11 - Poems Can Be Circles

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

And now, for today's words! 

Day 11 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.

I am hosting Poetry Friday today. If you have a link to leave...please do. If you are new here, please

xo,
Amy

Little Mouse Dreams Too

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.

Celebrating Poet Laureate Joy Harjo

Family Album

Photo by Amy LV

Students – I am so happy to share the name of our new Poet Laureate of the United States.  Joy Harjo is a wise, accomplished poet whose work I admire greatly. She is a member of the Mvskoke Nation and our first Native American Poet Laureate.  You can read more about her at The Poetry Foundation. As Poet Laureate, Joy follows the talented Tracy K. Smith whose daily radio program and podcast, The Slowdown, has been a gift.

Joy Harjo
Photo by Karen Kuehn
From The Poetry Foundation Website

I wrote today's poem by reading and reading one of my favorite Joy Harjo poems, Once the World Was Perfect. I simply read and read it again, aloud, listening for a connection, for something I could write in the silence of my listening. Joy's image of people from long ago stays with me. Below you can read the beginning lines of this poem:



Once the World Was Perfect
by Joy Harjo

Once the world was perfect, and we were happy in that world.
Then we took it for granted.
Discontent began a small rumble in the earthly mind.
Then doubt pushed through with its spiked head.

Read the rest of the poem HERE.



Writing in the silence after reading is a beautiful, inspiring way to listen to what is inside of you. Should you ever feel at a loss for words, read something you love. Read it more than once. Read it aloud. Then listen. Write.

Did you notice that my poem is written with a circular beginning and ending? Remember, this is a type of beginning and ending you can always try out.

For other Poetry Friday posts highlighting Joy Harjo, visit Mary Lee at A Year of Reading, Irene Latham at Live Your Poem, Michelle Kogan at Michelle Kogan, Catherine at Reading to the Core, and Carol at Carol's Corner. Thank you, Mary Lee, for the suggestion to share Joy's words today. I have been happy about this announcement all week.

Linda is hosting today's Poetry Friday roundup over at A Word Edgewise with something fun - a clunker exchange! She's also got this week's poetry offerings from all around the Kidlitosphere. Please know that we gather each Friday, and all are always welcome.

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.

Wallow in Wonder Day 19 - Eat It - Advice Poems

Welcome to Day 19 of Wallow in Wonder!  For my 2016 National Poetry Month project, I will celebrate learning and writing from learning, writing poems from each daily Wonder at Wonderopolis.  As I did with my Dictionary Hike in 2012, I am looking to surprise myself with new inspiration daily.  This year, such inspiration will show up in my inbox each morning.  I will print it and carry each Wonderopolis Wonder around all day...and in the afternoon or evening, I will write and post the poem for the next day.  

I invite anyone who wishes to take this challenge too.  Just read today's wonder over at Wonderopolis, and write a poem inspired by it for tomorrow.  Share it tomorrow at your own site, and if you wish to link in my comments for others to find (or share your poem there), please feel free to do so tomorrow, the day after the Wonder is published at Wonderopolis.  If you would like to share any ways you have used Wallow in Wonder or your own site (safe for children only please), please feel free to do so in the comments.

My April Poems Thus Far

April 1 - So Suddenly - a poem inspired by Wonder #1659 

April 2 - Thankful Journal - a poem inspired by Wonder #1660

April 3 - The Storm Chaser - a poem inspired by Wonder #779

April 4 - A Jar of Glitter - a poem inspired by Wonder #641

April 5 - To Make Compost - a poem inspired by Wonder #1661

April 6 - Deciding Now - a poem inspired by Wonder #1662

April 7 - Hummingbird's Secret - a poem inspired by Wonder #1663

April 8 - Limits - a poem inspired by Wonder #1664

April 9 - Sundogs - a poem inspired by Wonder #1665

April 10 - Perspective - a poem inspired by Wonder #128

April 11 - At the History Museum - a poem inspired by Wonder #115

April 12 - Seventy-Five Years Ago Today - a poem inspired by Wonder #1666

April 13 - Homer's Poem - a poem inspired by Wonder #1667

April 14 - The Right - a poem inspired by Wonder #1668

April 15 - 5:00 am - a poem inspired by Wonder #1669

April 16 - Writing - a poem inspired by Wonder #1670

April 17 - Sometimes - a poem inspired by Wonder #194

April 18 - Once - a poem inspired by Wonder #192

And now for Day 19!

