Inspirations and Invitations

Quilt Bit 1

Photo by Amy LV

Quilt Bit 2

Photo by Amy LV

Students - Today I was thinking about one of my favorite poets, Joyce Sidman. I visited the generous Poetry Ideas section of her website and decided to write an "Invitation Poem" of my own. I also took a little time to read in her beautiful book WHAT THE HEART KNOWS: CHANTS, CHARMS, AND BLESSINGS, and once again I fell in love with it. I highly recommend this book to you.

Learn About this Book

at Joyce's Website

To write an invitation poem, you might think of something you would like to share with someone else. An experience, a place, a moment, a bit of nature or food or music or art. Your choice, of course! Then, invite away with the words we use when we welcome others to share in goodness with us.

Earlier this week, our friends Barry and his daughter Gracie Lane came for an overnight visit, and Gracie slept under the quilt pictured above. We talked a bit about it...how it is one of the many I have collected from thrift or antique stores...and once again, I got to imagining its stories. When time came to write an invitation poem, I wanted to invite everyone to sit under these fabric rectangles with me.

What might you invite someone to do? A party, of course, but what other, simple pleasures might you choose to share with a friend, family member, stranger, pet, or even something else...?

Next week I look forward to a four-day writing residency with the students of Greenacres Elementary School in Scarsdale, NY. Last year I visited this wonderful school for a day of assemblies, and this week I will be lucky enough to write poems with the whole school. On Thursday, we will share some with each other in an assembly. I am grateful to have received this invitation!

Cheriee is hosting this week's Poetry Friday roundup at Library Matters with a wondrous celebration of Vancouver Poet Avis Harley. We invite everybody to join in each Friday as we share poems, poem books, poetry ideas, and friendship. Check out my left sidebar to learn where to find this poetry goodness each week of the year.

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.

This morning I saw... - Readreadread and Write!

Small Friend

by Amy LV

Students - This week has found me reading Mary Oliver's book RED BIRD.

Available at Your Local Bookshop

Mary Oliver writes beautiful poems about nature, and as it has been a magical summer here in Western New York, the combination of reading Oliver's poetry and the view from my windows has placed me in a nature-y mood.

I was also reading some of my favorite poems by another of my favorite poets who paints gorgeous pictures of the natural world - Joyce Sidman - including her sweet and true Dog in Bed.

Too, I read the poem "Samuel" by Bobbi Katz several times, a poem about keeping a salamander as a pet and feeling badly about its death.

All of these things came together to make today's poem.  Mary and Joyce unknowingly offered me their nature spirits, and I borrowed Joyce's indented "I wonder" line too.  Bobbi got me thinking about salamanders.  Ellen Bass made me think about being the first or last person to do something with her poem If You Knew.  And without realizing it, Marjorie Saiser, poet of she gives me the watch off her arm, inspired me to write a poem in which the title runs straight into the first line, where the title really IS the first line.

My suggestion for today, young friends, is this - read many many poems.  The more you read, the more ideas you will have, for topic and for fashioning the shape and sound of your poems.  Get those sounds inside of you...and they will come back out!

Want to hear a funny and true salamander story?  When we were looking at houses twelve years ago, my husband Mark decided that he must live in a home with salamanders on the property.  So this became one of the necessary attributes of any home we would buy - it would have salamanders.  And we do!

This week I would like to send a big thank you hug to Donna Smith of Mainely Write, my poetry partner for this year's Summer Poem Swap generously organized by Tabatha Yeatts.  Donna wrote a word-celebrationi poem and had it printed on a tote bag (which I have been happily using to carry my lunch) along with one of my own watercolor paintings.  The joy of words in this poem makes me so happy, and I adore the structure too.  It is one I will want to play with.  So thank you, Donna - for your words, for this bag, and for a writing inspiration!  And thank you, Tabatha, for putting the two of us together.

Here is Donna's poem:

Humble Jumble

Write to fly-

Words rumbling

Lift to sky;

Fly to soar -

Words mumbling

Set to roar;

Soar to wake -

Words stumbling

Till they snake;

Wake to see -

Words tumbling

From a tree;

See to write -

Words scumbling

Rays of light.

by Donna JT Smith

And here is my new bag!

