Unplug and Listen

A Garden After Rain, June 6, 2025

Photo by Amy LV

Students - It rained all last night here, and oh did I love it! The sound of rain is one of my favorite sounds (along with crunching leaves and the bump of a rock kicked down the road). Right before dinner yesterday, I planted a few more plants, hoping that Mother Rain would swoop in overnight...tucking each basil and pea and nasturtium plant into their big earthen bed. And she did! In fact, it is still raining now in the morning as I write on the front porch. It sounds just like a lullaby.

Today's poem is a small one, yet I wrote many notebook pages about rain before I arrived here. Somehow the simplicity of the rain, the purity of the water droplets, the gentle drumming felt so...so...so...opposite of much of the online world. This opposite place is important for my humanity. For all of our humanity.

The few lines above are a list poem, beginning with a list of the things NOT happening, and twisting at the end to the one thing that IS happening. List poems are not difficult to write, and they can allow us to contrast two things.

This week - this summer - this life - I encourage you to unplug from everything and allow thoughts to arrive in your mind in the quiet. Allow non-tech sounds to tap on your heart. Write with no devices nearby. If you make this a practice, such times will become a good, solid friend to you. This is one of my own summer goals, and should you join me, I would love to hear about it.

I would like to extend my respect and gratitude to the fourth, fifth, and sixth grade members of the TRA (Tioughnioga Riverside Academy) Writing Club in Whitney Point, NY for our time together this week. I so appreciated joining your club virtually for one day and admire how you meet weekly and explore different writing topics and techniques in community. I wish you all a beautiful writing summer. Thank you, too, to your teacher leaders including Laura Farwell who connected us, who have built this important place for thinking and creation.

Buffy is hosting this week's Poetry Friday roundup over at Buffy Silverman with a spotlight on two new lyrical STEM picture books. Each Friday, all are invited to share poems, poem books, poetry ideas, and friendship in this open and welcoming poetry community.

May you be soothed by raindrops and other nature goodnesses.

xo,

Amy

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HELLO MY NAME IS - Day 11

Happy National Poetry Month!

(Feel free to search for poems in the sidebar or watch videos in the tab above.)

Hello, Poetry Friends! This month I am sharing poems written in the voice of Little Red Riding Hood, and I invite you to join me in writing in the voice of someone else too. You might choose a fairy tale character or a book character or a person from history or anyone else real or imagined. These are your poems, so you make the decisions. Each April day, I will share my poem and a little bit about writing poetry. Mostly, we’ll just be writing in short lines with good words and not worrying about rhyming. Meaning first. Our focus this month will be adopting the perspective of another…for 30 days. I invite you to join me in this project! To do so, simply:

1. Choose a character from fiction or history or somewhere else in the world of space and time, and commit to writing a daily poem in this person's voice for the 30 days of April 2025. You might even choose an animal.

2. Write a new poem for each day of April. Feel free to print and find inspiration from this idea sheet that I will be writing from all month long.

Teachers, if you wish to share any HELLO MY NAME IS... subjects or poems, please email them to me at the contact button above. I would love to read what your students write and learn from how they approach their own projects.

LITTLE RED RIDING HOOD'S POEMS SO FAR

April 1 - First Poem

April 2 - My Name

April 3 - Red

April 4 - Frank

April 5 - The Big Bad Wolf Had Been a Stray

April 6 - 8am on a Sunday

April 7 - Her Real Name is Orla Lola Bruin

April 8 - My Neighborhood

April 9 - Mushroom Hunters

April 10 - From Coat to Cloak

And now for today!

Students - Today's poem is a short list poem packed with wordplay-rhyme. A brief description of something glorious - wolf fur!

If you have ever buried your face in the fur of a well-loved pet, then you know how Lou is feeling here about her wolfdog's fur. She is so excited that she even revises her poem and keeps the revision visible. I've never done this before - crossed out a line just to keep it - but today, for me, it works. I had to think about how to read it aloud, and when it's necessary to think about something, learning happens. So, even if I change this around someday, it was still interesting and right to try something new today. I read somewhere recently that no one making art ever says, I wish I'd been less weird when I made that art, and I agree.

