Ask a Photograph

Geo. R. Ludwig 

Detroit and Broadway, Buffalo, NY

Photo from Amy LV's Collection

Students - Today's poem grew from meandering. The Merriam-Webster Dictionary defines the verb meander this way - "to follow a winding or intricate course." The course I followed began with just writing in my notebook, letting one idea lead to the next. At some point, I remembered the old photograph you see above and went to find it. When I did, I remembered that it was taken in January, did the quick math (2026-1896), and realized that it was taken 130 years ago! This is old. I took a photo of the photo and zoomed in on my great grandfather's face.

George Richard Ludwig, 1896

Photo from Amy LV's Collection

Ah! If only I could bring him back to life. If only I could ask him some questions, learn about his dry goods store, now long-gone, learn about my grandfather George C., learn about this time in my family, in Buffalo, in America. But I cannot. Still, though, I can study the faces in the photo. And I can imagine. I can imagine what he might say to me. From this photo, in which he stands proudly in front of his growing shop, I believe he says to build. And while I will not build with bricks, I commit to build with words. For him.

This week, if you are uncertain where to begin with your writing, consider meandering. Just write and see where your pencil leads you. Or begin with a photo. Ask someone in the photo a question...in your mind or on paper. Listen to what this person tells you. See, the advice you receive from a photograph-person may also be advice from your deepest self. 

Remember that your poem need not rhyme or follow a special pattern. Your poem wants to be you, a reflection of you, a photograph of what you feel and believe and think right now. 

AI cannot know what you feel and believe and think. Feelings and beliefs and thoughts are slow and come from within. Meander. Take the long way.

Thank you to dear Tabatha of The Opposite of Indifference who set up such a delicious December poem swap. I was matched with darling Robyn-who-I-wish-I-could-see-every-day. She generously gifted me with magical earrings and an ornament based on one of my ghost poems as well as a poem that, well, I would be honored to hear as a ghost at my own funeral. You can read the poem and see what I sent to Robyn at her blog, Life on the Deckle Edge. Thank you, friends!

Jan is hosting today's Poetry Friday roundup over at bookseedstudio with a song and some thoughts about Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Each Friday, all are invited to share poems, poem books, poetry ideas, and friendship in this open and welcoming poetry community.

And while it's a bit late, Happy New Year! I have been thinking about you and wishing you all of the goodnessess that can come in time. Each of you is strong and full of light, and I wish you discovery and hope in the days and months that lay before you.

xo,

Amy

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Make Friends With Your Notebook

A Clearing

Photo by Amy LV

Students - Last night I woke up a few times with a writing idea I had planned to work on this morning. I began that work, but somehow felt it was not the right poem for this day. So I flipped through my notebook and found this draft from April.

April Notebook Draft

Photo by Amy LV

It felt more important to write about magic today, so I decided to type up the above draft to see what would happen. I played around a lot with the sound and read aloud as I worked. And I am happy I did so! 

My tip for today is to make friends with your notebook. Just stuff stuff in there: ideas, wonderings, unusual thoughts, bits and snips of poems, cards, photos, sketches, leaves, ticket stubs, stickers, recipes...anything! See, it is not easy for a writer to do all of the things in one day: think of an idea, draft it, play with the sound and structure, and edit. That's a lot to do! So a notebook can be a trusty friend who holds onto your ideas until you may (or may not) wish to turn then into drafts. I used to keep a whole blog about notebook keeping - Sharing Our Notebooks - and I am considering getting back to this as a central practice in my teaching. Our writing in notebooks helps us know what interests and charms us.

You may have noticed that today's poem does not carry a lot of rhyme. Rather, I focused on the sound, playing with short lines, each one almost contained and holding a bit of rhythm. Reading aloud as I write is one of my most important revision tools. If you don't do this now, I recommend giving it a try. Write a bit...read it aloud...revise what sounds off...keep going.

So consider it - write in a notebook just to see what you get. Revisit the writings in a few weeks to see if one of the bits may wish to grow into a story or a poem or an essay or a letter or something else. Our brains and hearts do a lot of work that we don't even know about, and a notebook can help us hang onto that thinking and love.

This week, Rose is hosting the Poetry Friday roundup over at Imagine the Possibilities with a bit about her "Snippets" log and a poem about imaginings. Each Friday, all are invited to share poems, poem books, poetry ideas, and friendship in this open and welcoming poetry community.

I send you magic and belief in magic...

xo,

Amy

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HELLO MY NAME IS - Day 19

Happy National Poetry Month!

