Welcome to My Porch
by Amy LV
Students - While many of my poems are not actually about my life, today's list poem is indeed about our house. It is a very old house, from the early 1800s, and it's messy and happy and full of funny things. I wish you could come over and play with my nesting dolls and kaleidoscope and our jar full of rocks.
Today's poem grew from a freewrite I did in my notebook after reading a beautiful poem by Mary Oliver - "The Place I Want to Get Back To." Oliver's poem ends like this:
If you want to talk about this
come to visit. I live in the house
near the corner, which I have named
Gratitude.
As you may have noticed, I admired Oliver's line, "I live in the house..." and so I decided to write from it. My poem is completely different, but my idea began with a few of Oliver's words.
This is a wonderful way to get your own writing started. Read first. Then write. If you are not sure how to begin your day's writing, simply lift a word or a few words from another and begin there. Don't copy whole stanzas or lines...lift for inspiration and not to copy!
I like to think of today's poem as an invitation poem. It directs the reader to do something, how to approach the house, what to expect. Feel free to try this.
Or consider writing a poem that describes a place, line-by-line. This is, after all, really just a list poem. A list of things you'll see as you approach our home.
And those last two lines. I wanted them to be punchy - two syllables each.
There is so much to play with in a poem...
This month's guest at my other blog, Sharing Our Notebooks, is Alexandra Zurbrick. 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...your chance to enter ends Sunday.
Heidi is hosting today's Poetry Friday roundup over at my juicy little universe. Her classroom opens for visitors today, and she welcomes us too. Thank you, Heidi!
Please share a comment below if you wish.