Wonder #1671 - from April 18, 2016

A Friend in a Bowl

by Amy LV

Students - Greetings from Houston, Texas!  I usually write to you from Holland, NY...but I am at the Texas Library Association Annual Conference this week.  I am very thankful to Scholastic for bringing me and to Pomelo Books for inviting me to be part of this panel with some of my favorite poets.

Today's poem came at a good time for me, right on the day I was suggesting that my own child eat some chicken noodle soup. It's been a sicky winter for our family, and so soup has been a good food to have around.  

Reading the Wonder about chicken noodle soup, I was interested by the fact that it really does seem to have healing properties.  I am a fan of comfort foods, and it's neat to think about how both the ingredients and the love in a food can help us to feel better...in so many ways.

Can you see how I have woven just one rhyming word through this poem.  It took a bit of time to make it work, as I always insist to myself that my rhyming poems make total sense...but I think I did it.  And as I do like to do sometimes, I did bring that first line around to the end again.

Today's poem is an advice poem, trying to convince someone to do something. Have you ever written an advice poem?  If you're not sure what to write about today, you might make a little list in your notebook of pieces of advice you might give - to a person, or to an animal, or to something else.  Perhaps a poem idea will spring from this list!

It is my privilege to host teacher and librarian Stefanie Cole and her students from Ontario, Canada at Sharing Our Notebooks this month. This is a fantastic post full of notebook inspiration, a video clip, and a great book giveaway from Stefanie. Please check it out, and leave a comment over there to be entered into the giveaway.

Happy Day 19 of National Poetry Month 2016!  

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.

High Chair - Rituals, Routines, and Small Places

Sage Investigates

Photo by Amy LV

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

Students - Watching and thinking about animals is funny!  Our children use special voices when they imagine what our dogs and cats would say if they could speak English.  This poem comes from an old collection about a new baby, and I just found it and cracked right up.

Like us, animals have rituals and routines that they follow through their days.  A pig belonging to a friend of ours begins each morning at sunrise roaming beneath apple and pear trees.  Our dog Eli used to always spend each morning roaming under the high chair.  Can you think of any rituals that an animal you know follows?  What about you?  What do you do again and again, the same way each time?  This repeated action might be a neat idea for a poem.

Did you notice how the middle lines of today's poem goes back and forth?  I like to do that in a poem when there is movement between two beings or happenings.  You might have also noticed that the first two lines and the last two lines rhyme.  They're like bookends, tying this whole wee oaty circle poem together.

Today's verse is titled after a place, one piece of furniture that we have not had in our home for years.  Each place deserves its own poem.  Don't you think so?

Did you know that Cheerios are the most popular breakfast cereal in the United States?  The Cheerios company is 72 years old, and you can find the factory in Buffalo, NY, only about thirty minutes from where we live.  If you drive near the Cheerios factory, you can smell Cheerios.  Really!  (Buffalonians can even wear shirts displaying this fact.)  Once, several years ago, the factory donated many old Cheerios boxes to me for a bookmaking project.

Here is another baby and cereal poem from The Poem Farm archives, titled Baby Cereal. Can you tell that feeding babies was a theme of my life for several years?

Would you like to make a guitar or a dollhouse out of a Cheerios box?  Well, you can. These instructional videos by Joel Henriques are sponsored by Cheerios, but you could use almost any light cardboard box for the crafts.  Joel's blog, made by joel, is full of neat things to make.

Laura Purdie Salas is hosting this week's Poetry Friday extravaganza over at writing the world for kidshttp://www.laurasalas.com/blog/pf-buckled-bricks/.  Don't miss the new and old friends and poems!

