Finding Poems in Moments of Surprise - And a Giveaway!

Mini Monster and Sarah

Photo by Amy LV

Students - Sometimes as I go through my day, I notice something curious. Yesterday, I looked at the couch and saw Mini and Sarah...sharing!  These two are not exactly pals, so it was a small ah-ha! moment for me, a bright moment of the afternoon.

Writing ideas are all around, and one place you can find one is in the small bits of life that surprise you. Yesterday I also saw a flock of robins swooping up from a sumac tree.  There's a poem in there just waiting...

And now...a Poetry Peek and a giveaway too...

Today I am very happy to share the latest from Sylvia Vardell and Janet Wong...HERE WE GO!  This book, like YOU JUST WAIT is a POETRY FRIDAY POWER BOOK, meaning that it is an interactive book full of mentor poems, places for young writers to play with words, and pages for poetry writing.

Available through Pomelo Books

This collection is very timely, addressing concerns that face many of our friends and neighbors right now.  It is a warmly and whimsically illustrated volume focusing on social action and stepping up to make your own corner of the world a more loving place.  And it's just full of poems, one each by Naomi Shihab Nye, Carole Boston Weatherford, Joseph Bruchac, David Bowles, Ibtisam Barakat, Eileen Spinelli, David L. Harrison, Kate Coombs, Robyn Hood Black, Michelle Heidenrich Barnes, Renée M. LaTulippe, Margaret Simon, and 24 poems by Janet Wong, threading the 36 poems into a story in different voices.

Here is a poem that is staying with me, one that helps me remember who I hope to be in hard times, by Michelle Heidenrich Barnes.

I asked Janet Wong to share a thought about this HERE WE GO with us today.  She says:

This book shows how you go from having a spark of an idea to getting your community behind you, including the important step of thanking your supporters. The kids who read this book might want to start, as the kids in HERE WE GO do, with something simple like a food drive or walk-a-thon to raise money for the local food bank. Fighting hunger is something that anyone in any town can agree on, right? And any school district, too: because if your students don’t have healthy food, they can’t concentrate. Fighting hunger = better learning! 

You can read more about HERE WE GO at any of these cozy homes online:

Irene Latham's Live Your Poem

Laurie L. Birchall's Poetry for Teaching

Mary Lee Hahn's A Reading Year 

Sylvia Vardell’s Poetry for Children 

Michelle Heidenrich Barnes's Today's Little Ditty

Linda Kulp Trout's Write Time

Katie's The Logonauts

Janet and Sylvia have generously offered to send 5 copies of HERE WE GO to one winner, someone who comments on this blog post by next Thursday evening, February 23. If you win, please give the books to a group: book club group, or home school group, or other group of students who will enjoy reading and writing on its pages.

Jone is hosting this week's Poetry Friday roundup over at Check it Out.  Head over there for poems, ideas, and community.  We are a welcoming community....and we welcome you!

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.

Poetry Friday, Connecting Poems, and YOU JUST WAIT

Happy Poetry Friday!  
I am hosting today, and I welcome you!

Soccer Stuff

Photo by Amy LV

from YOU JUST WAIT

and 

THE POETRY FRIDAY ANTHOLOGY FOR MIDDLE SCHOOL

Both Books Created and Edited by Sylvia Vardell and Janet Wong

Students - Many of us have been new before: to a school, to a neighborhood or family or team or friend group.  And while being new is exciting, it can also be a little bit scary.  Today's poem is from a brand new book I'm celebrating for Poetry Friday today. The title of the book is YOU JUST WAIT, and it was created by Janet Wong and Sylvia Vardell.  I was honored that they chose this poem of mine (from THE POETRY ANTHOLOGY FOR MIDDLE SCHOOL) to be part of the story.

YOU JUST WAIT is different from most other books as it threads together poems by many poets to make one complete story. And interspersed between the poems are various writing exercises to try out yourself.

This is a neat idea, this taking poems by many people, writing some new ones, and stitching them together to make a new and complete whole.  Poems that never knew each other before are now woven together into a book, telling a story.  You could try this too - tie connections between others' poems that have never been connected before, and write some of your own new poems to fill in between the cracks.  It's like a verse novel marrying an anthology marrying a book of writing ideas!

