Writing the Rainbow Poem #10 - Orange

Welcome to my National Poetry Month project for 2017!  Students - Each day of April 2017, I will close my eyes, and I will reach into my box of 64 Crayola crayons.

Aerial View of Crayola Box

Photo by Georgia LV

Each day I will choose a crayon (without looking), pulling this crayon out of the box. This daily selected crayon will in some way inspire the poem for the next day.  Each day of this month, I will choose a new crayon, thinking and writing about one color every day for a total of 30 poems inspired by colors.

As of April 2, it happened that my poems took a turn to all be from the point of view of a child living in an apartment building.  So, you'll notice this thread running through the month of colors. I'd not planned this...it was a writing surprise.

I welcome any classrooms of poets who wish to share class poems (class poems only please) related to each day's color (the one I choose or your own).  Please post your class poem or photograph of any class crayon poem goodness to our Writing the Rainbow Padlet HERE.  (If you have never posted on a Padlet, it is very easy.  Just double click on the red background, and a box will appear.  Write in this box, and upload any poemcrayon sharings you wish.)

Here is a list of this month's Writing the Rainbow Poems so far:

March 30 - Pick a Crayon, Write a Poem - Project Introduction 

April 1 - Misty - Inspired by Carnation Pink

April 2 - Each Morning - Inspired by Lavender

April 3 - Outside My Building - Inspired by Dandelion (!)

April 4 - Mr. B. - Inspired by Olive Green

April 5 - Once in a While - Inspired by Tumbleweed

April 6 - On Miss Johnson's Fire Escape - Inspired by Yellow Orange

April 7 - The Guy Downstairs - Inspired by Spring Green

April 8 - I Watch Her - Inspired by Forest Green

April 9 - Their Hands - Inspired by White

And now...today's crayon.  Orange!

Our Elevator

by Amy LV

Students - Upon choosing orange, I couldn't decide if the color would be about elevator buttons...or a child wearing orange boots.  So, I chose both.  My stuck-moment for the day, though was meter.  I wasn't sure how to get the rhythm rolling for today's verse.

So I turned to a mentor.  Eve Merriam.  Last night during the Poetry #NCTEchat on Twitter, this wonderful poet's name came up, and especially her whimsical book BLACKBERRY INK.

Available, Used

So I went to my shelves and...there it was!  I opened and read and found a poem with a pattern that felt interesting.  Merriam's poem begins like this:

It fell in the city,

It fell through the night,

And the black rooftops

All turned white.

I kept my book open as I wrote, learning from her use of repetition and rhyme.  And because of this guidance of someone here-but-not-here, I was able to write today's poem.

If you are Writing the Rainbow with me, consider playing a rhyme or meter pattern that you admire.  You're welcome to learn from me learning from Eve Merriam! 

Colors can take us anywhere.  And if you'd like to join in with your own poem at our Writing the Rainbow Padlet, please do! It is quite a beautifully hopping place.

Don't miss the links to all kinds of Poetry Month goodness up there in my upper left sidebar.  Happy tenth day of National Poetry Month!

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.

Painting - Poem #18 for April 2014 Poetry Project

LIVE!
Learn about this, my April 2014 Poetry Project, HERE!

Painting by Dorothy Quinan, 1970

Photo by Amy LV

Students - Yesterday, we went to a biiiig thrift store in downtown Buffalo.  We came home with many goodies, and I took many photographs. This painting made me feel serene and summery, and so I chose to write a haiku to go along with it.  Haiku is a form that I do not attempt often, and so today is a bit unusual for me.

I wanted today's poem to show the contrast between winter in the real world and summer in a painting, where the seasons never change.  With only seventeen syllables, this takes lots of experimenting.  I wanted to show the painting, and so color seemed the best way to do that.  And of course, I always adore simple color words with simple nouns.  

Here in my poemdrafts, you can see many of the possible lines that I tried out and threw out.  If you'd like to read a few tips about writing haiku, check out haiku world.

Picture - Draft Page Spread #1

Photo by Amy LV

And when I finished and sat to type, something felt eerily familiar.  Yes.  The red. And the chickens.  And the gazes (glazed).  I somehow channeled a few words of William Carlos Williams's The Red Wheelbarrow in very few lines and in the same order...without even knowing it.  I tip my hat to you, WCW. Thank you for living in my very blood.  Those mentor poets - they just travel around inside of us all the time.

Painting Close Up

by Dorothy Quinan

Photo by Amy LV

Back of Painting 

by Dorothy Quinan

Photo by Amy LV

Guess what?  I bought a painting.

Me & My New Painting!  

(I bought a frame too!)

Photo by Mark LV

The winners of last Saturday's book giveaway are:

FOREST HAS A SONG - Linda A.

