Griffins Mills Cemetery: Go Somewhere, Watch People

Griffins Mills Cemetery - West Falls, NY

Photo by Amy LV

Students - About a month ago, I stopped in a local cemetery to walk around, to think.  I often do this; something about the quiet dead reminds me to live while I can, something about the stones and stories speaks to me.  

Well, on this day, I paused in my car for a bit as a woman visited graves and placed flowers -- some on the headstones and some stuck into the dirt, as if she were planting them.  I was moved by her thoughtfulness. When the woman left, I followed her path, reading the names of the people she had visited.  I imagined they were her friends.

I wrote about this in my notebook, drafted an early poem, and revisited it, playing with form and sound and line breaks for today's poem.

Places.  People.  Go somewhere and just watch.  Think about the stories going on all around you, the ones you might miss if you're thinking about what you need to do later or if you're looking down at a phone or a game.

Just go somewhere with your notebook.  Watch people.  The world is full of stories waiting for each one of us.

Many congratulations to Kathleen Sokolowski, winner of Georgia Heard's AWAKENING THE HEART and HEART MAPS!  Thank you again to Georgia for such an inspiring post last week, and thank you to Heinemann for the generous giveaway.  Kathleen - please send me an e-mail to amy@amylv.com with your snail mail address, and I will forward it on to Heinemann.

In my other online home, I am so happy to welcome fellow Poetry Friday blogger, writer, and teacher Kiesha Shepard to Sharing Our Notebooks.  Stop on over there, peek into her notebooks, leave a comment...and maybe, just maybe, thank you to Kiesha, you might win a Mary Oliver poetry book.

If you are a teacher in an urban school, and if you are interested in trying a poetry lesson or two, please send me an e-mail to amy@amylv.com.  I am writing a book which will include student poems, and so this is a possible (unpaid, but cool) publishing opportunity for students in grades 2 - 8.  

Catherine is hosting this week's Poetry Friday roundup over at Reading to the Core.  All are always welcome to visit the roundup, to meet new poems and friends.

Pink Carnation Gift

Photo by Amy LV

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Z is for ZAIRE

Z is for ZAIRE

Photo by Amy LV

 

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

ZAIRE is the first word in the Z section of my children's dictionary.

Students - Well, when I opened my dictionary to another geographical location...I was surprised.  This has happened two other times, with J is for JAMAICA and N is for NORTHERN IRELAND.  Each time I got a little worried.  "What would I write?"  But then I read...and then I learned...and then I wrote.

For today's poem, I began reading and learned that Zaire had been called the Congo and was only known as Zaire from 1971 - 1997 when it again became the Congo. Reading Wikipedia, I learned that the name Zaire comes from the Portuguese word Zaire which comes from the Kongo word nzere or nzadi, which means "the river that swallows all rivers."  Isn't that gorgeous?

When I told Mark this name story, he said, "You should write about the river!" And so I did.

Reading along, I was reminded that Langston Hughes mentions the Congo River in his most beautiful of river poems, The Negro Speaks of Rivers.  If you click on the title, you can read the poem and hear him read it over at Poets.org. 

I did a little bit of math with this poem too.  The Congo River is the world's deepest river at over 220 meters (220 feet), and I imagined four-foot-tall first graders standing on top of each other's shoulders.  With all of the calf/head overlap, it would take more than 200 to reach the bottom of the Congo River. Wow.

So, there you have it.  I pointed to a word, read some research, talked with my husband, listened to a classic poem, did some math, and wrote.

That last sentence sums up my past month.  For this Z poem is the final poem of my April 2012 Dictionary Hike.  This month I met and wrote with Lisa, Christophe, and Georgia, enjoyed a V is for VULTURE poem by Michele, and learned about children opening their own dictionaries and making word baskets.  It was a zesty month, and I feel grateful to everybody who stopped by. Tomorrow, April 30, I will list out all 26 alphabet poems.

Today I welcome actor and poet Charles Waters!

On April 12 (K is for KNICKKNACK), I wrote about wonderful words and shared Wilfred J. Funk's list of most beautiful words.

Charles left this post in the comments:

Well, last night he wrote to me with the poem!

Luminous Lullaby

Children listen, hush, hear that

Golden melody that chimes at dawn?

This luminous lullaby loves

murmuring through mist

Sending tranquil thoughts your way

Every day.