Many of you may know about the Poetry Friday Anthology Series, published by Pomelo Books, and today I am happy to welcome creators and editors Janet Wong and Sylvia Vardell to The Poem Farm.

Sylvia and Janet Hugging some Poetry Friday Anthologies

Photo by Emily Vardell

While YOU JUST WAIT - Pomelo's latest book - is for reading...it is also for writing.  Janet joins us today to share thoughts about this newest book.  And she is also offering five copies to one winner who comments on today's post. Welcome, Janet...take it away!

Find More Information at Pomelo Books

Available through Amazon

We wanted to try something really different with YOU JUST WAIT: A POETRY FRIDAY POWER BOOK. Last spring I revisited a great post on Lee Bennett Hopkins by Renée M. LaTulippe at her No Water River blog and was reminded by how Lee has always pushed for something new and original with each book. 

For instance, his HarperCollins I Can Read Books were groundbreaking in the way they used quality literature as instructional text. Lee was also one of the first to combine nonfiction informational text with poetry—now a standard element in poetry books with a social studies or science connection. 

With YOU JUST WAIT and hopefully with forthcoming books in a Poetry Friday Power Book series, we’re also happy to defy categorization. YOU JUST WAIT is a verse novel made for tweens and teens, yes. But it is also a journal for young writers. And a creativity book that encourages kids to doodle and explore their thoughts on life. And a book on poetry instruction, with mentor texts for teachers. All that, rolled into one.

(from page 7 of YOU JUST WAIT):  This book offers you several choices for reading, thinking, writing, and responding. Overall, it’s a story in poems, but all of this is also organized in PowerPack groups that help you get a “behind the scenes” look at how poems work and how poets write and think. In each of these PowerPack groups, you’ll find five things:
• PowerPlay activity
• Outside poem (from another poetry book)
• Response poem 
• Mentor text 
• Power2You poem writing prompt


Below, you can take a look at Powerpack10 from the book.  Each Powerpack is organized in the same way, with these same five sections.

(Please click to enlarge any images that are too small for you to read.)

From YOU JUST WAIT

Created and Edited by Janet Wong and Sylvia Vardell

From YOU JUST WAIT

Created and Edited by Janet Wong and Sylvia Vardell

From YOU JUST WAIT

Created and Edited by Janet Wong and Sylvia Vardell

From YOU JUST WAIT

Created and Edited by Janet Wong and Sylvia Vardell

From YOU JUST WAIT

Created and Edited by Janet Wong and Sylvia Vardell

From YOU JUST WAIT

Created and Edited by Janet Wong and Sylvia Vardell

What do I want kids to do with the book? I say: “You can write in your book, draw in it, follow the writing prompts to write poems, whatever you want. The book is YOURS.  My hope is that kids will really enjoy taking ownership of their books. I want the books to look ragged and well-worn 12 weeks after students receive them. (There are 12 PowerPacks in the book.) 

It is a treat to offer not one or two or three or four, but five copies of YOU JUST WAIT to one commenter on this post, enough for a little group to have a lot of fun with this latest addition to the Poetry Friday Anthology Series.  Please simply leave a comment on this post by next Thursday, September 15, to be entered into the drawing.  I will announce the winner next Poetry Friday, September 16.  Thank you to Janet and Sylvia for such generosity.  If you win, you'll have five of the first copies...hot off the press.

If you would like to read more about YOU JUST WAIT, Sylvia Vardell is celebrating this book birthday over at Poetry for Children!

If you have a link you'd like to share for this week's Poetry Friday roundup, please do so below!  I will be out and about commenting through the early part of next week as I'm off on a road trip to Vermont.  It's my sweet nephew Luke's first birthday!  xo

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.

I Hear the First Robin - Listening for Poems

Happy Spring!

Photo by Amy LV

Students - Spring is reaching Western New York!  And I am filled with joy.  And sometimes...when one is filled with joy, one must write a a poem about it.  Just the other day, we counted four robins sitting on a patch of grass (a patch of grass, not snow) in our yard.  It was fun to just count them, to think of all of the flowers and birds and goodnesses that will be bursting back to life in the next few weeks.

When I sat down to write yesterday, I began by imagining that I was hearing the flapping of robin wings from a far far distance, that I could hear spring coming, flap-by-flap, all the way to New York State.  That idea may find its way into another poem, but somehow, this robin in the verse above just wanted to sing its own poem today.

