The Owl in the Door - Magic Everywhere!

Third Floor Women's Restroom Door

Webster Central Schools District Office

Photo by Amy LV

Students - Here's a funny little story for you.  So, this past Tuesday I was leading a workshop for wonderful third grade teachers in Webster, NY.  The middle school and district office building is one and the same, and it has beautiful wooden doors.  Leaving the women's restroom on the third floor, I was struck by this marvelous owl you see above in wood grain.  You do see it, don't you?

Well, I decided I needed to take her picture.  But there was a little problem. Another woman was in the restroom.  What would she think?  Who takes pictures in restrooms?  

There was no choice.  I took out my phone/camera and snapped a few photos, mumbling excuses to the woman at the sink, "Um, I'm just taking a picture of this door.  I know it's a little weird."  I didn't explain about the owl; after all, she was busy washing her hands.  I just took the picture.

I heard her voice, "Oh, no. It's not weird."  I wondered if she was backing away slowly, wishing was not trapped in a restroom with a strange door photographer.  She was kind, but I hurried out, tucking my phone safely in my pocket until Wednesday evening when I looked at it again.  Still an owl!  So glad I took the photo.  So glad I took the risk.

Today's poem is written in quatrains, four line stanzas.  I often write in quatrains, did so last week.  But this week's poem was a bit more of a challenge, because instead of just rhyming the second and fourth lines of each stanza, I also rhymed the first and third lines.  I have been thinking about rhyming like this for some time, and this week was that time.  You might wish to look at the poem and find the rhyming words.  Sometimes people mark such rhymes with circles or colors, to see the pattern.  We call this pattern an ABAB pattern because just like in ABAB, the lines alternate in sound.

Sometimes a poem has more cross-outs in part of it than it has words.  Such was the case with the last stanza of this verse.  I simply could not decide how to end it. Finally, I did!  

Many congratulations to Joyce Sidman for her newest reason to celebrate her newest book, WHAT THE HEART KNOWS: CHANTS, CHARMS, AND BLESSINGS.  This book just won the prestigious Claudia Lewis Award, given by Bank Street College for "the best poetry book of the year."  You absolutely, cross my heart, want this book in your collection.  

Indie Bound

Renee is hosting today's Poetry Friday roundup over at No Water River.  Swim over to her beautiful place and enjoy all of the poetic joy in the Kidlitosphere this week! 

Please share a comment below if you wish.

Elf Owl and Second Grade Gifts

Happy greetings from All Write!!! Summer Institute 2013.  It has been wonderful to be in Warsaw, Indiana, celebrating reading and writing with so many new and old friends.  I was so excited to be here that I got my days confused and actually posted early, by accident! Happy Poetry Every Day!

Elf Owl

by Amy LV

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

Students - Elf owls are very small birds, about the size of sparrows.  They are desert birds who live in saguaro cacti in the southwestern parts of the United States and in Mexico.  For today's poem, I pretended to be an elf owl and to speak as an elf owl.  Learning new facts and spinning them into poems is one of the most joyful parts of my life.  You will easily find the repeating line...and maybe you will notice what is perhaps my most-proud-rhyme ever!

This spring, I had the good fortune to Skype with Barbara Lehn's second grade class from Willard Elementary in Concord, Massachusetts.  After we talked poetry and visited (even some pets) through our computers, the students burst into a flurry of writing their own poems.  I was very lucky to receive a whole envelope full of notes and poems which I am pleased to share with you for today's Poetry Peek.  Simply click the poems to enlarge them.

by Anna

I would like to say many thank you hugs to Barbara Lehn and her class full of poets and readers.  I very much enjoyed my first-ever-Skype ever with them, and one of these young poets, Matilda, expresses my gratitude best -

by Matilda

May you all enjoy the many gifts of poetry all summer long...and throughout your lives.

It's still not too late to register for Kate Messner's Teachers Write! free online summer writing camp.  I'll be visiting for a session, as will many other authors, and it's a wonderful way to get back writing in community and in your own home at the same time.  Kate Messner offers many gifts to the Kidlitosphere, and it was her Kid-Lit Cares: Superstorm Sandy Relief Effort that connected Barbara Lehn's class and me through educator, author, and mother Linda Booth Sweeney. Linda bid on my books and Skype visit, and I'm so glad she did.  Thank you!

This week at Sharing Our Notebooks, I am so happy to have my friend Emily Krempholtz generously offering a look into many of her notebooks, past and present.  This blot has been a bit fallow of late, and I could not be more grateful than to have Emily bring it back to life. Please stop by and get re-notebook-inspired and enter Emily's giveaway too!

If you happened to miss Monday's post, please visit it if you'd like to learn about Professor Cathryn Smith's poetry pole, a wonderful thing indeed!

Today Carol is hosting Poetry Friday today at Carol's Corner.  Visit to discover a variety of poetic picture books and find a multitude of links to all poetry goodness in the Kidlitosphere today.  Next week, I will host the festivities here and hope to see you back.

In the meantime, here is a writing technique for you to try, from second grader Caroline!

by Caroline

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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First Flight - From My New Book!

Barred Owl, 2011

by Hope LV

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

Students - Today's poem is from my new book, FOREST HAS A SONG, illustrated by Robbin Gourley and to be published by Clarion next month.  You probably already noticed that this poem goes back-and-forth in a conversation between a mother and baby owl.  My own parents are very encouraging, and they always told me that I could do anything.  Maybe this is why I wrote about an encouraging Mommy owl.

Structure-wise, this poem is written in rhyming couplets (two lines at a time), each with one child line and one mom line.  One line only is not written in conversation, and that's stanza 4.  Why not?  Well, it's all sound effects!  Or as we say in poetry-land, it's onomatopoeia.

This owl verse also uses a technique called personification which is when a writer gives a non-human characteristics that are human.  You can see how this little owl has feelings just like a nervous-child might feel, just like I have felt before.

If you're about to sit down to write, you might wish to try thinking about a real feeling that you have had in your life.  Maybe a surprised or excited feeling.  Of course you can write about your feeling as it is...or maybe you will want to imagine what kind of animal might feel that same feeling and when.  Either way gives you a secret passage into a poem of your own.

I wrote FOREST HAS A SONG, including this poem several years ago, and it is very exciting (and hard to believe) that my book will be out next month.  To keep track of news on the book, I have created a little home just for it here.

When you write often, you come to realize which subjects you tend to write about over and over again.  Right now I am realizing that I do like writing about owls.  Here are two more owl poems: Owl and Cat, Why? (Could this poem be about the same owl as the one in "First Flight"?)

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!