Answer an Unasked Question

Ms. Moon at Tea

by Amy LV

Students - This week found me writing a lot in my notebook, yesterday outside. And as I sat and wrote on that windy day, I wondered what it would be like if the moon came down from the sky to play kickball or drink tea. Tea won as my poem topic because I did not want to share Moon's visit with a whole lot of imaginary kickball players. I wanted her all to myself.

Today's poem addresses the reader directly, the first two lines reading, "Last night/if you didn't see the moon..." It can be fun to do this, to pretend that you are writing a poem to a real, certain someone. After acknowledging this imaginary reader's question, "Why was it so dark last night?" my poem answers the question, explaining that the moon was enjoying a spot of tea with the writer.

You might choose to try this. Think of something someone might wonder, real or pretend...and then write a poem answering this question. As you know from my poem, your answer may be completely curious and magical. Feel free to title you poem "Answer" too. Or not!

Try writing a poem with the word you in it. This kind of writing is called writing in the second person. What will you say to your reader?

Heidi is hosting this week's Poetry Friday roundup at my juicy little universe with a celebration of voting and folktales. Please know that all are welcome each Friday as folks share poems, poem books, poetry ideas, and friendship.

xo,

Amy

Please share a comment below if you wish. 

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

or as part of a group with your teach

Remember Imagination

Happy 2022 to You!

Snug Mug

Drawing by Amy LV

Students - Today's poem is a true memory poem. When I was in upper elementary school, our classrooms were very cold. And so my friends and I did exactly what this poem describes - we pretended to drink hot cocoa...and we really did feel warmer inside. Looking back, I think it was because we were together and we were using our imaginations to help our bodies.

It has been many years since I have remembered these moments, perhaps thinking of them now because my 2022 happy goal is to drink more real hot chocolate. In fact, I am drinking hot chocolate right now!

This Morning's Drink

Photo by Amy LV

A writer like you or me can turn any true memory into a free verse poem. By adding a few more words and taking out the line breaks, I could have written this as a story. But with fewer words and line breaks, it is a poem. 

If you are seeking a writing idea, I suggest you try beginning with the two words I remember... I recommend this sometimes and sometimes turn to this strategy myself. Sometimes memories are waiting to be called up.

Also, imagination. When have you pretended something in your life? The world of pretend is a world full of writing ideas!

It is a new year, and this means that Sylvia Vardell is sharing her annual "Sneak Peek" list of children's poetry collections and anthologies, poem picture books and novels in verse to be published this year. Find all of the goodness at Poetry for Children, a treasure box of poetry and poetry resources. I am so happy to share that I have a book on this list together with illustrator Emma Virján - our IF THIS BIRD HAD POCKETS: A POEM IN YOUR POCKET DAY CELEBRATION - will be out on March 1, 2022.

Learn more at Wordsong, Astra Publishing House

Carol is hosting today's Poetry Friday roundup at Beyond Literacy Link, sharing her "One Little Word" for this year along with a winter poem to go right along with it. Please know that all are welcome each Friday as folks share poems, poem books, poetry ideas, and friendship.

I am grateful to be starting a new year with you and with a so many days of poetry possibility stretched out before us. Stay warm, dear friends, in your body and in your imagination too.

xo,

Amy

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.

The Moon Visits a Triolet

Silver Button Moon for Everyone

by Amy LV

Students - Ah, the moon! She guides all of us, no matter where we are. And many young children can count moon among their very first words.  Of course they can. In a deep, dark sky, Moon shows us the way. The way she looks changes, and on clear nights, we can always find her. On bright moonlit nights, we do not even need a lantern or flashlight to find our way.

Many people look up at the moon and think about things: faraway friends and family, beauty, quiet secret thoughts. When we look at Moon and think, we are finding our way in a different way. She is for all of us, and so this poem is for Moon.

One decision I made while writing these lines was to write in the first person plural or we voice. My first draft of the poem was written in second person singular, speaking to you, not about we and us. Line 1 sounded like this:

The moon will always call you home.

instead of...

The moon will always call us home.

Try reading this whole poem to yourself substituting the word you each time you see we or us. What do you notice?

As I read the poem that way to myself, I realized that I - the speaker - wanted to share this experience with the reader. We all share the moon, and so this poem wanted to be more of a community (we) poem and less of a singular person (you) poem.

Choosing a point of view is an important job of a writer. I ask myself, "Do I want this poem to be ABOUT something, TO something, AS something, or WITH something?" This time, I chose WITH.

Today's poem is written in a particular form called a triolet. You will note that it has 8 lines and lots of repetition. In a triolet, lines 1, 4, and 7 are the same. Lines 2 and 8 are the same. And the rhyme scheme goes like this: A B a A a b A B. In poetry language, this means that lines 1, 3, 4, 5, and 7 end with the same rhyming sound as do lines 6 and 8. Notice the matching capital letters for the lines which match each other.

It is true that the word whole does not rhyme with the words home and roam. However, it is a near rhyme, and because making sense matters more to me than rhyming, I went with it.

If you are interested, here are a few other triolets from past Poem Farm posts:

Wintertimes - December 20, 2019

Triolet for a Stone - May 24, 2019

Grandpa's Banjo - April 1, 2010

I do not always write in special forms, but sometimes I enjoy the fun of it. Forms feel like puzzles.