Listen for the poem that wants to be written.  For what wants to be written might surprise you.  You might not even know that you have a robin - or a lightning bolt - or a seashell - or a baseball - or a bowl of ice cream - living inside of you, waiting to speak.

We call these poems, poems that are in the voice of other beings or objects, persona poems or mask poems.  When you write such a poem, you have the opportunity to try on a new voice, to imagine what it would be like to speak and think and feel as another.  That's just neat, don't you think?

To learn more about the American Robin and to listen to its voice, visit All About Birds, the website of the Cornell Lab of Ornithology.

Happy first day of spring...from me and from the robin too!

In book sharing news, I have a giveaway going through the rest of today for two copies of THE POETRY FRIDAY ANTHOLOGY FOR CELEBRATIONS from pomelo books - one student edition and one teacher/librarian edition.  

Available through QEP Books

This is a big book full of fun and thoughtful poems for all year long, in both English and Spanish.  The poems were selected by Sylvia Vardell and Janet Wong creators of Poetry Friday Anthology series, and I am excited to have written the October 31 poem for Halloween.  If you would like to be entered to win a copy of this book, please leave a comment on the giveaway post at The Poem Farm Facebook page, a place where I share all kinds of poems and poetry news.  I'll announce the winner there tomorrow.

Catherine is hosting today's Poetry Friday party over at Reading to the Core.  All are welcome to stop by her place and join us as we pass the poetry cookie plate.

Please share a comment below if you wish.

Dear Students, & A New Book!

Wildflowers

Photo by Amy LV

 

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

Teachers and Students - Welcome to your new school year!  I have been thinking about you, about my own children and the new schools I'll be working in and this school year ahead.  It is indeed a type of meadow, full of surprises and growing, beauty and adventure.  I can't wait to see what new book titles will land in my notebook and what new friends I will make.

I guess you could call today's poem "a gift poem" since I wrote it with all new school-year-hikers in mind.  We often write with a special audience in our heads, and today my special audience is you.  

And now....a book announcement!  I am so pleased to share this brand new book with you today.  It's THE POETRY FRIDAY ANTHOLOGY, compiled and edited by Sylvia Vardell and Janet Wong.  With both a Common Core and TEKS edition, this book introduces the idea of breaking for poetry each Friday.

From Janet and Sylvia -

In 2006 blogger Kelly Herold brought Poetry Friday to the “kidlitosphere.” Much like “casual Friday” in the corporate world, there is a perception in the world of literature that on Fridays we should relax a bit and take a moment for something special. Why not bring the Poetry Friday concept into your classroom and take five minutes every Friday to share a poem and explore it a bit, connecting it with children’s lives and capitalizing on a teachable moment? Pausing to share a poem—and reinforce a language skill—on Poetry Friday is an easy way to infuse poetry into your current teaching practice. 

Just in time for the 2012-2013 school year, get your copy of THE POETRY FRIDAY ANTHOLOGY, edited by Sylvia Vardell and Janet Wong. It's a new anthology of 218 original, previously-unpublished poems for children in kindergarten through fifth grade by 75 popular poets from Jack Prelutsky and J. Patrick Lewis to Jane Yolen, X.J. Kennedy, Margarita Engle, Nikki Grimes, Kathi Appelt, Guadalupe Garcia McCall, Georgia Heard, and many more. (See a complete list of our impressive poets at poetryfridayanthology.blogspot.com.)

The book includes a poem a week for the whole school year (K-5) with Common Core curriculum connections provided for each poem, each week, and each grade level. Just five minutes every “Poetry Friday” will reinforce key skills in reading and language arts such as rhyme, repetition, rhythm, and alliteration. 

I am tickled to have five poems in this anthology, and thrilled to have a few copies to give away!  For the next three Fridays, by leaving a comment, you will have an opportunity to win your own copy of THE POETRY FRIDAY ANTHOLOGY.  Please just leave a comment on this post to be entered in the first drawing.  The winner will be announced next Friday, August 24...at which time I will begin a new drawing for this book!

If you don't win...please check it out on Amazon and consider ordering a copy for yourself or your child's teacher.