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.

Visit Sharing Our Notebooks to peek in all kinds of notebooks.

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Water - Writing about Mysteries

Pour It!

Photo by Amy LV

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

Students - Last week I received a comment from a teacher who told me her students particularly liked this poem about how I see science as like writing, breaking out the light inside of us.  Her words made me want to revisit some more old poems, ones that have never been on this site.  Rummaging around in my files, I found this one about water.  The poem had been getting dusty and lonely as I wrote it in 2002 and had never shared it with anyone.  I did make a change to it today, adding line breaks.  Before it was all in one stanza, but now it is has four stanzas.  Did you notice that the first and last stanzas are the same? Yes! It is a circular poem.

What is mysterious to you?  The things we find amazing and mysterious are often fantastic writing topics.  I  have always thought it's neat that a water can be solid, liquid, or gas...so I celebrate that idea here!

Here are a few more of my poems about water: Over Sixty Percent, The Water Tower, my boots love, Tide Pool.

And here is a great book of concrete poems about water by Joan Bransfield Graham - SPLISH SPLASH.

Shop Indie Bookstores

In happy news, my first copy of FOREST HAS A SONG arrived last week. Here I am, holding it.  (Can you tell that I am tickled?)

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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Let's Not Talk About Bullies...

An Old Picture of Hope and Monster 

Photo by Amy LV

 

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

Students - I have been listening to the news lately, and there has been lot of talk about bullying.  The other day, maybe after too much news, this line popped into my head - Let's not talk about bullies.  Then, over the past few days, it kept on popping up in my head, and I could not shake it out.  So that's where this poem came from at first. Once I started writing, though, I realized that if I don't want to talk about bullies, there must be something else that I DO want to talk about.  And there is.  Kindness.

When we used to live in Amherst, NY, we had a neighbor named Nancy.  Nancy would feed birds right out of her hand, right out of the air, and she knew each chickadee by sight.  This past summer, our daughter Georgia volunteered at a wildlife rehabilitation center with our friend Margaret, and there she witnessed much kindness as people fed injured herons and orphaned possums.  Just yesterday, I walked into my credit union, and a man waited to hold the door for me to walk through.  Good people are everywhere, and I wish to celebrate them.

If you need a writing idea, you might try asking yourself...What do I NOT want to talk about?  What DO I want to talk about?  You might even want to begin with a line like, "Let's not talk about..." and see where it takes you.  (You can always take off that first line later!)

In terms of structure, you may have noticed that this poem repeats the word let's over and over again, usually at the beginning of the lines.  In my mind, I'm calling this an invitation poem as it invites the reader to do something...talk goodness.

You may also notice the circular structure.  The first two and last two lines are the same - I love doing that!

Today's picture is of our oldest daughter, Hope, a few years ago.  She is holding Monster, a wonderful cat who has since died.  We took stray Monster into our hearts years ago, and he returned the favor by loving some abandoned kittens we found in a ditch.  Sometimes animals are the most kind of all...

Congratulations to Diane Mayr (Random Noodling)....winner of last week's giveaway of THE POETRY FRIDAY ANTHOLOGY!  Please send me your snail mail address, Diane, and I will get it off to you.

Over Sharing Our Notebooks, Peter Salomon is still visiting on the eve of the publication of his book HENRY FRANKS. Stop by and read about Peter's first notebooks and enter yourself in the giveaway of his new book - the drawing is tomorrow!

Katya is hosting today's Poetry Friday roundup over at Write. Sketch. Repeat. Visit there to see who's got what at today's poem party!

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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Always & An Adoption Alert!

New Kitties at Sprucelands
Photo by Amy LV

 

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

Don't you just want to eat these kittens?  Well, maybe you did not have that immediate reaction, but I sure did when I saw these tiny ones last weekend at our family's favorite camp, Sprucelands.  You will be happy to know that I did NOT eat the kittens; I simply took this picture of them.  

