childhood Nativity Set I loved playing with as a little girl, arranging the straw and the angel and shepherd over and over again.  I remembered when our friends Glenn and Paula gave Mark and I this Nativity set for our wedding twenty years ago.  I remembered where each piece of our Nativity has come from.  And I was grateful.

When it was time to write, the poem just showed up.  It may be the most personal poem I've shared here.  I wrote the words that asked to be written.

Today's poem is in free verse.  It does not have a special rhyme or meter that holds it together; it just sounds like talking.  But I did read it over and over again, out loud to myself, to listen to the music of the prose.

I wish you a week full of joyous surprises and small stories in dusty boxes.  The daily pictures that you see and fall in love with each day may be the very pictures that tell you exactly what to write in your own notebook.

Paul is graciously hosting today's Poetry Friday roundup over at These 4 Corners. Visit his online home to find all kinds of poetry goodness, all around the Kidlitosphere, all week long.

Please share a comment below if you wish.

Tree - A Mask Poem

Our Christmas Tree Before Ornaments

Photo by Amy LV

Our Christmas Tree With Ornaments

Photo by Amy LV

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

Students - I am a Christmas tree hugger!  Last week, visiting our children's school, I saw a big beautiful Christmas tree in the lobby.  I wanted to hug it so much.  But I didn't.  I wish I did!  Next week...next week...  Now we have our own tree to hug.  When I was a little girl, I always would hug and kiss the tree. Yes, the needles were prickly, but maybe this prepared me for kissing my bearded husband.  

Today's poem is a mask poem, told in the voice of a Christmas tree.  We've always had real Christmas trees, and so I have always believed that they can think and feel.  I wonder if they think they look great all dressed up and if they enjoy being surrounded by a human family for a few weeks.  If I were a tree, I would. If I were a Christmas tree, maybe this is the poem I would write.

Being a writer allows a person to be many different things.  It is a joyous existence to be a pretender!

And just look at this beautiful photo of Linda Baie's granddaughter Ingrid.  Linda wrote to me, "We've been decorating & I read your poem to her-she 'got it' immediately, & hugged away!"  (Photo, as always, used with permission.)

Ingrid, Tree Hugging

Photo by Linda Baie 

(used with permission)

Tabatha is hosting Poetry Friday at The Opposite of Indifference today with Christina Rosetti's "In the Bleak Midwinter," a song with one of my favorite lines: Snow had fallen, snow on snow... Visit her rich blog to find out what's happening all 'round the Kidlitosphere today and all week long!

Please share a comment below if you wish.

Goodbye to Christmas Trees

 

Ewes Taste Christmas - 2012

Photo by Amy LV

Students - it's that time of year when Christmas trees line the roadsides. When I was a girl, this was always a tough week. I'd want to keep the tree up for as many weeks as we could, and I fantasized about it becoming a Valentine Tree and a St. Patrick's Day Tree, and an Easter Tree. But one day or another, the needles would begin to fall, and out it would go...down the concrete steps, down the driveway, straight to the curb. And there it would lie, and there I would stand, kissing the tips of its needles and saying, "Goodbye."

If you have read this blog for a while, you know that I have a soft spot for inanimate objects. I feel what I imagine they feel. You can see this in Pumpkin and Christmas Tree Lot too. Today's poem is about imagining the feelings of something else, and it's about goodbyes. So if you ever imagine what something else is thinking, or if you have a certain type of goodbye that is tough for you, that might be a good place to begin today's writing. Too, this is a poem written TO something, to a Christmas tree. Such a poem is called a poem of address. Is there anything you want to talk to? If so, then go ahead and address it in a poem!

You may notice that the first line of both the first and third stanzas match the song, "O Christmas Tree." This was a fun way for me to begin, by jumping into the words of a familiar song from the season.

Back in my girlhood days, I was comforted to know that our small town of Vestal, NY recycled old Christmas trees as mulch for town parks. Today I am comforted to know that our Icelandic sheep happily munch our old tree right up!

If you haven't yet peeked into how third grade teacher Mary Bieger uses writer's notebooks and seen Arya's entries...there's a new notebook up at Sharing Our Notebooks, my blog devoted to writer's notebooks.

Joann is hosting today's Poetry Friday roundup over at Teaching Authors. Have a great time in the garden of poetry!

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Early

Present-Giving

by Amy LV

Students - Everyone is full of secrets at our house these days, stealing off to bedrooms with scissors and tape, paper and bows. Between sips of egg nog and licks of peppermint, we're all getting excited to give gifts to one another. I love thinking about what my family will like to open on Christmas morning and I love making, finding, and wrapping gifts. Just like when I was a little girl, it is difficult to wait! Writing today's poem, I took that waiting-feeling and wrapped it up inside a poem.

I remember many years ago when Hope (now thirteen) was four years old. Mark had taken her to go Christmas shopping, and she was intent on keeping my present a secret. Hope was fascinated with bathrooms at that age, and I was charmed to hear her exclaim, "Mommy! There was a potty at the watch store!" Mark's secret was out, but we will tell that adorable story forever.

In happy poetry-news, I am pleased to share that I AM THE BOOK, edited by Lee Bennett Hopkins, has won a Nerdy Book Club Award, and my poem from that book ("Book") appears on the award posting.  It was a gift to be a part of this book-love anthology...thank you, Lee!

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Many good wishes to all of you and your loved ones during this beautiful time of love and light.

Dori is hosting today's Poetry Friday roundup over at Dori Reads. Cheers!

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