Irene is hosting today's Poetry Friday roundup at Live Your Poem with Pablo Neruda's "Ode to Autumn," her own "Autumn puzzle," and an announcement about a new class Irene will teach titled Wild and Precious Writer. Please know that all are welcome each Friday as folks share poems, poem books, poetry ideas, and friendship.

xo,

Amy

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.

Words Live Inside of Words

 

Make Your Own License

Photo by Amy LV

Students - Every piece of writing has a story, and I love finding out why you write about what you write about and why you write about it in a certain way. The journeys are often surprising and roundabout, and these stories show how we each approach ideas in our own way. This is what makes the world neat!

Today's poem has a story too. Yesterday, I visited the blog Dare to Care, and in her post, Denise explained a new-to-me type of poem called an In One Word poem. Denise shared her own poem, and she referred readers to a blog post by April Halprin Wayland over at Teaching Authors.

Here is how April explains this form, in her May 22, 2020 post:

By April Halprin Wayland

Teaching Authors Blog, May 22, 2020

I wanted to try this out myself. What fun, to find words in words and then just play with them like piles of stones! So I chose the word SILENCE and entered it into Word Maker. This website will show you all of the words that can be made with the letters in the word you choose. It looks like this:

Word Maker - Website Currently Down

(I will correct when it is back.)

I looked at the many words that can be made from SILENCE, and I copied the ones that interested me into my notebook.

Drafting from Words in SILENCE

Photo by Amy LV

Then, from those words...I just played around and finally decided on the arrangement of words above to be the poem.

Here you can see the SILENCE words that chose to include:

Circled Words from SILENCE

Photo by Amy LV

I was most fascinated by the fact that LICENSE is an anagram (word made by rearranging the letters of another word) for SILENCE. That fascination formed the basis of today's whole poem. I mean, I really DO want a Silence License. 

Wordmaker is a very interesting site, and once it's back up again, I look forward to visiting it again. But of course, as April said, we can find words within words ourselves as well.

If you do not yet keep a collection of favorite words in your notebook, you might wish to start. Then, one day when you're not sure what to write about, you can choose one and see what grows from it.

Denise is hosting today's Poetry Friday roundup at Dare to Care with her post-inspiring In One Word poem inspired by the word TESTITUDINATE and also by April Halprind Wayland. Please know that all are welcome each Friday as folks share poems, poem books, poetry ideas, and friendship.

xo,

Amy

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.

Drawing the Everyday to See Something New

Welcome to Day 7 of Drawing Into Poems, my daily drawing/seeing/writing study into poetry.  You can read more about this month-long project here on my April 1 post.  Feel free to read the books with me and pull out your own sketchbook and jewelry box full of metaphor too...

Day Seven - My Glasses

Click the drawing to enlarge it.

Students - Today I am back home again, and yesterday I decided to draw something very daily, a normal part of my life: a pair of glasses.  I was looking about my house, trying to choose a subject, and this old pair of glasses just looked up at me from a shelf.  You can see where I was trying to draw the shadow.  You can also read how I am making comparisons between what I draw and other thing in the world, as THE PRIVATE EYE asks us to do when drawing and thinking.  These little notes may give me poem ideas.  (I really like the idea of glasses being like pretzels!)

My friend Nancy March (if you missed the Poetry Peek with Nancy and her neighbor Olivia, please do check it out and leave a comment for this young poet) just shared a very inspiring sketching blog with me.  If you like peeking into others' sketchbooks, check out Sketchbook Wandering, a lovely place to spend the morning, afternoon, or evening!

Teachers - It's Week 2 of National Poetry Month, and if you are looking for more wonderful ways to share poems this month and all year round, this post at Teach with Picture Books will inspire you greatly.  It's a great one, chock full of books, links, and ideas.

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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Poetry Friday & #107 - Flying My Poem

This poem is #8 in a Poetry Friday series of poems about poems.  It is also the last free verse poem in a week of free verse.  This was an interesting experiment, pushing myself beyond my usual walls of rhyme and meter, and I will be cycling back to more free verse, continuing to try and strengthen "my bad eye".

Students - I often mention where poem ideas come from.  This story is rather surprising.  A couple of days ago, I got sleepy in the middle of the afternoon and took a nap.  When I awoke, the image of a road-bumping poem-kite filled my mind immediately, and I quickly jotted down a few notes.  A rested brain makes connections that a too-busy brain might miss, so this is today's idea-finding advice: take a nap with your mind wide open!

This week's free verse poems were very much inspired by two books I have been reading: Heidi Mordhorst's nature-rich PUMPKIN BUTTERFLY and Jeannine Atkins' hauntingly historical BORROWED NAMES.  In each of these books, I find myself wrapped in story and place and voice and then rereading to savor delicious imagery and words wrapped in wonder.  These are books to stand back from and look up to.  They're also books to cuddle up with!

Shop Indie Bookstores

Shop Indie Bookstores

Today's Poetry Friday is hosted by Heidi Mordhorst herself, over at my juicy little universe.  Head on over there for the complete roundup of poetry fun.

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

PS - Does anyone know someone in Montana who might be interested in coming by The Poem Farm?  It's the last state to visit!