Every time I look at this picture, I wonder where these kittens will live in just a few weeks...who their families will be...what their names will be.  Some of them will come to live with families who have wanted or needed a cat for a long time. And some may choose families who decide to adopt them in a moment of inspiration.  For this poem, I decided to write about this very moment in time, this moment of a season that will only be here once.  Today.

Students - Last Friday, I promised that two of this week's poems would be free verse.  I got myself into a bit of a quatrain-rut last week, so you will see that Monday's poem is in couplets, and today and Friday will be free verse.  When you look at today's poem, you will notice that it does not rhyme.  However, this does not mean that it does not rely on any other poetic elements.  As always, I read this poem aloud several times to listen for a balance of syllables, and can you find where I used repetition to tie parts together?

If you live in the Buffalo, NY area and would like to adopt one of these kittens or a gray one from another litter, please just leave a comment to let me know. Eileen, the owner and director of Sprucelands, will soon place them into my hands as I am a kitten broker as well as writing teacher.  Watch for these little ones following our family to baseball and soccer games through June, ready for adoption!

Is one of these kittens dreaming of 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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Y is for YET

Y is for YET

Photo by Amy LV

Cali in 2009

Photo by ?

We're pet lovers here at Heart Rock Farm. With 2 dogs, 5 cats, a rabbit, 7 sheep, 14ish chickens, and a fish, (and two class pet guinea pigs spending the weekend), there is always a creature to love. I'm a great believer in pets making people kinder and more responsible too. So when I sat to write a poem using the word YET, I thought of NOT YET, and then I thought about things that parents might say NOT YET about.

Our family is trying to learn to say NO MORE when it comes to pets!

Students - This short and simple poem is written in rhyming couplets - each pair of two lines rhymes at the ends of the lines.  I do not write often in couplets, but this poem felt so simple and sad that I wanted the meter to match. What do you notice about the syllables?  Do you notice anything else about this poem?  (Hint - look at the ending.)

If you are new to The Poem Farm, welcome! This month I have been walking, letter-by-letter, through the dictionary (closed-eyed), pointing to a letter each day, and writing from it. You can read poems A-X by checking the sidebar, and you can visit Lisa Vihos and read her accompanying daily haiku at, Lisa's Poem of the Week. In today's comments, watch for Lisa's Haiku and also Christophe's haiku. It's a lot of fun to meet new friends in the poetry forest.

Over at my other 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.

Monday 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. April 30!

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!

Poetry Friday, Peek, & Circular Poems!

Today I am excited to welcome fourth graders from the class of teacher Ken Hand and Intermediate Literacy Coordinator Kristie Miner.  They join us from Tioughnioga Riverside Academy in the Whitney Point Central School District in Whitney Point, NY.

Room 203 Students - Tioughnioga Riverside Academy

But first...a quick poem lesson.

Over the past week, I have been revisiting last year's project in which I wrote and posted a new children's poem each day.  For each remaining day of April, I will continue to do so, with a particular focus each day.

Circular Poems

At times, it is difficult to know how to end a poem, so the words end up hanging out in space.  One way to tie things up at the conclusion of a story or poem is to go back to the beginning.  Writers call this "a circular ending" or "going out the same door you came in."  

Sometimes such an ending repeats exactly the same words, and sometimes there is merely a hint of the beginning in the ending, along with something new.  Not sure how to end a piece?  Check to see if you might find a thread to pick up way back in your first line or two.

Here are a few poems from this year, all with circular endings.  What poems or stories do you know with circular endings?  Try writing one sometime.  (I like this type of ending so much that sometimes I must make myself do something different!)
 

from December 2010

 from May 2010

from February 2011

from June 2010

And now...our Poetry Peek!  Welcome to teacher Ken Hand and Intermediate Literacy Coordinator Kristie Miner.  Below, Kristie explains their classroom publishing station.

All year, students in Room 203 at Tioughnioga Riverside Academy have filled the pages of their writers' notebooks with words and illustrations grown from their own ideas and through the inspiration of others.  The discovery of children's publishing links found at The Poem Farm opened students' eyes to the possibility of sharing their work with a much larger audience.

