SPARK & Maine Animal Haiku

by Cathy Stephens Pratt

Students - Every once in a while, I participate in SPARK: ART FROM WRITING, WRITING FROM ART, and I just did so again.  Here's how it works.  SPARK is a 10 day exercise.  On Day 1, founder Amy Souza pairs up artists and writers.  Each gives the other a piece of art or writing to work from, an inspiration piece.  Each has ten days to make something new from the piece he or she receives.  And on Day 10, the artists and writers reveal to each other what they created.

It was such fun to be paired with artist Cathy Stephens Pratt for this round.  I adore her whimsical piece, and I loved imagining walking around inside, wondering what might be inside the house. As I wrote, I imagined this little house, offering each of us what we most desire and need.  It is a magic house!

Thank you to Cathy for the inspiration...and thank you to Amy for organizing us.

If you ever do not know what to write about, try writing from art.

It is a pleasure to welcome Second Grade Teacher Kim Oldenburgh and her young poet artists.  Please enjoy this beautiful slideshow of haiku and watercolors, all inspired by Maine animals.

Please Click the Square Above to Enlarge

The winner of last week's book, LUBNA AND PEBBLE, written by Wendy Meddour and  illustrated by Daniel Egnéus, is Jone.  Please send your snail mail address to me at amy at amylv dot com.  If you did not win this book, I highly suggest checking it out at the library or purchasing it for yourself or classroom or library.  It is beautiful, tender, and wise.

Michelle is hosting today's Poetry Friday roundup over at Michelle Kogan with a celebration of our 22nd US Poet Laureate, Tracy K. Smith and this week's poetry offerings from all around the Kidlitosphere. We gather together each Friday, and all are always welcome.  

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

or as part of a group with your teacher and class.

If I Were.... Poems from Imagination & Feelings

Remembering

by Amy LV

Students - This poem is dedicated to some friends that I miss.  I didn't realize it until after I wrote the words, but as soon as I realized it...I knew it was true for sure. Sometimes our real feelings - of joy or sadness, of anger or confusion - find their way into our poems.

Many of you know that I love pretending, pretending that I am something or someone else.  When I write, I can pretend to be anyone or anything anytime at all! There is magic in the pen, magic in the pencil, magic in the keyboard.  I am Amy, and then I am a shell. You, too, can be another through the power of writing. Do remember though, even when you become another through writing, your own feelings find a way of seeping in.

This poem does rhyme, and the ending goes on, perhaps a little longer than you would have expected.  I allowed it to do so, allowed the last lines to linger, to stretch out a few syllables past the expected rhyme scheme.  To me, this lingering seems to echo the melancholy feeling of the shell subject.

You may wish to brainstorm a list of "If I were..." phrases in your notebook today or someday.  Perhaps one will lead you to a poem idea.  The list of things one might have been, might be, might one day become, is endless!

Thank you again, one last time, to all who visited and commented during my joyful Writing the Rainbow project each day of April.  I loved reading your poems and ideas at our Padlet, and I am excited to tell you that we'll have some classes sharing their rainbow poems in this space soon.  If you missed that April project, for a time you can still visit the poems HERE.

You'll find me today at the Milennium Hotel in Buffalo, NY, visiting happily with many many New York State librarians for the NYLA SSL 2017 Conference.  I'll be signing books and teaching a little class at 11am.  I so look forward to it!

Today's Poetry Friday fiesta, in all its gorgeousness, is with Jama at Jama's Alphabet Soup. Stop by her place to taste this week's poetry offerings all around the Kidlitosphere.  We're a friendly group, and we keep the poetry fires burning all year long...not just in April.

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

or as part of a group with your teacher and class.

Notebooks are for Flotsam and Jetsam

My Friend Yvonne's Cat...Casey

Photo by Yvonne Sciolino

Students - Last week I had the good fortune to visit five schools in Northern New Jersey.  During a talk at Central School in Glen Rock, NJ, I mentioned how my cat likes to sit on notebooks and computer keyboards, always wanting to be close to writing.  Many students raised their hands sharing that their cats also do this, and so I pulled out my notebook and wrote:

Notebook Jot - Central School, September 28, 2016

Photo by Amy LV

Those four words simmered there for a little while in my notebook, and then this week my friend Yvonne shared a photograph of her cat Casey working away at a laptop.  See?  It's a cat thing.  Cats DO like to write.  Ah HA!

Keeping a notebook, just jotting down the flotsam and jetsam of life is a magical way to capture wayward writing ideas.  Snips of chat, wisps of wonder...slap them all down on the page.  We never know when such bits will come in handy.  The mind is a strange place, with thoughts-like-leaves blowing around here and there.  A notebook helps us corral them, tame them, give them form.

