Poetry Friday, Connecting Poems, and YOU JUST WAIT

Happy Poetry Friday!  
I am hosting today, and I welcome you!

Soccer Stuff

Photo by Amy LV

from YOU JUST WAIT

and 

THE POETRY FRIDAY ANTHOLOGY FOR MIDDLE SCHOOL

Both Books Created and Edited by Sylvia Vardell and Janet Wong

Students - Many of us have been new before: to a school, to a neighborhood or family or team or friend group.  And while being new is exciting, it can also be a little bit scary.  Today's poem is from a brand new book I'm celebrating for Poetry Friday today. The title of the book is YOU JUST WAIT, and it was created by Janet Wong and Sylvia Vardell.  I was honored that they chose this poem of mine (from THE POETRY ANTHOLOGY FOR MIDDLE SCHOOL) to be part of the story.

YOU JUST WAIT is different from most other books as it threads together poems by many poets to make one complete story. And interspersed between the poems are various writing exercises to try out yourself.

This is a neat idea, this taking poems by many people, writing some new ones, and stitching them together to make a new and complete whole.  Poems that never knew each other before are now woven together into a book, telling a story.  You could try this too - tie connections between others' poems that have never been connected before, and write some of your own new poems to fill in between the cracks.  It's like a verse novel marrying an anthology marrying a book of writing ideas!

Many of you may know about the Poetry Friday Anthology Series, published by Pomelo Books, and today I am happy to welcome creators and editors Janet Wong and Sylvia Vardell to The Poem Farm.

Sylvia and Janet Hugging some Poetry Friday Anthologies

Photo by Emily Vardell

While YOU JUST WAIT - Pomelo's latest book - is for reading...it is also for writing.  Janet joins us today to share thoughts about this newest book.  And she is also offering five copies to one winner who comments on today's post. Welcome, Janet...take it away!

Find More Information at Pomelo Books

Available through Amazon

We wanted to try something really different with YOU JUST WAIT: A POETRY FRIDAY POWER BOOK. Last spring I revisited a great post on Lee Bennett Hopkins by Renée M. LaTulippe at her No Water River blog and was reminded by how Lee has always pushed for something new and original with each book. 

For instance, his HarperCollins I Can Read Books were groundbreaking in the way they used quality literature as instructional text. Lee was also one of the first to combine nonfiction informational text with poetry—now a standard element in poetry books with a social studies or science connection. 

With YOU JUST WAIT and hopefully with forthcoming books in a Poetry Friday Power Book series, we’re also happy to defy categorization. YOU JUST WAIT is a verse novel made for tweens and teens, yes. But it is also a journal for young writers. And a creativity book that encourages kids to doodle and explore their thoughts on life. And a book on poetry instruction, with mentor texts for teachers. All that, rolled into one.

(from page 7 of YOU JUST WAIT):  This book offers you several choices for reading, thinking, writing, and responding. Overall, it’s a story in poems, but all of this is also organized in PowerPack groups that help you get a “behind the scenes” look at how poems work and how poets write and think. In each of these PowerPack groups, you’ll find five things:
• PowerPlay activity
• Outside poem (from another poetry book)
• Response poem 
• Mentor text 
• Power2You poem writing prompt


Below, you can take a look at Powerpack10 from the book.  Each Powerpack is organized in the same way, with these same five sections.

(Please click to enlarge any images that are too small for you to read.)

From YOU JUST WAIT

Created and Edited by Janet Wong and Sylvia Vardell

From YOU JUST WAIT

Created and Edited by Janet Wong and Sylvia Vardell

From YOU JUST WAIT

Created and Edited by Janet Wong and Sylvia Vardell

From YOU JUST WAIT

Created and Edited by Janet Wong and Sylvia Vardell

From YOU JUST WAIT

Created and Edited by Janet Wong and Sylvia Vardell

From YOU JUST WAIT

Created and Edited by Janet Wong and Sylvia Vardell

What do I want kids to do with the book? I say: “You can write in your book, draw in it, follow the writing prompts to write poems, whatever you want. The book is YOURS.  My hope is that kids will really enjoy taking ownership of their books. I want the books to look ragged and well-worn 12 weeks after students receive them. (There are 12 PowerPacks in the book.) 