Writing tip for the day: try something you have never done before in your writing. Even a little something. Even if you don't keep the writing, your writing self will grow.

Today over at Robyn Hold Black's blog Artsyletters, please find a couple of poems - including mine - from Matt Forrest Esenwine's new book A UNIVERSE OF RAINBOWS: MULTICOLORED POEMS FOR A MULTICOLORED WORLD. Thank you, Robyn! 

Thank you for joining me on this eleventh day of HELLO MY NAME IS...

And many thank yous to Irene for hosting this week's Poetry Friday roundup over at Live Your Poem. Each Friday, all are invited to share poems, poem books, poetry ideas, and friendship in this open and welcoming poetry community.

To learn about more National Poetry Month projects and all kinds of April goodness, visit Jama's Alphabet Soup where Jama has generously gathered this coming month's Kidlitosphere poetry happenings. And if you are interested in learning about or writing from any of my previous 14 National Poetry Month projects, you can find them here. Happy National Poetry Month!

xo,

Amy

Please share a comment below if you wish.

Know that your comment will only appear after I approve it.

If you are under 13 years old, please only comment 

with a parent or as part of a group with your teacher.

HELLO MY NAME IS - Day 8

 Happy National Poetry Month!

(Feel free to search for poems in the sidebar or watch videos in the tab above.)

Hello, Poetry Friends! This month I am sharing poems written in the voice of Little Red Riding Hood, and I invite you to join me in writing in the voice of someone else too. You might choose a fairy tale character or a book character or a person from history or anyone else real or imagined. These are your poems, so you make the decisions. Each April day, I will share my poem and a little bit about writing poetry. Mostly, we’ll just be writing in short lines with good words and not worrying about rhyming. Meaning first. Our focus this month will be adopting the perspective of another…for 30 days. I invite you to join me in this project! To do so, simply:

1. Choose a character from fiction or history or somewhere else in the world of space and time, and commit to writing a daily poem in this person's voice for the 30 days of April 2025. You might even choose an animal.

2. Write a new poem for each day of April. Feel free to print and find inspiration from this idea sheet that I will be writing from all month long.

Teachers, if you wish to share any HELLO MY NAME IS... subjects or poems, please email them to me at the contact button above. I would love to read what your students write and learn from how they approach their own projects.

LITTLE RED RIDING HOOD'S POEMS SO FAR

April 1 - First Poem

April 2 - My Name

April 3 - Red

April 4 - Frank

April 5 - The Big Bad Wolf Had Been a Stray

April 6 - 8am on a Sunday

April 7 - Her Real Name is Orla Lola Bruin

And now for today!

Students - Today we learn a little bit about where Lou lives. I do not think that in a month's time we'll be able to meet everyone and learn their actual names or much about them, but at least we have a sense of Little Red Riding Hood's neighborhood. Did you know that all of these folks live near each other?

Today's verse leans very heavily on the double dactyl form. I do not follow all of the rules for a double dactyl today, only the meter...and it helped me! I adore playing with meters of different songs and poems, and writing in different rhythms and beats presses me into writing with different words and ideas.

Playing with meter today also made me very picky about which of Lou's neighbors to name today. Their names had to fit the double dactyl meter. I visited this His and Hers Bookclub blog post that lists nineteen fairy tale characters and chose from there.

Thank you for joining me on this eighth day of HELLO MY NAME IS...

To learn about more National Poetry Month projects and all kinds of April goodness, visit Jama's Alphabet Soup where Jama has generously gathered this coming month's Kidlitosphere poetry happenings. And if you are interested in learning about or writing from any of my previous 14 National Poetry Month projects, you can find them here. Happy National Poetry Month!

xo,

Amy

Please share a comment below if you wish.