One thing led to another, and soon we had a publishing station up and running in our classroom.  We filled it with all of the resources needed to polish and publish -- mentor texts, poetry anthologies, samples of published work, submission guidelines, contact information, envelopes, publishing paper, pens, markers, crayons, watercolors, and colored pencils.

A Wall of Publishing Possibilities
Photo by Kristie Miner

Baskets Full of Writing Supplies & Mentor Texts
Photo by Kristie Miner

Students have caught the publishing bug, dreaming big, letting their talent and hard work lead the way.

 Tara & Erin Compose Writing & Art

Photo by Kristie Miner

Wonderholic

by Tara

My dream as a writer is to have someone recognize the potential of my writing and that I'm not just a girl who wrote something smart.  I'm a girl who has guts!

Football

by Connor

My dream is to get my poem published in the magazine STONE SOUP.  I hope I get a lot more of my poems published.

Alex Illustrating

Photo by Kristie Miner

Leaves

by Leih

My hopes and dreams of my future poem writing are to get really good and then have my own website (like The Poem Farm).  Once I know that publishing is what I want to do, I will then write an anthology of some of my best poems.  I'll send my draft to an editor, then when I get the changes back, I will get my finished copy done and sent out.  In no time, hopefully I'll have my anthology in stores.  Then I hope to become a big poem writer.  I draw my pictures with words.

Much gratitude and warmth to these students and their teachers for sharing their beautiful work, exciting publishing station, and writing spirit with us on this Poetry Friday!  Please write and let us know if you try some of their ideas.

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 - Today - Circular Poems

Teachers - if your students write poetry from any of this month's online lessons and are inspired to share, please let me know.  With permission, I'd love to host their work here in May!

Visit Madigan at Madigan Reads for the complete Poetry Friday roundup in all its glory!

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

Miss Robin Longs for Home in Poem #315...

Miss Robin in the South

by Georgia LV

Miss Robin in the North

by Georgia LV

This is poem #5 in Story Poem Week, a week long project to write poems that tell stories.  This story is short and in the present tense; I imagine our Springtime harbingers awaiting their trip home to our yards and trees and bushes.

Students - My first work on this poem, the work in pencil on unlined paper, did not include this last stanza, but rather ended with Miss Robin's words.  When I typed it, however, I felt that something was missing.  In search of endings, I often go back to beginnings, asking , "Is there a glint of silver that I might reflect in the last lines, a moon to reflect the morning's sun?"  Today there was.

If you ever find yourself wondering how to end a writing piece, be it a poem or a story or even a  nonfiction piece or persuasive letter -- reread your beginning and you might find the silver you need.

If you are interested in having your American Robin questions answered, check out this post by Journey North who has also written a little book about the same topic.  Of course you can find lots of information, including the American Robin's song, at the Cornell Lab of Ornithology, a rich source for everything-bird.

Once more, don't forget that the Great Backyard Bird Count begins on February 18.  You can participate in important and fascinating research by keeping track of the birds in your yard for four days!

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

Under Your Feet - MyPoWriYe Poem #76

Last evening, walking around the baseball field, I looked down and saw a whole new crop of weeds, Birdsfoot Trefoil, to be exact.  I got thinking about what was below those, and below those, and below those.

Flora von Deutschland, Osterreich und der Schweiz (1885)

by Otto Wilhelm Thome

 Permission is granted to copy, distribute, and/or modify

this image under the "GNU Free Documentation License"

This poem is similar to one I wrote a few years ago, a poem about all of the animals that live in a stump.  I like the idea of things-living-in-things, of what is hidden in almost-plain sight. 

Students -sometimes we can make ourselves wonder about something even when we are just walking along.  One of my writing teachers, Lucy Calkins, taught me this, and it's true.  She says that we can just look at something, think about what we see, and then make ourselves wonder about it and ask questions about it.

Yesterday, I looked at the Birdsfoot Trefoil flowers and wondered what was below those and below those and below those.  What will you look at today?

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