This is the third year that fabulous illustrator Emma Virjan and I have
collaborated on a poem for this special day. 2019 brings foxes!
Art by Emma Virjan
(Click to Enlarge this Image)
Please share a comment below if you wish.day
Showing posts with label Poem in Your Pocket Day. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Poem in Your Pocket Day. Show all posts
Thursday, April 18, 2019
Thursday, April 24, 2014
Picnic Basket - Poem #24 for April 2014 Poetry Project
LIVE!
Learn about this, my April 2014 Poetry Project, HERE!
Please share a comment below if you wish.
Picnic Basket
Photo by Amy LV
Students - Today's poem is a mask poem, written in the voice of an object or person. Each day of this month, I have decided whether to write TO an object, ABOUT an object or AS an object speaking. It is fun to mix it up, and in writing a collection of poems, it is important to mix it up too: stances, rhymes and meters, topics.
Below in today's draft (I wrote this poem this morning, not the day before as I have done the rest of this month) you can see how I began by first looking back at the poemobjects from all month, tallying the types of objects I've already written about. As the month winds down, it feels important to create a balance of objects: toys, housewares, clothing, and more.
You can see that I went back and forth a few times about the word "gazing" in line 7. This is because "gazes" appears in another poem this month. I find myself realizing over and over that I do have favorite words, but in a collection I don't want to overuse any words, even favorites. For now, I'm keeping "gazing" because it is really the word most used when discussing stars.
You may have noticed that in the move to today's typed version, the last few lines are spaced out like steps. This was not something I thought about when writing longhand, but somehow in typing new ideas for line breaks often appear.
I suggest trying this out for yourself. Do lots of revision on one of your poems in longhand, reading it aloud to yourself, crossing out unnecessary words, trying out new lines. Get it just how you like it. Work hard; be ruthless. Then, type the poem. As you type, consider other possibilities for line breaks. You may surprise yourself. (If you are an older student and do not type well, I highly recommend learning to type quickly and mindlessly. This allows you to think about your WRITING and not your TYPING.)
Picnic Basket - Draft Page Spread #1
Photo by Amy LV
Today is Poem in Your Pocket Day! Which poem do you have in your pocket? I am carrying Notice by Steve Kowit (in honor of a friend's husband who died this week) for my grownup friends ,and for my child friends I am carrying Shell by Myra Cohn Livingston.
(This morning, to my science teacher husband, I gave many copies of Wendell Berry's The Peace of Wild Things and to our children I gave There is a Land by Leland B. Jacobs!)
Please share a comment below if you wish.
Thursday, April 26, 2012
V is for VULTURE & Very Special Guest
V is for VULTURE
Photo by Amy LV
Well, we're back on track now after our little W/V mix-up. And what a great word for today! Today's word, the very last in the V section of my dictionary, led me to the Turkey Vulture Society, some good learning, and a greater appreciation of scavengers.
Today's poem is a villanelle. I once again turned to that great Paul Janeczko book, A KICK IN THE HEAD, to help me puzzle out form, and the villanelle is a tricky one. You'll see the 5 tercets followed by a quatrain as well as the rhyme scheme: aba, aba, aba, aba, aba, abaa. You will notice that the first line of the poem repeats as the last line of stanzas 2 and 4 as well as the third line of stanza 6. You will also see that the third line repeats as the last line of stanzas 3 and 5 as well as the final line of the poem. You may also notice that each line has 10 syllables.
If you are familiar with John Milton's poem On His Blindness, you will know the line - "They also serve who only stand and wait." That line went through my head as I wrote about vultures. There is something powerful in waiting, in patience.
When I told my daughter Hope that I was going to write a villanelle about vultures, she said, "Wouldn't it be neat to do a Dictionary Hike where each poem type had to begin with the letter of that day?" Hmmm... Here we go: Acrostic, Ballad, Cinquain...
And now for our guest poster!
Georgia LV
Photo by Amy LV
Today I am most excited to welcome my eleven-year-old daughter, Georgia, to this space. She is a frequent photographer of Poem Farm photos, and she has been taking her own Dictionary Hike this month, right through the letters of her name. So far Georgia has written poems from:
G - GLIMPSE
E - ENTHRALL
O - ONCE
And today, she writes from REDWOOD. Last night after I came home from a school meeting, Georgia met me at the door with her poem, and I asked right away if she would allow me to share the poem and her process. I am so grateful that she agreed. Below you can read Georgia's poem, see her draft, and read her thoughts.