Today's poem is written in rhyming couplets, but stanza four is s-t-r-e-t-c-h-e-d out onto four lines instead of two.  I could have kept it two lines, but I wanted more of a listy feeling in that section of the poem, so dividing each line into two felt right.

In Sharing Our Notebooks (my other blog) news, congratulations to Brenda Harsham, winner of Kiesha Shepard's generous giveaway of a copy of Mary Oliver's book EVIDENCE.  Please don't miss Kiesha's wonderful notebook post, and Brenda...please drop me an e-mail to amy@amylv.com with your snail mail address, and I will share it with Kiesha.

Violet is hosting today's Poetry Friday roundup over at her online home, Violet Nesdoly / poems.  Don't miss the poems, the friends, the book recommendations, the surprises.  All are welcome.  Always!

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.

Dollhouse - Play is Real

A Peek Into Our Dollhouse

Photo by Amy LV

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

Students - Did you ever have a day when you sat down to write and had no idea what to write?  I sure have.  Sometimes it feels so scary, as if there are no ideas left in the world...or as if all of the good ones have been used by someone else.  But you know what?  This is never true.  Poet Maya Angelou said, "You can't use up creativity. The more you use, the more you have."   And this is completely true.  Creativity is like love.

So, even when that "I don't know what to write" feeling sets in, I write.  Today I looked around and just picked something I saw - the little girls in bed in our dollhouse.  This dollhouse is so big that it cannot fit through most doorways in our home, so it will forever live in the living room, even when our children are all grown up.  If you were to visit us, you could play with it!

Can you see that this whole poem is written in quatrains?  Almost.  One part is not.  Why do you think I made that decision?

I am tickled that Nicole Gulotta has chosen my poem "Apple Pockets" for her guest post over at Jama's Alphabet Soup.  She has paired the poem with a delicious-looking recipe for apple muffins which I plan to make this weekend...yum!

This week's Poetry Friday roundup is over at Tabatha's place, The Opposite of Indifference. Along with a lovely poem and this week's poem menu, Tabatha is planting seeds for Poetry Month, such a welcome winter idea!

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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I Understand - a Villanelle

Chester

Photo by Honour V.

'

 

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

Students - I have set myself a Poetry New Year's Resolution!  I'll be writing a poem every day of this year, and I will share some of them here.  This will give me an opportunity to explore many different forms and deepen my skill as a writer.  Sometimes we all get into ruts, and I do that with sound.  I like and often write in certain meters, so experimenting with new ones will help me grow.

Do you have a New Year's Resolution for writing?  It's not too late!

Today's poem is a villanelle, a form you may remember from V is for Vulture of my Dictionary Hike last April.  This is quite a complicated form, 19 lines with 5 tercets and 1 quatrain.  You'll notice that there are two repeating lines, and they repeat in a very particular order.  There are only 2 ending rhymes, and those, too, are in special places.  You can see exactly how this whole form works at poets.org or at the Poetry and Prose Writers' Blog.  There are many other places to look as well, but these two helped me yesterday.

Villanelles do not have a particular meter, but I chose to write in imabic pentameter (daDUM daDUM daDUM daDUM daDUM).  Next time I'll try something different, but since I wrote a sonnet on Monday, I was in the groove of that meter!

Below you can see the beginning drafting work of today's villanelle.  I followed the advice I read and began with a theme - becoming different animals and understanding all creatures, a theme I return to often.  Then I wrote out the form to help me, like a skeleton.

When I awoke this morning, after this post had been up for 5 hours, I read today's offering at The Writer's Almanac, also about the connection of creatures.  Today's poem at The Writer's Almanac is "The Fish" by Billy Collins.

I took these process photos at a ski lodge while writing during my children's ski club afternoon.  You can see how I left blanks for needed lines and how I wrote dots and letters to help me know which lines and rhymes were needed where.

Notebook and Paper with Villanelle Draft

Photo by Amy LV

Computer Villanelle Draft

Photo by Amy LV

If you would like to read lots and lots of villanelles (I just might), here is a whole book about them.

Available through Amazon

Thank you to Matt Forrest Esenwine over at Radio, Rhythm, and Rhyme for hosting today's Poetry Friday roundup, the first of this new beautiful year.  Be sure to stop by and celebrate 2013 with poems!