(Feel free to search for poems in the sidebar or watch videos in the tab above.)

Hello, Poetry Friends! This month I am sharing poems written in the voice of Little Red Riding Hood, and I invite you to join me in writing in the voice of someone else too. You might choose a fairy tale character or a book character or a person from history or anyone else real or imagined. These are your poems, so you make the decisions. Each April day, I will share my poem and a little bit about writing poetry. Mostly, we’ll just be writing in short lines with good words and not worrying about rhyming. Meaning first. Our focus this month will be adopting the perspective of another…for 30 days. I invite you to join me in this project! To do so, simply:

1. Choose a character from fiction or history or somewhere else in the world of space and time, and commit to writing a daily poem in this person's voice for the 30 days of April 2025. You might even choose an animal.

2. Write a new poem for each day of April. Feel free to print and find inspiration from this idea sheet that I will be writing from all month long.

Teachers, if you wish to share any HELLO MY NAME IS... subjects or poems, please email them to me at the contact button above. I would love to read what your students write and learn from how they approach their own projects.

LITTLE RED RIDING HOOD'S POEMS SO FAR

April 1 - First Poem

April 2 - My Name

April 3 - Red

April 4 - Frank

April 5 - The Big Bad Wolf Had Been a Stray

April 6 - 8am on a Sunday

April 7 - Her Real Name is Orla Lola Bruin

April 8 - My Neighborhood

April 9 - Mushroom Hunters

April 10 - From Coat to Cloak

April 11 - Speaking of Coats

April 12 - Forgiveness is a Gift

April 13 - Here

April 14 - Running Home

April 15 - Nan's Apple Pie

April 16 - I Ask Nan How to Make Apple Pie

April 17 - untitled haiku

April 18 - The Right Thing to Do

And now for today!

Students - Last night I woke around 3:30am and wondered about what Lou's favorite book might be. I love Charlotte's Web, and perhaps this is why it came to mind for Lou. As I kept thinking I realized that she has a different reason to like this book. A spider and a pig are unlikely friends just as a girl and a wolf who ate her grandmother are unlikely friends. In books, we see ourselves and through books, we come to understand the world in different ways. If we love a certain book, it is good and right to read it again and again.

If you are wondering why the last two lines  of this free verse poem are so short, it is because short lines cause a reader to slow down. White space in a poem does that, and there is a lot of white space at the ends of these two lines.

In case you were wondering, I did reread the description of Zuckerman's barn to find the exact words milk pails and grain sacks.

Thank you for joining me on this twentieth day of HELLO MY NAME IS...

To learn about more National Poetry Month projects and all kinds of April goodness, visit Jama's Alphabet Soup where Jama has generously gathered this coming month's Kidlitosphere poetry happenings. And if you are interested in learning about or writing from any of my previous 14 National Poetry Month projects, you can find them here. Happy National Poetry Month!

xo,

Amy

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HELLO MY NAME IS - Day 18

Happy National Poetry Month!

(Feel free to search for poems in the sidebar or watch videos in the tab above.)

Hello, Poetry Friends! This month I am sharing poems written in the voice of Little Red Riding Hood, and I invite you to join me in writing in the voice of someone else too. You might choose a fairy tale character or a book character or a person from history or anyone else real or imagined. These are your poems, so you make the decisions. Each April day, I will share my poem and a little bit about writing poetry. Mostly, we’ll just be writing in short lines with good words and not worrying about rhyming. Meaning first. Our focus this month will be adopting the perspective of another…for 30 days. I invite you to join me in this project! To do so, simply:

1. Choose a character from fiction or history or somewhere else in the world of space and time, and commit to writing a daily poem in this person's voice for the 30 days of April 2025. You might even choose an animal.

2. Write a new poem for each day of April. Feel free to print and find inspiration from this idea sheet that I will be writing from all month long.

Teachers, if you wish to share any HELLO MY NAME IS... subjects or poems, please email them to me at the contact button above. I would love to read what your students write and learn from how they approach their own projects.

LITTLE RED RIDING HOOD'S POEMS SO FAR

April 1 - First Poem

April 2 - My Name

April 3 - Red

April 4 - Frank

April 5 - The Big Bad Wolf Had Been a Stray

April 6 - 8am on a Sunday

April 7 - Her Real Name is Orla Lola Bruin

April 8 - My Neighborhood

April 9 - Mushroom Hunters

April 10 - From Coat to Cloak

April 11 - Speaking of Coats

April 12 - Forgiveness is a Gift

April 13 - Here

April 14 - Running Home

April 15 - Nan's Apple Pie

April 16 - I Ask Nan How to Make Apple Pie

April 17 - untitled haiku

And now for today!