Wonderful Gift from Donna

Photo by Amy LV

I sent Donna a wish poem for her new life as a motorcyclist, and some little goodies from Spain.  Such fun to share...

Speaking of sharing, I am delighted to host Alexandra Zurbrick at my other blog, Sharing Our Notebooks, this month.  I invite you to drop by, peek into Ally's notebooks, and leave her a comment.  You may just win one of her favorite writing books!

Birthday Girl Julianne is hosting today's Poetry Friday party this week over at To Read To Write To Be. Please feel free to drop by her place, wish her a happy birthday, and begin your journey through this week's poetry offerings.

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.

Poems with Comparisons

Tree Locket

by Amy LV

Poems with Comparisons

Students - when we compare one thing to something else, it helps our brains and souls take a mental leap.  By placing two different things near each other, two things which share some quality, a reader can see a connection and understand a new idea or image more clearly.  Metaphors (comparisons between two things) and similes (comparisons using the words like or as) deepen and enrich our words.  

In these poems, you can see where I have compared different things.  In some, you may notice just a brief comparison.  In others, you may see the comparison carry throughout the poem.

from December 2010

from June 2010

from October 2010

from May 2010

Here are a few more poems with comparisons.

Jewels

Mother Poet

Like a Butterfly

Pine Bride

Students - when you walk around and observe things in your life, try to make a practice of comparing the things you see/hear/feel/taste/smell to other things.  This is wonderful for your writing, and will also be enormously helpful to you  as you try to explain ideas in other areas such as math and science.  See things in terms of other things.  Feel things in terms of other feelings.  Let your senses cross!

I had planned to write about comparisons today.  And then a writing heroine of mine, April Halprin Wayland, wrote about them yesterday.  Don't miss her post - Metaphors Be With You.

Many thank yous to fifth grade poet Deontae and her librarian Mrs. Jone Rush MacCulloch (Mrs. Mac) of Silver Star Elementary in Vancouver, WA.  Once again, Mrs. Mac's students sent original poetry postcards to anyone who requested one this month.  Mine just arrived yesterday, a perfect way to end National Poetry Month.  I am tickled, and this poem will hang above my desk as inspiration.  (Or maybe I should put it down low for our dog Cali to see!)

 

I imagine that Deontae's clever and playful poem was inspired by Joyce Sidman's thoughtful and whimsical book THIS IS JUST TO SAY: POEMS OF APOLOGY AND FORGIVENESS, inspired by William Carlos Williams's poem "This is Just to Say."

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Last year I was fortunate enough to receive one of these student poems too!  There are so many wonderful ways to spread poetry around the world.  I do love receiving poetry postcards!

Below is the completed list of this month's poetry posts.  I hope that you will find them useful to you, and they will soon be kept in the sidebar.  For now, The Poem Farm is taking a brief break for at least a chunk of May as it finds its new direction.  

Poetry Revisits and Lessons from April 2011

April 1 -   Poems about Poems

April 2 -   Imagery

April 3 -   Poems about Animals We Know

April 4 -   Line Breaks and White Space

April 5 -   Poems from Everyday Life

April 6 -   Free Verse

April 7 -   Poems from Wonders & Questions

April 8 -   Classroom Poetry Peek & Circular Poems 

April 9 -   Poems about Science

April 10 - Rhyming Couplets  

April 11 -  Riddle Poems 

April 12 -  List Poems 

April 13 -  Poems for Occasions

April 14 -  Concrete Poems

April 15 -  Poems about Food

April 16 -  Quatrains

April 17 -  Poems about the Seasons

April 18 -  Alliteration

April 19 -  Poems about Sports

April 20 - Compare/Contrast Poems 

April 21 -  Family Story Poems 

April 22 -  Poems about Nature

April 23 -  Repetition

April 24 -  Poems Inspired by Fairy Tales

April 25 -  Concerns Poems

April 26 -  Mask Poems

April 27 -  How-To Poems
April 28 -  Word Play Poems
April 29 -  Silly Poems 
April 30 - Poems with Comparisons

Please look in the right hand sidebar for all kinds of recommendations for wonderful poetry places to visit.  I will be back soon, and hopefully with a new good plan.

Thank you for visiting throughout this month and year!

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