Writing the Rainbow Poem #10 - Orange

Welcome to my National Poetry Month project for 2017!  Students - Each day of April 2017, I will close my eyes, and I will reach into my box of 64 Crayola crayons.

Aerial View of Crayola Box

Photo by Georgia LV

Each day I will choose a crayon (without looking), pulling this crayon out of the box. This daily selected crayon will in some way inspire the poem for the next day.  Each day of this month, I will choose a new crayon, thinking and writing about one color every day for a total of 30 poems inspired by colors.

As of April 2, it happened that my poems took a turn to all be from the point of view of a child living in an apartment building.  So, you'll notice this thread running through the month of colors. I'd not planned this...it was a writing surprise.

I welcome any classrooms of poets who wish to share class poems (class poems only please) related to each day's color (the one I choose or your own).  Please post your class poem or photograph of any class crayon poem goodness to our Writing the Rainbow Padlet HERE.  (If you have never posted on a Padlet, it is very easy.  Just double click on the red background, and a box will appear.  Write in this box, and upload any poemcrayon sharings you wish.)

Here is a list of this month's Writing the Rainbow Poems so far:

March 30 - Pick a Crayon, Write a Poem - Project Introduction 

April 1 - Misty - Inspired by Carnation Pink

April 2 - Each Morning - Inspired by Lavender

April 3 - Outside My Building - Inspired by Dandelion (!)

April 4 - Mr. B. - Inspired by Olive Green

April 5 - Once in a While - Inspired by Tumbleweed

April 6 - On Miss Johnson's Fire Escape - Inspired by Yellow Orange

April 7 - The Guy Downstairs - Inspired by Spring Green

April 8 - I Watch Her - Inspired by Forest Green

April 9 - Their Hands - Inspired by White

And now...today's crayon.  Orange!

Our Elevator

by Amy LV

Students - Upon choosing orange, I couldn't decide if the color would be about elevator buttons...or a child wearing orange boots.  So, I chose both.  My stuck-moment for the day, though was meter.  I wasn't sure how to get the rhythm rolling for today's verse.

So I turned to a mentor.  Eve Merriam.  Last night during the Poetry #NCTEchat on Twitter, this wonderful poet's name came up, and especially her whimsical book BLACKBERRY INK.

Available, Used

So I went to my shelves and...there it was!  I opened and read and found a poem with a pattern that felt interesting.  Merriam's poem begins like this:

It fell in the city,

It fell through the night,

And the black rooftops

All turned white.

I kept my book open as I wrote, learning from her use of repetition and rhyme.  And because of this guidance of someone here-but-not-here, I was able to write today's poem.

If you are Writing the Rainbow with me, consider playing a rhyme or meter pattern that you admire.  You're welcome to learn from me learning from Eve Merriam! 

Colors can take us anywhere.  And if you'd like to join in with your own poem at our Writing the Rainbow Padlet, please do! It is quite a beautifully hopping place.

Don't miss the links to all kinds of Poetry Month goodness up there in my upper left sidebar.  Happy tenth day of National Poetry Month!

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.

Day 16 - National Poetry Month 2015 - Sing That Poem!

Happy National Poetry Month!

Welcome to Day 16 of this Year's Poem Farm Project!

Find the Complete April 2015 Poem and Song List Here

First, I would like to welcome all old and new friends to The Poem Farm this April. Spring is a busy time on all farms, and this one is no exception.  Each April, many poets and bloggers take on special poetry projects, and I'm doing so too.  You can learn all about Sing That Poem! and how to play on my April 1st post, where you will also find the list of the whole month's poems and tunes as I write and share them.  If you'd like to print out a matching game page for yourself, you can find one here, and during April 2015, you'll be able to see the song list right over there in the left hand sidebar.

Yesterday's poem was You and Me.  Here is the tune that goes along with it, below. Did you figure it out?

And here, below, is today's poem.  Look at the song list in the sidebar or on your matching form to see if you can puzzle out which tune matches this one.

Time

Photo by Amy LV

Students - Today's poem is about something that always strikes me.  Old barns. Whenever I drive here near home or far away in other rural areas, I fall in love with barn after barn.  There are so many stories in old barns, and I wish that I could bewitch each old barn I see...bewitch it into talking for just five minutes...so that I could learn the stories from its past.

Yesterday, I had a long drive home from Vermont, after two delightful days teaching in the Georgia Elementary and Middle School.  On my way, I passed many old barns, and the one you see above simply stole my heart.

Today's poem is a simple verse, full of simple solid noun-words: barn, moon, cow, cats, children.  I wanted my poem to feel sturdy and safe, just like a steady barn.  I wrote it while driving, in my head, once again stopping at gas stations to jot on the paper below.  Because I was driving, most of the revision was invisible...in my old singing head!

You can think about your writing even when you are not writing; just let the ideas and sounds play together in your head.  You can think about writing at any time at all: when you are riding your bike, sitting on a bus seat, looking out of your living room window at the rain.