THE POETRY FRIDAY ANTHOLOGY FOR SCIENCE - Victoria W.

Winners - please send me an e-mail to amy at amylv dot com with your address, and I will mail your books sometime this month!  Stay tuned for the exact same giveaway tomorrow and every Saturday of April 2014.

Robyn Hood Black is hosting today's Poetry Friday festivities over at Life on the Deckle Edge.  All are welcome, and if you'd like to know more about Poetry Friday, read Tabatha Yeatts's great April 2014 explanation over at Savvy Verse & Wit.  Happy Poetry Friday!

Please share a comment below if you wish.

Baby Cereal and Fourth Grade Poets

Yum!

by Amy LV

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

Students - Today's poem is an older one, and it's from a whole collection of baby poems that I have written.  Since Mark and I have three children, we have lots of baby stories, and for a time, I thought that I might join my baby poems together into a book.  Now I don't think so.  I am working on different projects, and so the baby poems are sitting and waiting for another day, another month, another year.

You may have noticed that every line of today's poem begins with the same word.  I got the idea to try this from a poem titled Good Books, Good Times!,  from a book by the same name, by Lee Bennett Hopkins.  There's another interesting technique to notice too, another idea I learned from Lee's poem.  Can you find it?

To write this little poem, I used Lee's great poem, "Good Books, Good Times!" as a mentor poem.  This is a great thing to do.  Find a poem you love, notice something you find interesting about the writing, and then try that interesting thing yourself!  Stand on that poet's shoulders to attempt something new.

Today I am happy to host fourth grade teacher Nathan Monaco and his students from the Arcade Elementary in the Pioneer Central School District.  I thank them for sharing their poetry unit journey.  Welcome, Nathan and students...

This year my 4th grade classroom had fun with an author study unit about poetry using Amy VanDerwater’s writing.  She was generous enough to allow me to use her poetry and her artwork from The Poem Farm as freely as I wanted.  The unit wound up being 3-4 weeks long, and I combined Amy’s poetry with other themes I had learned about through writer’s workshop.

Aiden's Notebook

At the beginning of the poetry unit, my students were less than enthused to say the least.  They shared their malcontent about poetry in general and basically summed it up as boring.  I let them know that they had not been taught poetry by me yet and that they were going to be learning about a poet who they had never heard of.  Each student received a bound copy of a book that my teaching assistant and I had made.  This book contained some of Amy’s poetry split up into sections according to the "technique" sections (line breaks, question poems, mask poems, personification, etc.) on The Poem Farm website.

Before delving into the different types of techniques, my class spent one week learning about the 5 Doors of poetry by Georgia Heard, using each door to think about poems by Amy.  If you have never heard of Georgia Heard, she has a book titled Awakening the Heart: Exploring Poetry in Elementary and Middle School where the idea of the 5 Doors comes from.  

Available through Heinemann

I spent one day on each of Georgia Heard's doors:

• The Heart Door – things that you love, things that are important to you

• The Memory Door – memories from your life: happy, sad, funny, etc

• The Wonder Door – things that you are wondering about, questions you have

• The Observation Door – things that you observe in the world around you

• The Concerns About the World Door – things that concern you, or things that you are thinking about for the world, issues in the world.

One could also invent/introduce all kinds of other doors such as a humor door, but I decided to leave that out as 4th graders can take that too far and ruin the whole mojo of taking poetry seriously.

Day 2 - The Wonder Door

by Evelyn

Day 2 - The Wonder Door

by Gabbie

After the week of comparing Amy’s poetry to the 5 Doors, we were ready to explore her techniques as described in her website.  We read her poetry aloud, discussed why her poems were organized in such a way, patterns the students saw, and of course we talked about the importance/unimportance of rhyming in poetry.  Only one technique was talked about each day, but we kept track of the different techniques on poster boards in the room.  If students were compelled to continue working with one technique, I allowed it, and as the unit went on there was always a technique that a student felt comfortable worked with.  The class spent one week on the different techniques as well.

Week 2 - Personification
by Cheyenne

Our  last week of this unit was spent publishing through a company called Studentreasures, a company that binds student work in hardcover for free.  The actual publishing process for the company is a little tedious, (it took a whole week to publish poetry), but it was completely worth it.

Published Book Cover
by Andrew

Published Inside Book Page
by Marissa

We completed our unit in late March/early April.  Now, in the beginning on June, I still have students choosing to create poetry during writer’s workshop time.  Some students have even created poetry journals, and I would be very confident saying that all students thoroughly enjoyed the poetry unit.

Thank you again to Nathan and his fourth graders for sharing their journey today.  I feel lucky to have had my poems included as part of their study.

All best to all of you for a beautiful week full of poetry and adventure!

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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