On my other blog, Sharing Our Notebooks, it is an honor to host naturalist and teacher Bill Michalek and his notebooks this week.  Please stop by and read his thoughtful post and also enter your name in the giveaway for one of Bill's favorite books.  If you or your students keep notebooks, please remember that Sharing Our Notebooks is a blog to inspire just that work by highlighting all types of writer's and artist's notebooks.

Mary Lee is hosting today's Poetry Friday roundup over at A Year of Reading.  Enjoy the treats!  Happy Poetry Friday!

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!

E is for EXPONENT

EXPONENT

Photo by Amy LV

Students - To be honest, I was not happy when I pointed at the word EXPONENT.  It didn't seem like a beautiful word, and it doesn't have many great rhymes (proponent, component).  I don't have any strong or funny feelings for exponents, and I worried that this would be a toughie.

But then I decided to hug my word, embrace this little surprise of the Dictionary Hike (see upper left-hand sidebar for a definition of this project), and I am so glad I did.  What you see here is a short definition poem written in the voice of an exponent.  A poem written in the voice of the speaker is called a mask poem, and I decided to make my little exponent speaker tell about his/her job, to feel proud even though exponents are small.  In the end, I enjoyed experimenting with writing a simple definition, hoping of course that math teachers will find this verse useful.

Would you like to visit some exponents and learn about the exponent rules? You can do so over at Algebra LAB.

So, if you're taking a Dictionary Hike, and if you point to a word that's not your favorite, consider giving it a whirl anyway.  You, like me, may be surprised by what is in your pen!

This week, if you visit Sharing Our Notebooks, you can hear Janet talk all about how she (doesn't) keep notebooks, the way she revisits old ideas, and you (like me) will learn some great revision strategies for your own poems.  If you leave a comment on that post by the end of today, you may win these four books, generously donated by Janet!  I will announce the winner tomorrow, Poetry Friday.

You can win these books over at Sharing Our Notebooks!

Each day of this dictionary project, Lisa V. will write and post a haiku for that day's word at her blog.  You can read all of these over at Lisa's Poem of the Week.  Please join us and share in the comments if you wish!

The Poem Farm is becoming searchable by topic and poetic technique.  There are now around 70 poems listed and linked both ways so as to make this space useful for young writers and teachers. If you have a suggestion for me, please share as I welcome ideas!

Please share a comment below if you wish!

You can like The Poem Farm on Facebook for more poemlove...

B is for Bluegrass - Dictionary Hike

BLUEGRASS

Photo by Amy LV

Students - Today's word - "bluegrass" - gave me a couple of possibilities.  I could have written about bluegrass music, which I like very much.  But I decided to write about the bluegrass plant instead.  Can you believe that I never realized that it even IS a grass?  Golly, there are 250 varieties of bluegrass, we have it in our pasture, and I didn't even KNOW about it because I always just thought of "bluegrass" as music!  Our family loves Cherryholmes, a now-disbanded family band, so maybe this is why!

Opening the dictionary to a random word opens up my writing self.  I am determined to learn from the word offered, to let my poem turn on its gifts.  Today's word whispered, "Smush words together, Amy.  Smush 'em!"  I like the way that blue and grass squish themselves together.  Compound words are so cozy, so I made some of my own here - all with color words.  This is something you can try too - just squeeze those words together if they seem huggy.

Today is Day 2 of the Dictionary Hike!  Should you be interested in following through the alphabet, I am keeping all of this month's dictionary-inspired-alphabet poems in the left-hand sidebar. So far, I have felt quite lucky with my words.

Who else is taking Dictionary Hikes?  Well, Mary Lee and one of her students are dipping into dictionaries.  And Lisa left an ANCIENT haiku in yesterday's comments. (I hope she does this every day and encourage you to check.) Linda is writing daily poems too, and she may also use the dictionary as occasional inspiration.  If you do so, I welcome you to share in the comments!

Don't forget...it's down to the Final Four in Think Kid, Think!'s March Madness poetry tournament.  You can vote, and bring it to two here!

And now...a bit of bluegrass to introduce today's giveaway!

Today, over at my other blog, Sharing Our Notebooks, I am tickled to be hosting Janet Wong as she shares her process and office. Janet has generously offered these four books as a giveaway for today's post readers. If you leave a comment in this post or in today's (April 2) post over at The Poem Farm, you will be automatically entered into a drawing to win. This drawing will close at 11:59pm on Thursday, April 5. Please leave brief contact information in your comment so that I can let you know if you win!