The wondrous poet Eve Merriam once said, "I've sometimes spent weeks looking for precisely the right word.  It's like having a tiny marble in your pocket, you can just feel it.  Sometimes you find a word and say, 'No, I don't think this is it...' Then you discard it, and take another and another until you get it right."

We can all be like Eve, thinking about our writing during all times of day, carrying words in our pocket, patiently waiting and searching for just the right ones.

Poem Draft (Most Revision Done in Head While Driving)

Photo by Amy LV

Please share a comment below if you wish.

Welcome to Dee Michel, Eve Merriam's Son!

Eve Merriam Photo, Poem, and Top of Edible Book

What a treasure I have in store for you today. A few weeks ago, I opened my e-mail to find this note from writer and retired librarian Dee Michel --

Hi Amy LV,
Eve Merriam was my mother, and I've been involved in a local Edible Book event here in Northampton, MA for the past several years.  When trying to find the photos online of my creation, I stumbled across your mentioning my mother's poem and then talking about the Edible Book fest just before.  Amazing.  So here's what I did last spring: 

https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.349788398403031.72202.334159879965883&type=3

Here is Dee's edible book to go along with one of his mom's most well-loved poems, "How to Eat a Poem."

Dee's 2012 Edible Book 

Dee Michel and friends Laura Wenk and Mina Stern-Wenk 

(All worked on the fridge!)

Part-Eaten Poem, Part-Eaten Fridge

Cookies Baked for 4-Letter Word Magnets

Dee told more about his edible books --

I've been doing edible books for a few years and the title of this poem, "How to Eat a Poem," seemed perfect for an edible book, even though a poem is not a book. But I couldn't figure out how to embody it. Then, this year, I somehow happened on the idea of refrigerator magnets.

I think the edible book idea is so cool for so many reasons. First, folks interpret their books in a variety of unexpected ways, from 3-D actual books to scenes from stories to puns and rebuses to ... Second, the variety of folks doing it from kids to adults to kids and adults. Third, the community feeling. Fourth, the idea that it's evanescent art, like a Buddhist sand mandala, here today gone in a few hours.

The same week as the Edible Book event here in Northampton at the beginning of April 2012 was the 20th anniversary of my mother's death and by an amazing coincidence, I was on a radio show talking about her poetry.

My real fridge actually contains a bit of the Rice Krispie treat fridge that didn't get eaten. I also have the remains of a WIZARD OF OZ cake that the UMass library folks made for me at the opening of an exhibit I did for them quite a few years ago. 

Wizard of Oz Edible Book

And here is my edible version of BREAKFAST IN THE RAINFOREST.

Breakfast in the Rainforest Edible Book

I asked what it was like to be Eve Merriam's son --

My mother loved language play and kept notes on funny or insightful things my brother and I said when we were growing up. I remember her telling me that we loved the sound of the word "sycamore." When my mother pointed out sycamore trees in New York City (they are along Riverside Park and elsewhere in Manhattan), she told me that my brother and I would run around yelling, "Sycamore, sycamore, sick, sick, sycamore!"

Both she and my father loved the theater in general and musicals especially. They took me and my brother to Broadway and off Broadway shows when we were really young. I inherited this love and have quite a large collection of LP's, old-fashioned vinyl, especially of Broadway musicals. My mother told many interviewers that the lyrics of W.S. Gilbert were especially inspiring to her, and Mom and Dad also took us to Gilbert and Sullivan operettas when we were young.

Recently I was involved in the Dining Room Players, kids as young as 3 and 4, but also up to preteen, who put on Gilbert and Sullivan shows in one family's dining room. Each week in the winter they would film one scene and then a grown-up would edit it all into an hour or so video. I helped with props and sets and the program and getting a CD for all the parents. My partner and I were the only non-parental adults helping out.

Dee shared his favorite of his mother's poems --
     
Let's see. I think "Apple" from HALLOWEEN ABC.  (For more about this book, visit The Miss Rumphius Effect.)  In fact, back in the year 2000 in honor of National Poetry Month, Ginny Moore Kruse of the Cooperative Children's Book Center in Madison asked for people to nominate poems by NCTE award winners. Since my mother got the NCTE award in 1981 and I was at the ceremony in Boston, I had to nominate something. This is what I sent Ginnie Moore Kruse:

I remember the NCTE award dinner in Boston in 1981 quite well. I got to meet David McCord and Myra Cohn Livingston. Anyway, here is my nomination for favorite Merriam poem:

"Apple" from HALLOWEEN ABC

"You be good and I'll be night" from the book of the same name may
      be sillier and more fun to read out loud.
"Landscape" from FINDING A POEM critiques society more bitingly,
      it must be allowed.
"How to Eat a Poem" uses the same image of fruit being Eden; it is
      so often anthologized, it makes me proud.