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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Warm Drink - Breathlessness & Wonder

A Cup of Moon

by Amy LV

 

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

Students - Today's poem came from some play in my notebook.  I love the look of sunlight and moonbeams, the feel of how light through a window can change a whole room.  Yesterday, January 1st, our living room was full of sunlight made even brighter by twinkling piles of snow outside.  When I began writing in my little book last night, light filled my mind. I imagined a few things: braiding my hair with moonbeams, listening to the moon share a New Year's resolution, and finally drinking moonlight from a cup.  

You'll notice that this poem includes the word and over and over again, something I usually try to avoid.  Why did I include it so many times here? Well, for the same reason that this poem is just one long sentence...I wanted to have a feeling of breathlessness.  Wouldn't you feel breathless if you drank a cup of moonlight?  What other imaginary impossibilities might make you want to talk so quickly that you'd forget to speak with punctuation?

Breathlessness and wonder are two storehouses from which you can welcome many many poems.  And this year, in 2013, I wish you much of both...lots of breathlessness and many winks of wonder.

This year I resolve to write more poems...but I have not yet decided how many of them will show up here on The Poem Farm.  Part of my resolution includes working to submit more manuscripts with the hope they will turn into real paper books.  This may mean that I will post a bit less...it may not.  

Don't miss the CYBILS POETRY BOOK FINALISTS and the POETRY NERDIES for 2012!  The beginning of a new year is a fantastic time to catch up on poem books...

Happy 2013!

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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Snipping Snowflakes

Hope's Window
Photo by Amy LV

Students - Snipping paper snowflakes is one of the simple pleasures of life!  If you live in a snowy place, it is a way to bring snow inside.  If you live in a place with no snow, it is an easy way to create some.  Last week, when my daughter Hope was sick, she cut lots and lots of snowflakes out of red, green, and white paper.  You can see some of them above, in our living room windows.

If you're interested in knowing how I snipped this poem out, take a peek into my notebook below.  You'll see that I first started writing about fog and clouds and my notes turned to something I saw last night, raindrops on a twig.  Then, looking at the window, I began writing about Hope and her snipping...

Click to enlarge image.

...and then I began poem-ing!  One thing that helped me write today was something I did last night.  Before bed, I read aloud many many poems from J. Patrick Lewis's new IF YOU WERE A CHOCOLATE MUSTACHE.  Falling asleep with the rhythms of our Children's Poet Laureate in my head was a wonderful thing to do, and it is something I highly recommend.  Read ALOUD the work you admire, and those rhythms will sink into you.

Click to enlarge image.

If you have ever wondered about snowflakes all being different from each other, visit Wonderopolis to read all about the chances of that happening.

To learn about how to make paper snowflakes, visit Martha Stewart or High Hopes.

Over at Design Sponge, you can read a great tutorial about making doily snowflake garlands.

And at Spoonful, you can find a recipe for sweet tortilla snowflakes.  We will make these today!

There may be no snow in Holland, NY right now...but we can make our own!

Available through Amazon

I am so happy to have Mary Lee Hahn as a guest over at Sharing Our Notebooks this week.  If you have not yet visited her notebook, please don't miss it!

And for those of you who knew that I was away for a bit, I am now back to posting on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays.  It is good to be home!

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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He's My Bud - Poems from Life & Books

Goldfish Backpack

by Amy LV

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

Students - When I was a little girl, my grandmother had a pet goldfish.  His (her?) name was Goldie, and he (she?) lived in a fish tank on Grandma's kitchen counter.  He (she?) got bigger and bigger and then stopped, just as they say fish do, depending on the size of the tank.

How did I get the idea for today's poem?  I have no idea!  But as I trace back in my mind, I think it may because last week, I read aloud Dan Yaccarino's THE BIRTHDAY FISH, an adorable book which includes a picture of a girl pulling her fish bowl in a wagon.  This picture must have stayed with me.  That and Goldie, of course.  I often pretend to know what other creatures are thinking...and goldfish probably do want to travel a bit more.  Don't you think?

Available through Amazon

If you are not sure what to write about today, you might want to read a picture book or a magazine first.  What picture strikes you?  What does it make you think and wonder?  Just start writing, and see what happens.  You might surprise yourself.  I did.

Almost every line in this poem has eight syllables.  But there are four lines with only seven syllables. Can you find them?  You may also notice that the last two lines are much shorter, really one line broken in two.. Sometimes it's neat to finish a poem like that, funneling it down to a slowed-down, short-line ending.

This week I am thrilled to have author Kate Messner visiting Sharing Our Notebooks.  If you are notebook keeper, you will want to visit here to peek inside her notebooks.  If you are a teacher and your class keeps notebooks, this site is growing to be quite full and useful!