Know that your comment will only appear after I approve it.

If you are under 13 years old, please only comment 

with a parent or as part of a group with your teacher.

HELLO MY NAME IS - Day 6

    Happy National Poetry Month!

(Feel free to search for poems in the sidebar or watch videos in the tab above.)

Hello, Poetry Friends! This month I am sharing poems written in the voice of Little Red Riding Hood, and I invite you to join me in writing in the voice of someone else too. You might choose a fairy tale character or a book character or a person from history or anyone else real or imagined. These are your poems, so you make the decisions. Each April day, I will share my poem and a little bit about writing poetry. Mostly, we’ll just be writing in short lines with good words and not worrying about rhyming. Meaning first. Our focus this month will be adopting the perspective of another…for 30 days. I invite you to join me in this project! To do so, simply:

1. Choose a character from fiction or history or somewhere else in the world of space and time, and commit to writing a daily poem in this person's voice for the 30 days of April 2025. You might even choose an animal.

2. Write a new poem for each day of April. Feel free to print and find inspiration from this idea sheet that I will be writing from all month long.

Teachers, if you wish to share any HELLO MY NAME IS... subjects or poems, please email them to me at the contact button above. I would love to read what your students write and learn from how they approach their own projects.

LITTLE RED RIDING HOOD'S POEMS SO FAR

April 1 - First Poem

April 2 - My Name

April 3 - Red

April 4 - Frank

April 5 - The Big Bad Wolf Had Been a Stray

And now for today!

Students - Today's poem is simply a description poem of now, of something Lou is doing in the moment. It is written in the present tense, as if she is describing the scene around her, its colors and smells and sounds. In a way, it is a small moment poem and a list poem, and I like imagining this peaceful scene of LRRH surrounded by some of her favorite things.

If you are writing in the voice of another this month, or writing in your own voice, consider trying this. Write in the now. Where are you? What do you see, hear, smell, feel, taste in the air? Make a list and turn the list into a poem. Turn it into a different poem. Which do you prefer? If you like, combine them!

Notice - today's poem does not rhyme or follow a special meter/beat, but it does end with a short line. This is one way to bring a poem to a close. The short line feels like a punctuation mark indicating - This poem is over now.

Yesterday was such a fun Family Day at the Burchfield Penney Art Center. Several authors read to children, and the museum staff and volunteers made crafts with the children. For my book, WITH MY HANDS, POEMS ABOUT MAKING THINGS, children had the opportunity to make sock puppets or fingerprint pictures! Thank you to everyone at the Burchfield Penney for putting together such a wonderful day for families and authors too.

Sock Puppet Materials
Photo by Amy LV

Fingerprint Picture Materials

Photo by Amy LV

Thank you for joining me on this sixth day of HELLO MY NAME IS...

To learn about more National Poetry Month projects and all kinds of April goodness, visit Jama's Alphabet Soup where Jama has generously gathered this coming month's Kidlitosphere poetry happenings. And if you are interested in learning about or writing from any of my previous 14 National Poetry Month projects, you can find them here. Happy National Poetry Month!

xo,

Amy

Please share a comment below if you wish.

Know that your comment will only appear after I approve it.

If you are under 13 years old, please only comment 

with a parent or as part of a group with your teacher.

HELLO MY NAME IS - Day 3

  Happy National Poetry Month!

(Feel free to search for poems in the sidebar or watch videos in the tab above.)

Hello, Poetry Friends! This month I am sharing poems written in the voice of Little Red Riding Hood, and I invite you to join me in writing in the voice of someone else too. You might choose a fairy tale character or a book character or a person from history or anyone else real or imagined. These are your poems, so you make the decisions. Each April day, I will share my poem and a little bit about writing poetry. Mostly, we’ll just be writing in short lines with good words and not worrying about rhyming. Meaning first. Our focus this month will be adopting the perspective of another…for 30 days. I invite you to join me in this project! To do so, simply:

1. Choose a character from fiction or history or somewhere else in the world of space and time, and commit to writing a daily poem in this person's voice for the 30 days of April 2025. You might even choose an animal.