Eve had an affinity for alphabet books and apples and puns.
For gleeful evil that hurts no one,
That elicits the squealing of kids having fun,
The surprise ending of "Apple" is just the one.
 
And here's the text -

Apple
by Eve Merriam

Apple, 
sweet apple, 
what do you hide?
Wormy and 
squirmy, 
rotten inside.

Apple, 
sweet apple, 
so shiny and red, 
taste it, 
don’t waste it,
come and be fed.

Delicious, 
malicious; 
one bite and 
you’re dead.

Dee told me about his favorite poems by others --

Oh gee. I always liked "The grasshopper" by David McCord, with its zigzaggy lines across the page. I memorized it in grade school, but of course the zigzagginess was lost when I said it out loud. I also like these from Ogden Nash:  "Babies,"  "Canary," "The Eel."  Once read, never forgotten.  Interesting how 3 out of 4 are animal poems. And all pretty light verse.

I asked what Dee plans to do with his edible book collection --

I'm just a saver. Don't have any plans. Would you like a piece?  I'd be happy to send it to you to admire/eat/toss ...

I said, "Yes, please!" And then yesterday, on the heels of Hurricane Sandy, this package came in the mail.

Package from October 29, 2012

I opened it up...

Surprise!

...and found parts of the rainforest bowl (lower left), a big chunk of poem refrigerator, and many trees and castle parts from Oz!

Goodies for Us!

Today our family is spending the day reading, preparing for Halloween, and nibbling on green trees, a chocolate bowl, and the refrigerator that goes along with one of my favorite poems.  Many thanks to a generous man, who we'd never met until just a few weeks ago!

To read more about Dee's edible books, click on the links below.

Dee's article about his first Edible Book Festival
Poem Ingredient Card
Rainforest and Oz Ingredient Cards

Eve Merriam was the author of poems for adults, poems for children, picture books, and more.  She won the NCTE Award for Excellence in Poetry for Children in 1981, and her book THE INNER CITY MOTHER GOOSE (1969), a frequently challenged book, inspired the Broadway musical, INNER CITY.  For more information about Eve Merriam, visit Poets.org.

Just One of Eve Merriam's Many Books

Available through Amazon

I am simply delighted today...to have a new friend who loves edible book festivals as much as I do, to crunch on these books, to know Eve Merriam's son, my new pen pal!  Thank you so much, Dee, for finding me, for sharing your photos and stories, and for goodies in word and food.  I cannot wait to see your next edible book.

Sycamore!

Please share a comment below if you wish.

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Poetry Friday & Eating Books in Poem #359

Books are Food

by Amy LV

This is poem #11 in my Poetry Friday series of poems about reading and books and words.  I think this is the final one in this series...at least for now.

Students - today's poem came from a collage of places, and I am going to try to connect the dots of all of the food/word connections that have been going through my mind of late.  

1.  The International Edible Book Festival is next Friday, April 1.  The first day of National Poetry Month.  We will celebrate at the Western New York Book Arts Center, one of my new favorite places.  At this event, we will truly eat our words.  Do check if there is such a fun evening in your town.  We can't wait!

2.  I have always loved Eve Merriam's poem "How to Eat a Poem."

3.  I sometimes confuse my senses and want to eat and bite things that I love - like our cat and my children and yes, books!

4.  Once I heard a very funny story in which Maurice Sendak explained how the best compliment he ever received was when a child ate his autograph.

5. Below you can read one of my favorite poems.  And while it's not about eating words, the way this poem places value on beauty as much as food moves me.

If of thy mortal goods thy art bereft

And from thy slender store two loaves alone to thee are left,

Sell one, and with the dole

Buy hyacinths to feed thy soul.

Moslih Eddin Saadi, Persian Poet

 

Sometimes many little loves and thoughts from your life all find each other like little magnets.  When this happens, writing begins!  So watch for this, students.  Pay attention to how the ideas and thoughts and feelings in your life connect.  You may be surprised.

On this Poetry Friday, I would like to welcome the man who welcomed me to poetry to his new home on the Internet!  Knowing that Lee Bennett Hopkins has his own web address makes me smile.  It's like a great neighbor has moved to town.  Do stop by and visit Lee at his new snazzy and inspiring home here..

A word about next Friday.  Next Friday is April 1.  It is also the start of National Poetry Month.  It is also the end of My Poem Writing Year.  I will also be hosting Poetry Friday and featuring a Poetry Peek with Bonnie Evancho's second grade writers from Pinehurst Elementary in the Frontier Central School District here near home.  Soooo...I welcome you one and all and invite you to please bring a friend along as another month of poetry fun begins, all around the mulberry bush!

Today, our Poetry Friday Hostess Mary Lee has a delightful take off on Gerard Manley Hopkins "Pied Beauty," which she shared last week.  This week it's a rumpus with her original "Wild Atrocity."  So skate on over to A Year of Reading, and join the party!

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