Draft of R IS FOR REDWOOD
By Georgia LV
The first thing I did was to Google REDWOOD tree facts. I didn't know I would write about any particular tree. I found that the largest Redwood tree was 379 feet tall and that it had a name. I became enthralled (my second word) by this tree character and decided to find out all I could about him.
I jotted down any facts that I found interesting and then crossed them out if I changed my mind. I was also very intrigued by the name. What does it mean? Why was he called that?
I looked HYPERION up in the online dictionary and found it was a name for a titan (Greek giant). Then I looked at my facts and added a couple in.
I formed my poem around the facts and not the facts around the poem. This is the first factual poem I have ever done. It was a lot of fun. Try it sometime!
Thank you to Georgia for her openness in sharing her fourth poem of this month and her thinking process too. Writing ABOUT our thinking helps us understand it even more.
Happy Poem in Your Pocket Day to all! Today I have a poem in my pocket. The poem is Candles by Carl Dennis. And since I will not see many people today, I will send in copies to my children's teachers. Here it is for you! What poem do you have (or would you like to have) in your pocket today? Please share in the comments as we're all always looking for more beautiful poemfriends.
In case you are new to The Poem Farm, this month I am walking, letter-by-letter, through the dictionary, (closed-eyed) pointing to a letter each day, and writing from it. You can read poems A-W by checking the sidebar, and you visit Lisa Vihos and read her accompanying daily haiku at, Lisa's Poem of the Week. In today's comments, watch for Lisa's Haiku and also Christophe's haiku. It is has been grand to poetryhike with new friends.
Do not miss this week's funny and informative post at Sharing Our Notebooks. Author and poet Suz Blackaby is sharing her notebooks as well as a clever writing exercise. Stop by to read her words and to enter the giveaway for her book, NEST, NOOK, & CRANNY. The winner's name will be drawn TONIGHT!
Remember, tomorrow is Poetry Friday, the last of this year's National Poetry Month.
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Thursday, April 14, 2011
Concrete Poems are Not Heavy
Happy Poem in Your Pocket Day! Today is a special poem day, for today many people may have secret poems in their pockets. The poem I have in my pocket today is Choices by Tess Gallagher. Last year I carried Kindness by Naomi Shihab Nye.
If you don't have a poem in your pocket yet, you might want to find one and put it in there right now. Then, throughout the day....you can share it with people!
If you don't have a poem in your pocket yet, you might want to find one and put it in there right now. Then, throughout the day....you can share it with people!
Concrete Poems
Students - I surprised myself this year by writing a whole soup of concrete poems. A concrete poem is a poem whose meaning partially comes through its shape on the page. I never had a particular interest in writing concrete poems, and most all of my concrete poems didn't start out as concrete at all.
Writing a poem each day, however, I began to look at words and patterns differently. Often after writing words on a page, I'd ask myself, "Hmmm...is there anything I could do with the shape of this to make the meaning stronger?" Then I'd play.
Asking, "Hmmm...might this be concrete?" became a lens of revision I used often. So sometimes my poems were revised simply for shape!
from October 2010
from August 2010
Here are a few more concrete poems from this past year.
When I'm Up
Students - you might want to try this too. After you write a poem, ask yourself, "Would moving these words into a particular arrangement make this poem's meaning stronger?" If you think it will, try playing and moving and dancing the words across your paper in different ways. (Sometimes words will have their own minds and surprise you!)
Students - you might want to try this too. After you write a poem, ask yourself, "Would moving these words into a particular arrangement make this poem's meaning stronger?" If you think it will, try playing and moving and dancing the words across your paper in different ways. (Sometimes words will have their own minds and surprise you!)
Throughout April, I will continue to revisit last year's poems paired with short writing lessons for the school and home classroom. I welcome you to share your own poems in the comments or through e-mail at amy at amylv dot com.
This Month's Poetry Revisits and Lessons So Far
April 1 - Poems about Poems
April 2 - Imagery
April 3 - Poems about Animals We Know
April 4 - Line Breaks and White Space
April 5 - Poems from Everyday Life
April 6 - Free Verse
April 7 - Poems from Wonders & Questions
April 8 - Classroom Poetry Peek & Circular Poems
April 9 - Poems about Science
April 10 - Rhyming Couplets
April 11 - Riddle Poems
April 12 - List Poems
April 13 - Poems for Occasions
April 14 - Today - Concrete Poems
Now...go put a poem in your pocket! And remember, tomorrow is Poetry Friday. There will be lots of poetry fun all around the KidLitosphere.
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