Hearts, Heart Maps, & a New Georgia Heard Book!

Seeing Into Hearts

by Amy LV

Students - I wrote today's poem thinking about the many maps of many hearts that children and grownups have drawn over the past many years since Georgia Heard first suggested we do so.  As I considered this exercise and my own heart's table of contents, I imagined for a moment what it would be like if we could each just see inside each others' hearts, could know what others were carrying inside.

I got to thinking about my sister-in-law Suzi's e-mail tag line, how very true it is, how kind we might each be if we could only know the battles of others.  Since we cannot, we must trust that they are there.

In writing, one thing leads to another, and we must be open to this leading, this mystery.  Allow yourself to begin anywhere with your writing...and see where you end up.  The journey!  The journey!

I am so happy to welcome Georgia Heard, one of my own mentors, to The Poem Farm today. I was fortunate enough to first hear Georgia speak twenty-two years ago, and she lit a bright candle for poetry in my own heart.

Georgia Heard: Poet, Author, Teacher

I have learned lots from Georgia's books and talks throughout the years, and her new Heinemann book - HEART MAPS: HELPING STUDENTS CREATE AND CRAFT AUTHENTIC WRITING - is out just this week, so it's a perfect time to celebrate hearts!  

Available through Heinemann

Georgia's HEART MAPS Podcast

Georgia allowed me to ask her a few questions about this new book today, and Heinemann generously offered a set of two of her books: HEART MAPS and AWAKENING THE HEART to one commenter on today's post.  Much gratitude to both!

How did you begin working with heart maps as a way to spark writing?

I was a visiting writer in a school in Phoenix, Arizona and I began a heart-mapping project with third-graders. My goal was to inspire these young poets to write from their hearts – to show them that writing poems can give voice to our truest selves. I wrote about that experience of using heart maps to kindle writing in AWAKENING THE HEART: EXPLORING POETRY IN ELEMENTARY AND MIDDLE SCHOOL. Since that time I’ve introduced heart mapping to hundreds of writers of all ages as a way not only to dig deep into ideas for writing poems but also to spark writing in many different genres.

How has your work with heart maps deepened through your years as a writing teacher?

I began with the idea of one heart map: map what you love and what you’ve stored in your heart.  Over time I realized that other kinds of heart maps could provide opportunities for students to discover not only poems but also stories, ideas they want to explore, and what they wonder about. In my new book, I introduce twenty types of heart maps that I hope will inspire writers to bring their passions to the page no matter what genre they’re writing in.

Would you be willing to share one of your own poems that grew from a heart map?

Poets find poems everywhere in the surprising nooks and crannies of the world. I wrote about finding poetry in the world, and in my heart, in this poem “Where I Find Poetry.”

Where I Find Poetry

by Georgia Heard

I open my eyes and what do I see?

Poetry spinning all around me!

In small ants trailing over the ground,

Bulldozing dry earth into cave and mound.

In a hundred grains of ocean sand,

that I cradle in the palm of my hand.

In a lullaby of April rain,

tapping softly on my window pane.

In trees dancing on a windy day,

when sky is wrinkled and elephant gray.

Poetry, poetry! Can be found 

in, out and all around.

But take a look inside your heart,

that’s where a poem truly likes to start.

One of the heart maps in the book is called WHERE I FIND POETRY HEART MAP where writers look closely at the world to find poetry in all of its surprising specificity and then write and draw on their heart maps. Here are two examples of student WHERE I FIND POETRY HEART MAPS:

Thank you again to Georgia...to these two young heart mappers...to Heinemann...to Suzi...and to everybody who stopped by today.

I wish each and every one of you very full hearts this week.  May your own hearts overflow with goodness, and may you have the eyes to see the burning candles in the hearts of others.  Please leave a comment on today's post (by midnight on Thursday, September 22) to be entered in the drawing for a set of two Georgia Heard books - the new HEART MAPS and the classic AWAKENING THE HEART.

Speaking of great giveaways, congratulations to Linda Mitchell of A Word Edgewise, winner of the five copies of YOU JUST WAIT from last week's post. Linda - please just send me a note to amy@amylv.com with your snail mail address, and the books will wing their way to you.  Thank you again to Janet and Sylvia of Pomelo Books for the generous gift!

In my other space, I am tickled to welcome fellow Poetry Friday blogger, writer, and teacher Kiesha Shepard to Sharing Our Notebooks.  Stop on over there, peek into her notebooks, leave a comment...and maybe, just maybe, thank you to Kiesha, you might win a Mary Oliver poetry book.

Today's Poetry Friday roundup is over with Michelle at Today's Little Ditty.  Enjoy all of the poetry joy all week long!

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Day 3 - Teapot & A Neighborhood Poetry Peek

Welcome to Day 3 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 Three - Teapot

Students - Something interesting happened to me yesterday.  Our family took a very long car trip from Western New York all the way to Washington DC.  I had lots of time to look out of the car window, sometimes driving and sometimes not.  And guess what?  I was looking differently.  Yesterday I really saw the roof lines of houses and barns, noticing their angles.  I studied shadows that never would have noticed before.  Why?  Because I am drawing, and my seeing is changing.

This always happens to me whenever I am writing regularly - everything becomes a writing idea.  I took on this month's project to see if I could change my own eyes, slow down my looking.  Three days have passed, and already I feel a bit of a shift, as if I am stretching muscles that have been sleeping for far too long.

It is simply habit and time.  Anyone can draw a teapot like this one or better than this one. (See the Mindset clip from April 1 if you don't believe me.)  It just takes time to sit down down and really draw what your eyes see.  Others are able to draw much more realistically than I am able to now, but I am pleased that this sitting is helping me become more aware.