Remember, it is Banned Books Week and also time to nominate books for the Cybils too!  Here you can see the poetry books that have already been nominated.

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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What Will You Be? Imagining Careers

Rainbow Sprinkles

Photo by Amy LV

Holiday Sprinkles

Photo by Amy LV

 

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

Students - Last Friday, I went shopping at one of my favorite shops - Lantz's in Warsaw, NY.  This is a little shop with a lot of food, all in bulk.  I came home with bags of wasabi peas, honey roasted soy nuts, lemon drops, graham cracker pretzels, and lots more.  But once again, as always, I was struck by the rows and rows of beautiful sprinkles in every color!  The two pictures above only show some of the sprinkles at Lanz's, all that would fit my screen.

When I took those photographs, I did not know what I would use them for.  I was simply struck by their beauty and wonderfulness.  The picture waited inside my camera in the same way that a favorite line waits in my notebook.

This is a question poem as you can see right in the title.  And it's a question that children are asked often, "What do you want to be when you grow up?"  Well, I always knew that I wanted to be a teacher.  But there are times that I imagine training dogs or designing doll clothes or testing ping pong balls. Jobs are fascinating, how many and how varied they are.  And it's great fun to invent jobs as I did (a bit) today!  What will YOU be?

This week over at my other blog, Sharing Our Notebooks, Barry Lane shares his notebooks and offers a generous giveaway of two of his books about writing and a CD.  A winner will be drawn on Sunday, September 30...the beginning of Banned Books Week!

A Favorite Shop

Photo by Amy LV

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I Was a Tree Before

Me, a Tree

Photo by Amy LV

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

Students -  Have you ever stretched out on the grass underneath a tree?  I did so yesterday afternoon, and looking up, took this photograph. All evening and maybe even asleep, I thought about this picture.  And then, this morning...I suddenly imagined turning INTO a tree.  At first, I thought that would be grand to be a tree, but upon writing...I realized that it would be scary too.  How strange to not be able to move!

One of my early ideas was to write a poem where the tree and I changed places.  But once that little black pen took off, it decided not to write about the tree being a person, just about me being a tree.  This is something important for us to remember; we do not always know where our pens will go, and sometimes we must follow happily, discovering!

Some of my favorite poems are those which take an imaginary journey.  It can take my mind a while to free itself up enough to travel into unreal places, but when it does...I am always grateful.

You may notice that the last line of this poem also holds the title.  Many times, I title a poem after writing it, just letting the title jump out and choose itself.

(Those of you who know my work will notice that favorite rhyme again - bird and word!)

Teachers - For those of you who keep writers notebooks with your class, you will want to check out the new index that I just put up of all of the Sharing Our Notebooks posts so far.  This index will continue to grow as the blog grows, and I invite you and your students to post here if you love your notebooks and have something you would like to share.  (Please stay tuned as I continue to describe each post in the index.)

If you teach in a writing workshop district, you might be interested to know that I have just found some video clips of me teaching demonstration lessons in classrooms in Hilton, NY.  Feel free to check them out here and to use them for your own staff development if you wish.  I will continue to add more as I preview them!

Also, don't forget that you can win a Poetry Friday mini-grant including a copy of THE POETRY FRIDAY ANTHOLOGY as well as a Poetry Friday start-up kit - see here for details with Sylvia Vardell and Janet Wong.

Diane is hosting today's Poetry Friday roundup over at Random Noodling.  Visit there to see what everyone is sharing today in the Kidlitosphere...it's a poetry party, and all are invited!

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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Mechanic - Imagination Poems

Replacing the Bulb

by Amy LV

Students - Sometimes I like to think about the world of animals, to imagine what it's like and all of the secrets that bugs and birds and little mammals have. Do they have mechanics? I imagine not...but it's fun to imagine that they do. Have you ever imagined something silly about the animal world? Such journeys of thought might give you a poem or two!

Dana Schreiner is the winner of the drawing for Ralph Fletcher's A WRITER'S NOTEBOOK over at Sharing Our Notebooks. Dana - please leave your address in an e-mail to me at amy at amylv dot com, and I will send both you and Grace your books this week.

Marjorie is hosting today's Poetry Friday roundup over at Paper Tigers.  Head on over to find this week's bounty.

To all who 'like' The Poem Farm on Facebook, thank you!  This week we reached 300, and in honor of all of this poetry-love, I will be purchasing $100 worth of children's poetry books for a women's and children's shelter in Buffalo, NY.  Thank you!

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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