Teach a Whimsical Lesson

Found on a Walk

Photo by Amy LV

Students - This week I have been thinking about fall...and about ice cream. Yesterday, I started to think about interesting possible ice cream flavors: Cool Moonlight, Song Stuck in My Head, Breakfast for Dinner, Dancing Wildflowers. 

This week I am dogsitting my mom's dog Cinnamon, and yesterday afternoon, I found the above leaf on our walk. I really love the smell of fall leaves in piles and so many things about fall and decided to write an imaginary story poem about going to an ice cream shop and ordering a nonexistent ice cream flavor.

The idea for a lesson at the end of this poem did not come until I actually got to the end of writing it, but writing lesson poems (whether serious or whimsical) is one possible way to begin a poem as well. You may wish to try this. Think of a real or imagined lesson you might teach someone else. Then, build your poem toward it. Let your poem tell the story of learning the lesson, or allow your poem to explain the lesson. You might state your lesson directly at the end as I did...or you might just let your readers figure it out.

Do note how I have indented the ice cream lady's stanzas and kept the speaker's stanzas out to the left margin. This helps a reader know who is speaking. I also have chosen to use italics so that you know when the conversation is happening.

Matt is hosting today's Poetry Friday roundup at Radio, Rhythm, & Rhyme with a bit about his latest book and a poem about family. Please know that all are welcome each Friday as folks share poems, poem books, poetry ideas, and friendship.

Remember: you give yourself a future present when you press a snip of nature into your notebook. This leaf is now living in mine, and one spring, summer, or winter day, I know that I will be very happy to find it!

xo,

Amy

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New Year's Resolutions - Imaginary Conversations

Sage

Photo by Amy LV

Students - Happy New Year! Yesterday afternoon, as I walked our dogs Cali and Sage, I asked them what their New Year's Resolutions were.  They didn't answer, but later, as I wrote in my notebook (I am doing lots of that lately), they did answer.  And their answer became today's small poem.

Many poems grow from words we hear others say or from conversations we have, but we can also imagine conversations and play with ideas about what might be or could be said.  Try playing around with "what might have been said" or "what could be said" sometime in your own notebook.  You can words from people and animals you know or from historical figures or inanimate objects...anyone or anything at all.  What might have been said?  What could be said?

Today's poem is not full of full rhymes, but there are some similar sounds that hold the lines together.  Can you find them?

You can read two other New Year poems in The Poem Farm archives.  Find New Year's Eve from 2014 and January 1 from 2011.  It's amazing how the years keep on rolling by, isn't it?

Over at my other blog, Sharing Our Notebooks, I am pleased to share that we have two winners for Tanny McGregor's generous giveaway. In 2016, I hope to feature more student notebooks in addition to these wonderful adult notebooks, so please, teachers and students, drop me a line if you're interested in sharing!  I will make it easy for you to do so.

In other celebratory news, my first nonfiction book, EVERY DAY BIRDS, illustrated by Dylan Metrano and published by Scholastic, joins library and bookstore shelves next month!  I could not feel more grateful.  If you are a blogger who is interested in reviewing this book, please send me an e-mail, and I will have one sent to you.

Mary Lee is hosting this week's Poetry Friday roundup over at A Year of Reading. Visit her place for a beautiful, wise poem, and enjoy the poetry bounty!  How lucky we are to have this community.

Many New Year blessings and joys to all of you!  Happy 2016!  I thank you for visiting.

xo, Amy

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First Flight - From My New Book!

Barred Owl, 2011

by Hope LV

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

Students - Today's poem is from my new book, FOREST HAS A SONG, illustrated by Robbin Gourley and to be published by Clarion next month.  You probably already noticed that this poem goes back-and-forth in a conversation between a mother and baby owl.  My own parents are very encouraging, and they always told me that I could do anything.  Maybe this is why I wrote about an encouraging Mommy owl.

Structure-wise, this poem is written in rhyming couplets (two lines at a time), each with one child line and one mom line.  One line only is not written in conversation, and that's stanza 4.  Why not?  Well, it's all sound effects!  Or as we say in poetry-land, it's onomatopoeia.

This owl verse also uses a technique called personification which is when a writer gives a non-human characteristics that are human.  You can see how this little owl has feelings just like a nervous-child might feel, just like I have felt before.

If you're about to sit down to write, you might wish to try thinking about a real feeling that you have had in your life.  Maybe a surprised or excited feeling.  Of course you can write about your feeling as it is...or maybe you will want to imagine what kind of animal might feel that same feeling and when.  Either way gives you a secret passage into a poem of your own.

I wrote FOREST HAS A SONG, including this poem several years ago, and it is very exciting (and hard to believe) that my book will be out next month.  To keep track of news on the book, I have created a little home just for it here.

When you write often, you come to realize which subjects you tend to write about over and over again.  Right now I am realizing that I do like writing about owls.  Here are two more owl poems: Owl and Cat, Why? (Could this poem be about the same owl as the one in "First Flight"?)

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

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Listening to Spiders - Conversations

Learning

by Amy LV

Students - I am a mom.  So sometimes I think about mom things.  And one thing that moms do is teach their little (or not so little) ones about how to learn and make and do.  For this poem, I imagined a mama spider, and I thought about what this mama spider might wish to teach her little spider.  To spin, of course!

Today's poem is a conversation between two creatures.  The first stanza is the mother spider's voice, and the second stanza is the child spider's voice.  If you read this poem out loud, I suggest that you read with a friend and try it out in different voices.  Poems should be read out loud!  Let your voices fill the air!

And after your voices have filled the air...you might decide to write a conversation poem of your own.  Just imagine two people or creatures and what they may say to each other.  Then, as you write, pretend that you are each one of those creatures.  You might want to write the two voices in different colors or if you are typing, you may wish to write one voice in italics as I did with the child spider's voice here.

Oh, how I love pretending to be something else!  Don't you?

This week at Sharing Our Notebooks, I welcome Kami Kinard, my friend and roommate from the Highlights Foundation Workshop we both took with Rebecca Kai Dotlich back in 2001.  Come and peek into Kami's notebooks through the years, and don't miss the chance to win that beautiful red journal!

Thank you to all of you who are following this blog.  We reached 200 followers yesterday, and I am grateful to you as this helps me keep in touch and also demonstrates to publishers that real people read my posts.

Happy news!  My first book, FOREST HAS A SONG (Clarion), just got a publication date.  March 19....here we come!

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

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