Students - Writing the poems of the last two days, I knew that today's poem would be about delivering pie to the fairy tale forest neighbors. And today, I just wrote by watching, watching Nan and Lou pack their baskets and go. I did not think as much as usual about every single word, didn' t try to rhyme, didn't fuss with meter. This poem just wanted to live today, just as it is. Perhaps I will return to it later, move the words around, strengthen a verb, change a syllable count...perhaps not. But for today, everyone gets pie.

Thank you for joining me on this eighteenth day of HELLO MY NAME IS...

Thank you also to Jone for hosting this week's Poetry Friday roundup over at Jone Rush MacCulloch with an interview with Shirley Thacker. Each Friday, all are invited to share poems, poem books, poetry ideas, and friendship in this open and welcoming poetry community.

To learn about more National Poetry Month projects and all kinds of April goodness, visit Jama's Alphabet Soup where Jama has generously gathered this coming month's Kidlitosphere poetry happenings. And if you are interested in learning about or writing from any of my previous 14 National Poetry Month projects, you can find them here. Happy National Poetry Month!

xo,

Amy

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If you are under 13 years old, please only comment 

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HELLO MY NAME IS - Day 9

 Happy National Poetry Month!

(Feel free to search for poems in the sidebar or watch videos in the tab above.)

Hello, Poetry Friends! This month I am sharing poems written in the voice of Little Red Riding Hood, and I invite you to join me in writing in the voice of someone else too. You might choose a fairy tale character or a book character or a person from history or anyone else real or imagined. These are your poems, so you make the decisions. Each April day, I will share my poem and a little bit about writing poetry. Mostly, we’ll just be writing in short lines with good words and not worrying about rhyming. Meaning first. Our focus this month will be adopting the perspective of another…for 30 days. I invite you to join me in this project! To do so, simply:

1. Choose a character from fiction or history or somewhere else in the world of space and time, and commit to writing a daily poem in this person's voice for the 30 days of April 2025. You might even choose an animal.

2. Write a new poem for each day of April. Feel free to print and find inspiration from this idea sheet that I will be writing from all month long.

Teachers, if you wish to share any HELLO MY NAME IS... subjects or poems, please email them to me at the contact button above. I would love to read what your students write and learn from how they approach their own projects.

LITTLE RED RIDING HOOD'S POEMS SO FAR

April 1 - First Poem

April 2 - My Name

April 3 - Red

April 4 - Frank

April 5 - The Big Bad Wolf Had Been a Stray

April 6 - 8am on a Sunday

April 7 - Her Real Name is Orla Lola Bruin

April 8 - My Neighborhood

And now for today!

Students - Today's poem brings us back to Poem 1 in this series, "First Poem," in which Lou describes herself as (more a hiker, mushroom seeker). It felt like a good day for LRRH to go mushroom seeking (Hunting? Seeking? Which word to choose?) with her Nan, to write a poem showcasing this hobby these two share.

Today's is a free verse poem with no real rhyme or meter. The poem part relies on line breaks and white space. Because Lou and Nan are walking through deep forest, the line breaks moving along and indenting from left to write mirror their footsteps and their gathering. The white space creates pauses and slows down reading, quiets the poem down.

One thing you might choose to notice is that I name specific mushrooms: morels, lions mane, hen of the woods. When a person has a hobby, that persons know the specific words around that hobby, so of course Lou and Nan know and use actual specific mushroom names. When you reread your own writing, both poems and stories and nonfiction and opinion too, reread and revise to make any nouns more specific if you can. This will create more vivid and clear pictures in the minds of your readers.

Thank you for joining me on this ninth day of HELLO MY NAME IS...

To learn about more National Poetry Month projects and all kinds of April goodness, visit Jama's Alphabet Soup where Jama has generously gathered this coming month's Kidlitosphere poetry happenings. And if you are interested in learning about or writing from any of my previous 14 National Poetry Month projects, you can find them here. Happy National Poetry Month!

xo,

Amy

Please share a comment below if you wish.

Know that your comment will only appear after I approve it.

If you are under 13 years old, please only comment 

with a parent or as part of a group with your teacher.

HELLO MY NAME IS - Day 6

    Happy National Poetry Month!

(Feel free to search for poems in the sidebar or watch videos in the tab above.)