It is a treat to offer not one or two or three or four, but five copies of YOU JUST WAIT to one commenter on this post, enough for a little group to have a lot of fun with this latest addition to the Poetry Friday Anthology Series.  Please simply leave a comment on this post by next Thursday, September 15, to be entered into the drawing.  I will announce the winner next Poetry Friday, September 16.  Thank you to Janet and Sylvia for such generosity.  If you win, you'll have five of the first copies...hot off the press.

If you would like to read more about YOU JUST WAIT, Sylvia Vardell is celebrating this book birthday over at Poetry for Children!

If you have a link you'd like to share for this week's Poetry Friday roundup, please do so below!  I will be out and about commenting through the early part of next week as I'm off on a road trip to Vermont.  It's my sweet nephew Luke's first birthday!  xo

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.

New Year's Resolutions - Imaginary Conversations

Sage

Photo by Amy LV

Students - Happy New Year! Yesterday afternoon, as I walked our dogs Cali and Sage, I asked them what their New Year's Resolutions were.  They didn't answer, but later, as I wrote in my notebook (I am doing lots of that lately), they did answer.  And their answer became today's small poem.

Many poems grow from words we hear others say or from conversations we have, but we can also imagine conversations and play with ideas about what might be or could be said.  Try playing around with "what might have been said" or "what could be said" sometime in your own notebook.  You can words from people and animals you know or from historical figures or inanimate objects...anyone or anything at all.  What might have been said?  What could be said?

Today's poem is not full of full rhymes, but there are some similar sounds that hold the lines together.  Can you find them?

You can read two other New Year poems in The Poem Farm archives.  Find New Year's Eve from 2014 and January 1 from 2011.  It's amazing how the years keep on rolling by, isn't it?

Over at my other blog, Sharing Our Notebooks, I am pleased to share that we have two winners for Tanny McGregor's generous giveaway. In 2016, I hope to feature more student notebooks in addition to these wonderful adult notebooks, so please, teachers and students, drop me a line if you're interested in sharing!  I will make it easy for you to do so.

In other celebratory news, my first nonfiction book, EVERY DAY BIRDS, illustrated by Dylan Metrano and published by Scholastic, joins library and bookstore shelves next month!  I could not feel more grateful.  If you are a blogger who is interested in reviewing this book, please send me an e-mail, and I will have one sent to you.

Mary Lee is hosting this week's Poetry Friday roundup over at A Year of Reading. Visit her place for a beautiful, wise poem, and enjoy the poetry bounty!  How lucky we are to have this community.

Many New Year blessings and joys to all of you!  Happy 2016!  I thank you for visiting.

xo, Amy

Please share a comment below if you wish.

Day 2 - National Poetry Month 2015 - Sing That Poem!

Happy National Poetry Month!

Welcome to Day 2 of this Year's Poem Farm Project!

Find the Complete April 2015 Poem and Song List Here

First, I would like to welcome all old and new friends to The Poem Farm this April. Spring is a busy time on all farms, and this one is no exception.  Each April, many poets and bloggers take on special poetry projects, and I'm doing so too.  You can learn all about Sing That Poem! and how to play on my April 1st post, where you will also find the list of the whole month's poems and tunes as I write and share them.  If you'd like to print out a matching game page for yourself, you can find one here, and during April 2015, you'll be able to see the song list right over there in the left hand sidebar.

Yesterday's poem was Let's Play Ball.  Here is the tune that goes along with it. Did you figure it out?

And here, below, is today's poem.  Look at the song list in the sidebar or on your matching form to see if you can puzzle out which tune matches this one.

Concrete Whales in Pittsburgh, PA

Photo by Amy LV

Students - Today's poem is a poem of joy, of remembering and of longing too.  If you have been here to The Poem Farm before, you  know that I like imagining that I am or have been all kinds of animals and things.  This verse matches the tune of one of my most favorite songs, and I like to think that the words pair well with the feeling of the song.

When I first wrote today's poem, there was only one verse.  But I just felt that it needed a second verse, so I came back and added one.  And you know what?  I may add a third.  Perhaps I really was once a whale...