2. Write a new poem for each day of April. Feel free to print and find inspiration from this idea sheet that I will be writing from all month long.

Teachers, if you wish to share any HELLO MY NAME IS... subjects or poems, please email them to me at the contact button above. I would love to read what your students write and learn from how they approach their own projects.

LITTLE RED RIDING HOOD'S POEMS SO FAR

April 1 - First Poem

April 2 - My Name

And now for today!

Students - I am very much enjoying pretending to be Little Red Riding Hood so far. It feels as if each day I learn a little new about the LRRH (Lou) inside of me. To choose the poem topic for each day, I try to find a hint in the poem from the day before. If I do, I allow that hint to lead me into the next poem. Yesterday Lou wrote "But yes it's true, I do love red." This made me think about all of the red things she might adore. And somehow, I got to the tune of "My Favorite Things," the famous song from the movie THE SOUND OF MUSIC. 

Go ahead, sing today's poem to the tune of...

Raindrops on roses, and whiskers on kittens.

Bright copper kettles and warm woolen mittens.

....

If you don't wish to sing it, you can hear me do so above. 

Writing a poem to the tune of a song is one of my favorite writing things to do. The meter (and rhyme scheme if you wish) is offered by the song, and then you just sing along as you write to check if each line matches. Sometimes this requires a lot of crossing out and revision, as you can see below. 

Draft of "Red"

(Click to Enlarge)

Photo by Amy LV

I encourage you to try this. Choose a song, perhaps "Twinkle Twinkle Little Star" or "Happy Birthday" and go from there. (And don't be surprised if I, as Little Red, lean on a song more than once this month!)

Looking at this draft, you may have noticed that I dated my page March 20, 2025. Because I am on the road a lot this month, I began writing in March so that I am able to travel, teach, and still post even on the busiest days.

Thank you to the students, faculty, administration and Librarian Christopher Gray of St. John's School in Houston Texas. I just spent two days there, sharing poems and writing poetry with all of the students in grades K-5. Much gratitude to retired teacher Olga McLaren, whose vision and generosity left a gift of a visiting poet to the school each year. It was so good to see her and her husband again!

And thank YOU for joining me for Day 3 of HELLO MY NAME IS...

To learn about more National Poetry Month projects and all kinds of April goodness, visit Jama's Alphabet Soup where Jama has generously gathered this coming month's Kidlitosphere poetry happenings. And if you are interested in learning about or writing from any of my previous 14 National Poetry Month projects, you can find them here. Happy National Poetry Month!

xo,

Amy

Please share a comment below if you wish.

Know that your comment will only appear after I approve it.

If you are under 13 years old, please only comment 

with a parent or as part of a group with your teacher.

Notice Something Someone Enjoys

Fiona Settles into a Sunbeam

Photo by Amy LV

Students - Spring is coming to Western New York, and all of us here are turning our faces up to the sun and drinking it into our skin. Last week I watched Fiona settle into a golden sunbeam, and she looked so cute and happy that I had to take her photograph. 

As writers, our job is to pay attention to the small and big happenings that fill each day - just normal events such as hearing a teacher read aloud wonderfully, tasting perfect frosting, or cozying up into a sunbeam like Fiona. Our lives are richer when we notice these bits of our world, and so, too, is our writing.

If you are looking for a writing idea this week, pay attention to what makes another person or an animal happy. Perhaps keep a little list of times when others are happy and why they became happy. Then, write a poem or a story or some thoughts from your notes. Maybe you will even wish to write about what makes YOU happy. My poem begins as a list of the many places Kitty finds the sunbeam and then toward the end, the poem keeps the reader in one place to watch Kitty drift off into purry snores. You may have noticed the movement in lines 3-6, each drifting more toward the right. These lines move because...well...sunbeams move!

