Wallow in Wonder Day 29 - One Couplet in the Rain

Welcome to Day 29 of Wallow in Wonder!  

For my 2016 National Poetry Month project, I will celebrate learning and writing from learning, writing poems from each daily Wonder at Wonderopolis.  As I did with my Dictionary Hike in 2012, I am looking to surprise myself with new inspiration daily.  This year, such inspiration will show up in my inbox each morning.  I will print it and carry each Wonderopolis Wonder around all day...and in the afternoon or evening, I will write and post the poem for the next day.  

I invite anyone who wishes to take this challenge too.  Just read today's wonder over at Wonderopolis, and write a poem inspired by it for tomorrow.  Share it tomorrow at your own site, and if you wish to link in my comments for others to find (or share your poem there), please feel free to do so tomorrow, the day after the Wonder is published at Wonderopolis.  If you would like to share any ways you have used Wallow in Wonder or your own site (safe for children only please), please feel free to do so in the comments.

My April Poems Thus Far

April 1 - So Suddenly - a poem inspired by Wonder #1659 

April 2 - Thankful Journal - a poem inspired by Wonder #1660

April 3 - The Storm Chaser - a poem inspired by Wonder #779

April 4 - A Jar of Glitter - a poem inspired by Wonder #641

April 5 - To Make Compost - a poem inspired by Wonder #1661

April 6 - Deciding Now - a poem inspired by Wonder #1662

April 7 - Hummingbird's Secret - a poem inspired by Wonder #1663

April 8 - Limits - a poem inspired by Wonder #1664

April 9 - Sundogs - a poem inspired by Wonder #1665

April 10 - Perspective - a poem inspired by Wonder #128

April 11 - At the History Museum - a poem inspired by Wonder #115

April 12 - Seventy-Five Years Ago Today - a poem inspired by Wonder #1666

April 13 - Homer's Poem - a poem inspired by Wonder #1667

April 14 - The Right - a poem inspired by Wonder #1668

April 15 - 5:00 am - a poem inspired by Wonder #1669

April 16 - Writing - a poem inspired by Wonder #1670

April 17 - Sometimes - a poem inspired by Wonder #194

April 18 - Once - a poem inspired by Wonder #192

April 19 - Eat It - a poem inspired by Wonder #1671

April 20 - Chatty Green Tomato - a poem inspired by Wonder #1672

April 21 - This Argument We're Having - a poem inspired by Wonder #1673

April 22 - After a Week in Foster Care - a poem inspired by Wonder #1674

April 23 - Pay Attention - a (recycled) poem inspired by Wonder #1675

April 24 - Please Don't Ask - a poem inspired by Wonder #201

April 25 - Mama Kangaroo's Poem - a poem inspired by Wonder #447

April 26 - Not Anymore - a poem inspired by Wonder #1675

April 27 - If We Were Whales - a poem inspired by Wonder #1676

April 28 - Written on a Paper Airplane - a poem inspired by Wonder #1677

And now for Day 29!

Wonder #1679 - from April 28, 2016

Pocket of Blue

by Amy LV

Students - This is the shortest poem of my Wallow in Wonder series.  I am not sure why, but thinking about rain and showers just placed this picture in my head. I liked the first line and then played for quite a while to get the second.  

This is simply a couplet - one pair of rhyming lines - and it sketches simply one image.  Sometimes writing can be very spare.  Feel free to play with many words...and very few.  You will learn different things as you experiment with various styles.

I am currently holding two Poetry Month giveaways...both ending tomorrow, April 30!

It has been an absolute pleasure this week to host teacher Emily Callahan and her students from Kansas City here to The Poem Farm.  To learn about Popcorn and Poetry and to enter a giveaway for a Ralph Fletcher book...visit HERE.

Lucky me to have Stefanie Cole and her students from Ontario, Canada at Sharing Our Notebooks all month. This is a fantastic post full of notebook inspiration, a video clip, and a great book giveaway from Stefanie. Please check it out, and leave a comment over there to be entered into a giveaway for a Lynda Barry book.

Buffy is hosting today's Poetry Friday roundup over at Buffy's Blog.  Hop over to her place to her a wooing toad and to see all of this week's poetic offerings.

Happy Day 29 of National Poetry Month 2016! 

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.

Spinwishes - Writing from Objects

My Kaleidoscope

Photo by Amy LV

 

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

Sutdents - Today’s handful of words is a small tribute to the feeling I have each time I look into the end of my brass kaleidoscope.  It had been a long time since I picked this old treasure up, but recently I held it to my face in wonder once more.  I peeked into that magical cylinder, and like jacks sprinkling a sidewalk,
questions poured out:

• Where did this glass come from
• Does everyone see the same thing in here?
• Will these patterns ever repeat in such a way again?
• Who made this whirling work of twinkling art?
• Why can’t I see the world in kaleidoscope patterns all the time?