Thank you, Janet, for this fantastic collection which includes: MINN AND JAKE'S ALMOST TERRIBLE SUMMER, THE RAINBOW HAND: POEMS ABOUT MOTHERS AND CHILDREN, ME AND ROLLY MALOO, and APPLE PIE 4TH OF JULY.

Please share a comment below if you wish!

You can like The Poem Farm on Facebook for more poemlove...

I Love Choosing & Hooray for P*TAG!

Ballerina Georgia in 2004

Photo by Amy LV

Students - Last week, I was chatting with my sister-in-law about our young niece. They had gone together to see a ballet, and our niece chose her own outfit: red and black plaid dress, red and black plaid tights, Mardi Gras beads wrapped 'round her wrist again and again as bracelets, sparkly shoes, and hair in a side ponytail. I couldn't help thinking, "What a lucky girl to pick her own clothes!"

So, last night when I sat down to write, I remembered this conversation and decided to write about those funcrazy outfits that we choose all by ourselves. I found today's poem idea in a recent telephone conversation, remembering that story that my sister-in-law told me about our niece. Try this technique yourself. Sit quietly and think about the conversations you've had in the past week. What do you remember? Find a conversation that might grow into a poem or a story and just jump in!

This week I also reread the new P*TAG, a new digital poetry anthology for teens. Snuggled up by the heater, I scrolled through poem and photograph after poem and photograph, remembering what it was like to be a teenager. So much of that time came back to me, from conversations with friends to my feelings about boys to my own questions about growing up.

Available through Amazon

Brought to us by Sylvia Vardell and Janet Wong, this collection includes poems by so many well-loved writers for teens: Arnold Adoff, Jaime Adoff, Kathi Appelt, Jeannine Atkins, Jen Bryant, Margarita Engle, Betsy Franco, Helen Frost, Lorie Ann Grover, David L. Harrison, Stephanie Hemphill, Sara Holbrook, Lee Bennett Hopkins, Paul B. Janeczko, Michele Krueger, Julie Larios, JonArno Lawson, J. Patrick Lewis, Kimberly Marcus, Heidi Mordhorst, Naomi Shihab Nye, Michael Salinger, Joyce Sidman, Marilyn Singer, Sonya Sones, Charles Waters, April Halprin Wayland, Steven Withrow, Allan Wolf, Janet Wong, and Tracie Vaughn Zimmer. Sylvia took all of the photographs, and one-by-one, each poet tagged another, just as in POETRY TAG TIME.

P*TAG is available only as a digital download ($2.99!) for your Kindle, iphone, Android, or computer, and it's a great gift for a teen in your life or the teen in yourself. If you haven't taken a peek at this or at POETRY TAG TIME, I highly recommend both as strong collections that may well introduce you to poets you have never read.

For another wonderful e-collection by Janet Wong, check out ONCE UPON A TIGER, poems and artwork about endangered animals.

Janet Wong's poem, published in this fall's issue of the JOURNAL OF CHILDREN'S LITERATURE, expresses the way I feel when I hand my own phone to Hope, Georgia, or Henry for poetry reading in the back seat of our car.

The Line

We've been standing in line
five long minutes.
I'm starving but Mom won't let me
sneak a snack from the cart.
It's hard to stand there waiting, nothing to do, and Mom
knows it (because I know she's starving, too).

Then out of nowhere
she hands me her cell phone
and tells me to read the screen:
"Loud enough so I can hear."
A poem? I can't believe it:
I like the poem. It's funny.
The old lady behind us laughs so hard
she spit-sprays in my ear.
I put my hoodie up.
Mom asks for another.
It's good. I like this one even better,
even if it's not funny.
Even if it doesn't rhyme.
It makes me forget about the line
and makes me remember summer.

Three and a half poems later,
Mom says, "Time to go home."
I look up. The groceries are in their bags.
The checker says: "Wait! Won't you read
the ending, please?"

Janet Wong

Jama Rattigan, hostess extraordinaire, is holding today's Poetry Friday party at Jama's Alphabet Soup. And when Jama has a party, you don't want to miss it! Enjoy the food and festivities...  Happy Poetry Friday!

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