When we pay attention to happiness, we become happier. Our feelings so often follow our thoughts. And our thoughts grow from our attention. This is why I try to point my attention wisely. We cannot control everything, but we do have some say about what we grow in our own brain gardens.

Below you can see Winnie relaxing on our front porch near my knitting basket this week. Do you think she likes sunshine too?

Solar Powered Winnie

Photo by Amy LV

Thank you to Janice for hosting this week's Poetry Friday roundup over at Salt City Verse with a celebration of Women's History Month. Each Friday, all are invited to share poems, poem books, poetry ideas, and friendship in this open and welcoming poetry community.

I wish you more happiness than you think you could possibly find.

xo,

Amy

Please share a comment below if you wish.

Know that your comment will only appear after I approve it.

If you are under 13 years old, please only comment 

with a parent or as part of a group with your teacher.

List Your Way

Our Home Nestled in Snow

Photo by Mark LV

Students - Where we live in Western New York can be very snowy, and this week has been especially snowy. So much that there was no school yesterday or today. Sometimes I know what to write about because it surrounds my every moment - and right now snow is absolutely everywhere. Out every window, out each door...we meet poofs of snow. There is almost two feet out there right now, and the snow is over three feet deep in the town where my husband Mark teaches.

Today's poem is a list poem and a celebration poem and a poem written in quatrains, or four-line stanzas. I simply began listing things I love about snowfall and snow days and snowy mornings and then tried to gently rhyme along the way. Below you can see that there was a lot of crossing out along the way, just as there always is. I love writing by hand because the act of crossing out is part of my process.

Drafting in the Snow

Photo by Amy LV

If you are not sure what to write today or this week or anytime, try beginning with a list. Maybe list things you like about something that many people do not like. (Many people do not like snow!) You need not use everything on your list, and you need not know where it will go when you begin. Your writing mind will lead when you trust it. List your way....

Linda is hosting this week's Poetry Friday roundup over at A Word Edgewise with a playful sharing of poem mashing together, such a fun idea! Each Friday, all are invited to share poems, poem books, poetry ideas, and friendship in this open and welcoming poetry community.

This week I wish you interesting weather and interesting thoughts about that same weather.

xo,

Amy

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Welcome Seely 4th Grade Poets!

Seely Place Elementary School

Edgemont School District, Scarsdale, NY

Photo from Seely Website

This Poetry Friday I could not be more thrilled to welcome the wise and talented poets from Mrs. Borella and Mr. Levin's fourth grade class at Seely Place Elementary in the Edgemont School District in Scarsdale, NY. Welcome, poets!

I was lucky enough to visit Seely Place again a couple of weeks ago, but I did not expect the wonderful surprise of reuniting with some of the fourth graders I met two years ago when I visited them as second graders during my first Seely visit. As it happened, last month these same students, now fourth graders, were reading one of my poems in class and writing many of their own. Fortunately for me, they invited me in to their classroom so that I could enjoy some of their poetry and learn about their process. Needless to say, the students are taller, have more teeth, and are both accomplished poets and thoughtful humans.

 

Reunited Two Years Later

Photo by Mrs. Borella/Mr. Levin

Long before I arrived, these students read the below list poem, one I shared at my blog years ago. 

And then, Mrs. Borella and Mr. Levin invited them to write It's ok list poems of their own as a kickoff to the class's poetry unit. You can follow this teaching process below. 

Click to Enlarge

These final pieces became part of a class book for everyone to enjoy and learn from. I wish that my own younger self had received this kind and thoughtful advice and appreciate it now as an older self.

And those precious photographs? Well, Mrs. Borella wrote to the students' families before the unit and asked - in secret - for each family to send a photo of their child as a little one to serve as inspiration...and to bring joy to the whole project.

Read the Pages!