As a notebook keeper, I tuck wee snips of beauty and surprise into my blank pages every day, uncertain if they will one day grow into something “sharable.” Sometimes they turn into poems or essays right away.  Sometimes they never do.  And sometimes they do, but it just takes many months or years for them to grow up into something ready for others to read.  That is the beauty of a notebook.

A notebook is a place to save things that you just may need, or you just may not...but either way, you've got them.  (This is how I feel about all of the candles and chocolate chips I have stocked up for the oncoming storm!  For a laugh, see my old WBFO essay about readying for storms.)

Writing verse brings me joy in that line-by-line, I am surprised by which words decide to show up for the party.  I began “Spinwishes” as a celebration of an object - a brass kaleidoscope - and ended up with a bit of a funny wish, not something I had planned at all.  The contrast of lovely geometric lace to that of a person walking with kaleidoscopic eye sockets makes me smile.

Try this yourself.  Just choose an object near to you.  Look at it closely.  Pick it up in your hands and examine it from various angles.  Ask yourself some questions about it.  Feel it in your hands. Let some new thoughts rise in your mind. Now...mind open...write!

If you do not see a post from me on Wednesday, please know the VanDerwater family does not have power...  If this happens, know that I will be back as soon as possible...and writing by candlelight until the lights return!

Please share a comment below if you wish.

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

Like The Poem Farm on Facebook for more poems, articles, and poemquotes!

Imagery Poems & Edible Books

Last night was the Western New York Book Arts Center's third annual Edible Book Festival.  This is part of an international edible book celebration, and it was our family's second year attending.  What a blast!  Here is how this festival works.

1.  Artist chefs  make and bring edible books to WNYBAC.

2. Guests mill around and admire the books while eating pizza and drinking wine or pop.

3.  Judges walk around tasting and evaluating books on a variety of criteria (taste,creativity,most bookish).

4.  Winners are announced and everyone eats the books!

It's difficult to imagine a better party, actually.  I wonder if this festival subconsciously inspired last Friday's poem, Eating Reading.

Perhaps next year we will enter our own edible book.  Here are a few of this year's entries.  Because I do not recall all of the winners in each category, I will not mention any here.  Simply enjoy the goodies.  This is just a small sampling of the edible books from this year's festival.

 The Giving Tree

Amateur Artist Chef Jennifer Mauser

 Huckleberry Flan

Amateur Artist Chef Gina Maria Kleinmartin

 The Very Hungry Caterpillar

Amateur Artist Chef Katherine Czarnecki

 The Lasagna Cookbook

Junior Artist Chef Conrad Kegler

Where the Wild Things Are -Before

Professional Artist Chef Lindsay Haigh

(one of Mark's former students!)

Our Hope Won Bookmarks in the Drawing!

Bookmarks by White Hyacinths

Thank you to the Western New York Book Arts Center for putting on this tasty and whimsical community event.

And now, for today's poem writing thought.  After a year of daily poems and strategy ideas.  I will be revisiting one strategy/technique for each day of April.  Today's thought is: read and write poems full of specific images and pictures. 

Imagery Poems

Students - poems sneak inside readers' minds with little brushes and paint pots.  But the trouble is that poets don't really have brushes and paint pots.  Instead, we try to brush with words and paint with images.  This is a particular area in which I would like to strengthen in my own poetry, but in these poems you might be able to see where I have tried to puzzle words together in ways that are "paintable."

Snow Piano
Sunflower
This Windmill
Hands
Baby Raccoon
Preserving Fall
Dandelion Dot-to-Dot
This Morning

Sometimes it helps to really look at the thing you are writing about.  So go ahead - set up your desk with a special object and really study it.  You  might even want to make a little sketch of your object to follow the lines just so.  Then you will know how to write from what you saw.  Another thing to try - just close your eyes and look carefully at the memory or moment in your mind.  Then open up and write.

My colleague Kim Miller, a great fourth grade teacher at Durand Eastman Intermediate School in the East Irondequoit Central School District, recommends "raising nouns to the second power."  For example, if you have written "snack," you can elevate that to "chips."  Then to elevate it one more time, try "Doritos."  Don't you have a more clear picture in your mind now?  Specific is see-able.  General is not.
 

By the way, all of this month's poetry tips are perfectly applicable to prose.  What we learn at poetry's knee will serve us in all of our writing.

Speaking of images, here is one of The Poem Farm, a mosiac of the whole year.  When I stroll through these pictures, I feel as if I am reliving this whole past 365 days!

Yesterday's Poetry Friday was a veritable poetry mob.  If you were not able to visit yesterday, do not miss all of the magnificent and joyful posts at the Poetry Friday buffet.

Where the Wild Things Are - After

Professional Artist Chef Lindsay Haigh

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