Hello, Poetry Friends! This month I am sharing poems written in the voice of Little Red Riding Hood, and I invite you to join me in writing in the voice of someone else too. You might choose a fairy tale character or a book character or a person from history or anyone else real or imagined. These are your poems, so you make the decisions. Each April day, I will share my poem and a little bit about writing poetry. Mostly, we’ll just be writing in short lines with good words and not worrying about rhyming. Meaning first. Our focus this month will be adopting the perspective of another…for 30 days. I invite you to join me in this project! To do so, simply:

1. Choose a character from fiction or history or somewhere else in the world of space and time, and commit to writing a daily poem in this person's voice for the 30 days of April 2025. You might even choose an animal.

2. Write a new poem for each day of April. Feel free to print and find inspiration from this idea sheet that I will be writing from all month long.

Teachers, if you wish to share any HELLO MY NAME IS... subjects or poems, please email them to me at the contact button above. I would love to read what your students write and learn from how they approach their own projects.

LITTLE RED RIDING HOOD'S POEMS SO FAR

April 1 - First Poem

April 2 - My Name

April 3 - Red

April 4 - Frank

April 5 - The Big Bad Wolf Had Been a Stray

And now for today!

Students - Today's poem is simply a description poem of now, of something Lou is doing in the moment. It is written in the present tense, as if she is describing the scene around her, its colors and smells and sounds. In a way, it is a small moment poem and a list poem, and I like imagining this peaceful scene of LRRH surrounded by some of her favorite things.

If you are writing in the voice of another this month, or writing in your own voice, consider trying this. Write in the now. Where are you? What do you see, hear, smell, feel, taste in the air? Make a list and turn the list into a poem. Turn it into a different poem. Which do you prefer? If you like, combine them!

Notice - today's poem does not rhyme or follow a special meter/beat, but it does end with a short line. This is one way to bring a poem to a close. The short line feels like a punctuation mark indicating - This poem is over now.

Yesterday was such a fun Family Day at the Burchfield Penney Art Center. Several authors read to children, and the museum staff and volunteers made crafts with the children. For my book, WITH MY HANDS, POEMS ABOUT MAKING THINGS, children had the opportunity to make sock puppets or fingerprint pictures! Thank you to everyone at the Burchfield Penney for putting together such a wonderful day for families and authors too.

Sock Puppet Materials
Photo by Amy LV

Fingerprint Picture Materials

Photo by Amy LV

Thank you for joining me on this sixth day of HELLO MY NAME IS...

To learn about more National Poetry Month projects and all kinds of April goodness, visit Jama's Alphabet Soup where Jama has generously gathered this coming month's Kidlitosphere poetry happenings. And if you are interested in learning about or writing from any of my previous 14 National Poetry Month projects, you can find them here. Happy National Poetry Month!

xo,

Amy

Please share a comment below if you wish.

Know that your comment will only appear after I approve it.

If you are under 13 years old, please only comment 

with a parent or as part of a group with your teacher.

HELLO MY NAME IS - Day 4

  Happy National Poetry Month!

(Feel free to search for poems in the sidebar or watch videos in the tab above.)

Hello, Poetry Friends! This month I am sharing poems written in the voice of Little Red Riding Hood, and I invite you to join me in writing in the voice of someone else too. You might choose a fairy tale character or a book character or a person from history or anyone else real or imagined. These are your poems, so you make the decisions. Each April day, I will share my poem and a little bit about writing poetry. Mostly, we’ll just be writing in short lines with good words and not worrying about rhyming. Meaning first. Our focus this month will be adopting the perspective of another…for 30 days. I invite you to join me in this project! To do so, simply:

1. Choose a character from fiction or history or somewhere else in the world of space and time, and commit to writing a daily poem in this person's voice for the 30 days of April 2025. You might even choose an animal.

2. Write a new poem for each day of April. Feel free to print and find inspiration from this idea sheet that I will be writing from all month long.

Teachers, if you wish to share any HELLO MY NAME IS... subjects or poems, please email them to me at the contact button above. I would love to read what your students write and learn from how they approach their own projects.

LITTLE RED RIDING HOOD'S POEMS SO FAR

April 1 - First Poem

April 2 - My Name

April 3 - Red

And now for today!

Students - In today's poem, Lou (LRRH) reveals something new about herself - she has a dog! It is the wolf! Surprise! The poem is a free verse poem written in a conversational voice, and there is one poem-writing technique that I want you to notice. 

The last line - Nobody can. 

I placed this line all alone because it is an important line. Lou wants us to know that we can't be accurate when we try to judge people from one story. It is her message.