One thing that struck me in these poems - besides the most adorable photographs and great advice - is the very true rhyming. You will not find forced rhyme here. Students used all kinds of techniques to find rhymes from listing rhyming words to substituting synonyms to moving words around. They shared some of these strategies with me, and we had a great poet-to-poet conversation about the importance and how-to of keeping our rhyme meaningful.

Thank you so much to Mrs. Borella, Mr. Levin, these photo-sharing families the Seely Place community, and Allyson Hickey of booked Authors for connecting me with these writers. Thank you, young poets. I will never forget this visit.

Buffy is hosting this week's Poetry Friday roundup over at Buffy Silverman with a mask poem in the voice of a hognose snake - three acts! Each Friday, all are invited to share poems, poem books, poetry ideas, and friendship in this open and welcoming poetry community.

If you would like to visit my 2024 National Poetry Month Project - ONE MORE OR LESS LINE CROW - you may do so HERE. Much gratitude to anyone and everyone who commented along the way...it can get lonely in here.

I wish you a week of kindness to yourself. If you have a difficult day, I suggest rereading one of these students' poems. And please do leave them a comment if you would be so kind.

xo,

Amy

Please share a comment below if you wish.

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If you are under 13 years old, please only comment 

with a parent or as part of a group with your teacher.

ONE MORE OR LESS LINE CROW 24

  Happy National Poetry Month!

(For new poetry writing videos, see the COAXING POEMS tab above.)

 

Hello Poetry Friends! If you visited earlier this month, you may have noticed a change my National Poetry Month project title. For my National Poetry Month Project this year, I had originally planned to study crows and share a new crow poem each day of April with the number lines in each poem corresponding to the date. The plan was to write 1-line poem on April 1...and go all the way up to a 30-line poem on April 30. For a variety of personal and poetic reasons, I have changed the project. The poems have lengthened to 15 lines...and now they decrease from 15 back down to 1. Hence the new name: ONE MORE OR LESS LINE CROW. 

To do so, simply:

1. Choose a subject that you would like to stick with for 30 days. You might choose something you know lots about...or like me, you might choose something you will read and learn about throughout April.

3. Write a new poem for each day of April 2024, corresponding the number of lines in your poem to the date. For example, the poem for April 1 will have 1 line. The poem for April 14 will have 14 lines. The poem for April 30 will have 30 lines. OR....invent your own idea! And if you start later in April, just play around however you wish.

4. Teachers and writers, if you wish to share any ONE MORE LINE... subjects or poems, please email them to me or tag me @amylvpoemfarm. I would love to see what your students write and to know that we are growing these lines...and our understandings of different subjects...together.

Below you may read all of this month's poems:

April 1 - High in a Pine

April 2 - First Baby Picture

April 3 - Nestling Crow Appreciates

April 4 - Thirty Days Old

April 5 - Young Crow with his Sparkling Blue Eyes

April 6 - Free

April 7 - To Persevere

April 8 - Watch Closely

April 9 - September Sight

April 10 - Black

April 11 - Winter Roost

April 12 - All Food is Good

April 13 - Know Crow

April 14 - A Helper Now

April 15 - Family Tree

April 16 - The Choice

April 17 - Build, Wait, Hope

April 18 - Mobbing

April 19 - Don't Doubt It

April 20 - Crow Parents

April 21 - A Wire is Warm

April 22 - Is Crow Frightened?

April 23 - Over and Over and Over

And now for today!

Twenty-Four Crows, Seven Lines

Photo by Amy LV

Students - Do you like playing in the bath? Crows do too!

This is a list poem. Each of the lines tells something that Crow does in his bath...except for the last line. This last line asks a question about all of the lines that come before. You might wish to try this kind of poem. Simply think of a list related to your topic. Write it down the page. Write your last line as a question or wonder about what you wish to know about the lines that came before.

Thank you for joining me for ONE LINE CROW...

To learn about more National Poetry Month projects and all kinds of April goodness, visit Jama Rattigan at Jama's Alphabet Soup where Jama has generously gathered this coming month's happenings. Happy National Poetry Month!

xo,

Amy

ps - If you are interested in learning about any of my previous 13 National Poetry Month projects, you may do so here.