Jama is keeping a wonderful list of all kinds of poetry projects and happenings all around the Kidlitosphere this month.  You can check this list out at Jama's Alphabet Soup.

Tomorrow I will be hosting Poetry Friday here at The Poem Farm.  Please come back to learn about about all of the wonderful poems and poetry ideas that everyone will be sharing on this first Poetry Friday of National Poetry Month!

Please share a comment below if you wish.

I Understand - a Villanelle

Chester

Photo by Honour V.

'

 

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

Students - I have set myself a Poetry New Year's Resolution!  I'll be writing a poem every day of this year, and I will share some of them here.  This will give me an opportunity to explore many different forms and deepen my skill as a writer.  Sometimes we all get into ruts, and I do that with sound.  I like and often write in certain meters, so experimenting with new ones will help me grow.

Do you have a New Year's Resolution for writing?  It's not too late!

Today's poem is a villanelle, a form you may remember from V is for Vulture of my Dictionary Hike last April.  This is quite a complicated form, 19 lines with 5 tercets and 1 quatrain.  You'll notice that there are two repeating lines, and they repeat in a very particular order.  There are only 2 ending rhymes, and those, too, are in special places.  You can see exactly how this whole form works at poets.org or at the Poetry and Prose Writers' Blog.  There are many other places to look as well, but these two helped me yesterday.

Villanelles do not have a particular meter, but I chose to write in imabic pentameter (daDUM daDUM daDUM daDUM daDUM).  Next time I'll try something different, but since I wrote a sonnet on Monday, I was in the groove of that meter!

Below you can see the beginning drafting work of today's villanelle.  I followed the advice I read and began with a theme - becoming different animals and understanding all creatures, a theme I return to often.  Then I wrote out the form to help me, like a skeleton.

When I awoke this morning, after this post had been up for 5 hours, I read today's offering at The Writer's Almanac, also about the connection of creatures.  Today's poem at The Writer's Almanac is "The Fish" by Billy Collins.

I took these process photos at a ski lodge while writing during my children's ski club afternoon.  You can see how I left blanks for needed lines and how I wrote dots and letters to help me know which lines and rhymes were needed where.

Notebook and Paper with Villanelle Draft

Photo by Amy LV

Computer Villanelle Draft

Photo by Amy LV

If you would like to read lots and lots of villanelles (I just might), here is a whole book about them.

Available through Amazon

Thank you to Matt Forrest Esenwine over at Radio, Rhythm, and Rhyme for hosting today's Poetry Friday roundup, the first of this new beautiful year.  Be sure to stop by and celebrate 2013 with poems!

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!

I Doodle Poodles - Reading Changes Writing

 

Sylvie in the Grass

Photo from the Collins/Fleischer Family

Poodle Doodles

by Georgia & Amy LV

Sylvie at the Lake

Photo from the Collins/Fleischer Family

Stoodlers - I mean Students - sometimes it is just fun to play with words, to feel them in your mouth like food, roll them around with your tongue, let them bounce your teeth. Moments before drafting this poem, I was reading my newest old book, AN ALMANAC OF WORDS AT PLAY (1975) by Willard R. Espy, found on Saturday at Buffalo, NY's Rust Belt Books. Month-by-month Espy's book takes a reader through many many wordtumbles, and just reading made me feel playful!

Available through Amazon

Remember this - we are changed by what we read. After I wrote the ending of "I Doodle Poodles," I heard an echo of the ending of one of my favorite poems, "The Pickety Fence" by master poet David McCord.

pickety
pickety
pickety
pick.

Who do you want to be like?  Hang around people who will help you be more like you wish to be.  Who do you want to write like?  Read their books!

"Reading is the sole means by which we slip, involuntarily, often helplessly, into another's skin, another's voice, another's soul." -- Joyce Carol Oates

Do you think you know the difference between Doodles and Poodles? Find out here!

And if you are over 16 and interested in becoming a Book Giver (a wonderful chance to hand out free books on April 23), this is the last day to apply. Visit World Book Night for more information. I am excited to be a part of this celebration of reading!

Sylvie at Home

Photo from Photo from the Collins/Fleischer Family

The Poem Farm Facebook Page is regularly updated with all things poetry!

(Please click on POST A COMMENT below to share a thought.)