Leaving a lot of white space around a word or a line in a poem alerts readers to slow down their reading. If you wish to highlight importance in your poem, leave some white space around the important part.

Thank you for joining me for Day 4 of HELLO MY NAME IS...

Thank you to Matt for hosting this week's Poetry Friday roundup over at Radio, Rhythm, and Rhyme with a celebration of his new book, A UNIVERSE OF RAINBOWS: MULTICOLORED POEMS FOR A MULTICOLORED WORLD. Each Friday, all are invited to share poems, poem books, poetry ideas, and friendship in this open and welcoming poetry community.

To learn about more National Poetry Month projects and all kinds of April goodness, visit Jama's Alphabet Soup where Jama has generously gathered this coming month's Kidlitosphere poetry happenings. Thank you, Jama, for designing my logo for this month! And if you are interested in learning about or writing from any of my previous 14 National Poetry Month projects, you can find them here. Happy National Poetry Month!

xo,

Amy

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Experiment with a Short Form

Family Button Box

Photo by Amy LV

Students - Today's poem blossomed from an old family cigar box full of buttons and a chance opening to a page in Kyle Vaughn's inspiring book LIGHTNING PATHS: 75 POETRY EXERCISES.

The short form is inspired by the landay, a thousands-of-years-old, two-line poem form with nine syllables in the first line and thirteen syllables in the second line. (Go ahead...count.) Vaughn explains that such poems are "simple and deal with common, earthly concerns: love, suffering, war, nature, beauty, death." Landays often criticize elements of life, are anonymous, and are shared by and among Afghan women, shared orally as a way to express anger and grief, frustration and love. 

I am not living in Afghanistan long ago or today, composing and speaking these words with my neighbors and in-person community, but I too wish to learn to express a feeling with a certain number of syllables - twenty-two. My small lines speak to the grandmother who died before I was born, who died before my parents were even married. I believe that the button box belonged to her, Geraldine Pappier Ludwig. I wish I could bring Grandma Ludwig back to life for a day with this box of buttons on the table and a kettle of water brewing for tea we could share.

You might wish to try writing a poem inspired by the landay form. If so, draft two lines about one of these big ideas or another big idea of your choosing:

love

suffering

war

nature

beauty

death

Consider choosing a feeling or a memory or an object or a small moment of time related to the big idea to get started. And try counting syllables. Work toward nine syllables in your first line and thirteen in your second line. Writing only two lines allows us to focus on the count more easily than when we are writing four or eight or sixteen or thirty-two lines.

Thank you to Tabatha for hosting this week's Poetry Friday roundup over at The Opposite of Indifference with a perfect monologue from Shakespeare's HENRY V and her ever-generous thoughts. Each Friday, all are invited to share poems, poem books, poetry ideas, and friendship in this open and welcoming poetry community.

Hmmmm. Perhaps each of those buttons yearns to have a poem written about it. Back to the box I go!

xo,

Amy

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Where is Home?

Making an Orange Pomander

Photo by Amy LV

Cuddling Claude

Photo by Amy LV

Looking at Twinkly Lights

Photo by Amy LV

Students - When we think of home, we often think about a structure: an apartment, a house, a building of some sort. But home can also be a feeling, and for me, it is often a quiet feeling. Home is the feeling of making something slowly with my hands. Home is the feeling of touching the soft fur of our poofy friend Claude. Home is the feeling of staring at my favorite twinkly lights on this cold winter morning.

Today's poem is simply a pause to appreciate the home of quiet that I try (and often fail) to carry inside of my own pocketheart. I wrote this poem in all lowercase letters because it felt quieter to me that way, and as always, I read it aloud over and over as I wrote each line. A beautiful example of a poem in all lowercase letters and with no punctuation is Nikki Giovanni's "Winter Poem."  Nikki passed away this month and will remain forever a shining star forever in the hearts of poem readers.

Allow yourself to play with your writing. Try something new, like rhyming...or not rhyming...or writing long lines instead of short ones...or letting go of capital letters...or writing funny instead of serious. Trust yourself to know that writing is exploration. And know, too, that writing is about your own mind; it not about patching together something written by computers.

When you write or make art this week, you may choose to begin with the question, "What feels like home for me right now?"

Thank you to Jone for hosting this week's Poetry Friday roundup over at Jone MacCulloch. Each Friday, all are invited to share poems, poem books, poetry ideas, and friendship in this open and welcoming poetry community.

May you gratefully notice the moments of home in your life as we bring 2024 to a close...

xo,

Amy

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