Please share a comment below if you wish.

Know that your comment will only appear after I approve it.

If you are under 13 years old, please only comment 

with a parent or as part of a group with your teacher.

ONE MORE OR LESS LINE CROW 15

   Happy National Poetry Month!

(For new poetry writing videos, see the COAXING POEMS tab above.)

Hello Poetry Friends! If you visited earlier this month, you may have noticed a change my National Poetry Month project title. For my National Poetry Month Project this year, I had originally planned to study crows and share a new crow poem each day of April with the number lines in each poem corresponding to the date. The plan was to write 1-line poem on April 1...and go all the way up to a 30-line poem on April 30. Now, for a variety of personal and poetic reasons, I have changed the project. The poems will go up to 15 lines...and then decrease from 15 back down to 1. Hence the new name: ONE MORE OR LESS LINE CROW. We are still on the MORE part, but beginning on April 16, we go back down in line numbers. Yes, the logo and the crow pics will change too!

Sometimes life surprises us, and we can change our plans to match the needs at the time. I chose to change course rather than abandon this project, and after some good thinking last night, I feel happy about this decision.

If you'd like to play along, simply choose a topic that you'd like to explore for many days. It might be a subject that you already know a lot about or perhaps you'll explore something new.

I invite you to join me in this project! 

To do so, simply:

1. Choose a subject that you would like to stick with for many days. You might choose something you know lots about...or like me, you might choose something you will read and learn about throughout April.

3. Write a new poem for each day of April 2024 and decide if you would like to match your line breaks to the date in any way. You might correspond the number of lines in your poem to the date. For example, the poem for April 1 will have 1 line. The poem for April 30 will have 30 lines. You may wish to switch it up as I have, writing increasing-line poems from 1-15 lines for this first half of April and then decreasing-line poems for the second half of the month. OR....invent your own idea! 

4. Teachers and writers, if you wish to share any ONE MORE OR LESS LINE... subjects or poems, please email them to me or tag me @amylvpoemfarm. I would love to see what your students write and to know that we are growing these lines...and our understandings of different subjects...together.

Below you may read the first poems:

April 1 - High in a Pine

April 2 - First Baby Picture

April 3 - Nestling Crow Appreciates

April 4 - Thirty Days Old

April 5 - Young Crow with his Sparkling Blue Eyes

April 6 - Free

April 7 - To Persevere

April 8 - Watch Closely

April 9 - September Sight

April 10 - Black

April 11 - Winter Roost

April 12 - All Food is Good

April 13 - Know Crow

April 14 - A Helper Now

And now for today!

Fifteen Crows, Fifteen Lines

Photo by Amy LV

Students - Welcome to halfway through this project. I am feeling very good about having changed from increasing lines all month to increasing lines for the first half of April and then decreasing lines for the second half of the month. It feels in some way, like a life cycle, around and around.

Today's poem of fifteen lines is another list poem, listing only some of the 135 species in the bird family Corvidae. For me, the most fun part of writing this poem is ending with that fabulous fact about corvid intelligence and the lines Corvids fly throughout the world. Throughout the world, the Corvids play.

You might wish to play with repetition in this way. Simply repeat the last few lines of one of your lines right at the beginning of a new line.

Tomorrow I will be back, lingering at fifteen lines before beginning the decrease down to one.

Thank you for joining me for ONE MORE OR LESS LINE CROW...

To learn about more National Poetry Month projects and all kinds of April goodness, visit Jama Rattigan at Jama's Alphabet Soup where Jama has generously gathered this coming month's happenings. Happy National Poetry Month!

xo,

Amy

ps - If you are interested in learning about any of my previous 13 National Poetry Month projects, you may do so here.

Please share a comment below if you wish.

Know that your comment will only appear after I approve it.

If you are under 13 years old, please only comment 

with a parent or as part of a group with your teacher.