Today I am so happy to be back with another Poetry Peek!  (See tab above for more such peeks.)   It's been a while since we have had poetry visitors here, and visitor-days are my favorite days.  So many warm welcomes and hugs to young poet Olivia and her friend, retired teacher Nancy March from Cumberland Maine, close to the ocean and only an hour from mountains and forest. Nancy taught fourth grade most of her twenty-five career at Yarmouth Elementary School, and today she is like a Pied Piper of Poetry - spreading the joy of words.

From Nancy March...

My love of poetry came from the scraps of paper nestled in my grandmother’s apron pockets. Gram wrote down ideas and bits of conversation as she went about her daily chores.  It was our secret that she loved poetry and when she died I knew I would carry on this appreciation for words.  The first poet she exposed me to was Saint Francis:  

Not to Hurt…

Not to hurt our humble brethren (the animals) 

Is our first duty to them, but to stop there is not enough. 

We have a higher mission:

To be of service to them whenever they require it.

This simple first memorization and conversation with my grandmother launched my love of poetry and  nature.  I would read Robert Frost, Carl Sandburg, and Emily Dickinson for hours. When I was 17, my grandmother died and I secretly began writing poetry as a way to stay connected to her.  All my poems were written on scraps of paper I kept in a box.  As my life unfolded it was nature that provided me with ideas for writing and Georgia Heard became my mentor. The invention of digital cameras opened a new world to capture the essence of my observations.

Now, I am in a new stage of life – retirement.  I miss sharing poetry and writing poetry with my students.  There is nothing like a new book of poetry or well loved poem or picture book  to inspire new ideas and having kids experiment with words, nature, and art.  Lucky for me I have an eight year old neighbor. Olivia, who loves to play with words.  Every Monday we sit at the kitchen table and read and write poetry.  Let me introduce my poetry neighbor and friend – Olivia.

Poet Olivia

Photo by Nancy March

Olivia’s words…

I never had a writer’s notebook before, but I do now.  I collect ideas, facts, photographs, illustrations, and new words. In the beginning I wrote stories and then I started reading and writing poems.  I started writing poems from the freewrites in my notebook.  My first freewrite was about skiing with my brother and it became my first poem – Skiing with Owen.    

Olivia's Notebook Illustration
Photo by Nancy March

Olivia's Notebook List

Photo by Nancy March

When I want to write a poem I think about things that have happened or I use photographs I’ve taken.  Next, I make a list or do a freewrite.  Once I’m done writing I start to organize my writing by taking some words away and maybe adding new words.  I like to use describing words and alliteration to make my poems sound good.  

I like reading and writing poetry.  Poems are like writing little stories.  I like working on just the right words to make the poem perfect for me.  I also love illustrating my poems or using a photograph. 

I asked Nancy if she would be willing to share a teaching tip for sharing poetry with children, and she was.

My purpose for working with my students is based on a philosophy I learned from Georgia Heard  & Jennifer McDonough  in their book A PLACE FOR WONDER.

Available through Stenhouse

This book centers on the belief that all students should be part of an environment that inspires them to think, question, and discover.  When I work with Olivia, I start each session with the same belief that  "purposeful and authentic writing and reading come from children's own authentic and passionate wonders and observations about their world."  (page 5)  Before we write poetry, we read lots of poetry and "look for craft in writing that we admire".  

Those words should sound familiar to all those who had opportunities to study the work of Donald Graves.  It truly was 20 years ago when I heard Donald Graves talk about The Writer's Life and decided I wanted all my kids to have the experience of living that life.  For each poem we write, we have a stack of poems that guide us through revision and help us build our poetry toolbox.

Thank you so much to Nancy and Olivia for bringing a bit of their neighborhood to The Poem Farm!  It has been lovely to have you here, and I wish you both a springtime full of poems.

Don't miss the Progressive Poem!  Check out the left sidebar to see how this year's Kidlitosphere poem is growing so far...

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Chickens & Found Poems

Hope, Georgia, & Chickens in 2010

Photo by Elizabeth Pellette

Students - This is a found poem. This means that I did not come up with these words on my own, but rather, I found them, tossed a few, and formed them in a poem shape.  Poets.org calls a found poem "the literary equivalent of a collage," and I think that's a perfect way to describe this form.  You can read more about found poems at Poets.org.

Here is the passage from which I rearranged the poem, "Chicken."  It's from page 29 in YOUR CHICKENS, by Gail Damerow.  You can see that I kept almost all of the words, only losing a few that felt like fillers for a poem.

The expressions "playing chicken" and "don't be such a chicken" come from peck-order squabbles.  When two evenly matched birds try to decide which one is higher in rank, they may face each other and remain motionless for several minutes.  The one who turns away first loses.

Available through Amazon

Speaking of found poems, my found poem "Artist's Advice" will appear in Georgia Heard's new book of found poems, THE ARROW FINDS ITS MARK. I can't wait to see it.

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And now...MADNESS! It's the first-ever-Ed DeCaria-hosted MARCH MADNESS for poetry! Yep, a poetry tournament. We began as 64 poets at the beginning of this week. And soon, we'll be down to 32. Then...16. We will split and split until there is only one poet standing. How will this be determined? By readers and voters! Head on over to Ed's blog, Think Kid, Think! and check it out. You can see the bracket, the rules, the poets, and the live scoreboard. Lots of fun! Many thanks to Ed for taking on this huge project and bringing us all together in such a playful way.

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