© Charles Waters

On the April 12, 2012 entry of The Poem Farm, Amy posted (among other neat things) the 10 most beautiful words according to Wilfred J. Funk, and it inspired me to attempt to write a children's poem using  those ten words: dawn, hush, lullaby, murmuring, tranquil, mist, luminous, chimes, golden, and melody.  My aim was to use them in a way where it flowed into the poem so well that you wouldn't have thought I wrote it as a challenge to myself but instead as a moment of thankfulness to the blessings of nature.

Thank you, Charles, for sharing this poem full of beautiful words here today.  

Tomorrow is the first chalking celebration over at Teaching Young Writers. Join organizer-Betsy, Linda from TeacherDance, many others, and me as we chalk, photograph, and share poems. 

Over at The Poem Farm's sister blog, Sharing Our Notebooks, there are two new peekable notebooks. So if you are a notebook-keeper, a notebook-keeper-hopeful, or a teacher who uses notebooks in your classroom, please don't miss Suz Blackaby's post about her process and word tickets or Allan Wolf's post about wall writing and butt books.  The drawing for Allan's ZANE'S TRACE will take place on Monday evening.

Tomorrow, April 30, you can find the whole April 2012 Dictionary Hike here.  And I will be somewhere else. Two other places actually.  I will be at Author Amok with Laura Shovan as a part of her series of 30 Habits of Highly Effective Poets sharing a bit about my revision process.  And I will be in a secret place. Really, they told me that I must not tell!  So please come back tomorrow, and I will tell you.

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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Our Sugar House - Places & Making Things

 

Oh Boy!

by Amy LV

Students - it's that time of year again. If you live in the Northeastern US or Canada, and if you live in the country, and if you have sugar maples in your yard, and if you like to sit around and watch things boil...then it's your time. Sugaring time! For the past few years, our family has boiled maple syrup. We started by boiling on our grill burner. Then we moved to a little fire pit made from cinder blocks and a canning pot...and this year we have our own evaporating pan! Thanks to our good friend John Hitchings, who has taught us about syruping, we are getting better and better organized. We don't make lots of syrup, just a bit for us to enjoy. So far we have three quarts this year. All from one tree!

This poem is about a place, a small place called a sugar house. That's where many people boil their syrup, in tiny shed-like houses or big buildings that hold an evaporating pan, a couple of chairs, and some supplies. Commercial operations are quite large, but many people just boil a bit of backyard syrup. We still boil outside, but maybe someday we'll have a sugar house, or sugar shack, of our own.

You will notice that this is a poem with a pattern. Each stanza has four lines, and lines two and four of each stanza always rhyme with each other. When I write rhyming poems, the most important thing for me is that the rhymes make sense. Yes, I could have rhymed "sap" with "map." But why would I do that? Meaning is most important when writing a poem or anything else.

The idea for today's poem came from two thoughts. First, I got thinking about special places, and our friend John's cozy sugar shack came to mind since we just visited it. Next, we have been making maple syrup, and I like writing poems about making things.

Where is a special small place where you like to spend time?

What have you made lately?

If you want to write about a lot of different things, one way to do this is to try making a lot of different things. Look around your house and make up some crafts. Or ask if you can help cooking or gardening or fixing things. The more we do, the more we know, the more we know...the more writing ideas we have!

For another poem about maple sugaring, go back to last year and read Tap Sap Lap.

To read more about syruping, I again recommend this article, How to Tap Maple Trees and Make Maple Syrup, from the University of Maine Extension.

To watch a video of maple sugaring, watch this video, "Maple Syrup in the Making at Yardley's Sugarhouse."

May your day be sweet!

2 Quarts of 2012 Syrup

Photo by Amy LV

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Spark 15 & The Water Tower

Landscape

Mixed Media on Canvas

by Paula B. Lantz

Students - once again, it's been a delight to take part in SPARK...SPARK 15!  This time I was lucky enough to be paired up with artist Paula B. Lantz, and she gave me permission to choose any of her work from the Touchstone Gallery to spark my writing.  I so enjoyed browsing through her work, and when I saw the painting above, I knew it was the one!

Writing from art stretches a whole new part of one's mind, and I highly recommend it as an exercise.  You might find a shoe box and collect postcards from art museums or gather quirky pictures that somehow speak to you...  Then, if ever you think, "I have no ideas," you can simply pluck a picture and see where it takes you.  I have learned this from SPARK.

In writing today's poem, I worked to focus especially on color, to use color words all along the way.  Last year, a teacher friend shared some of his students' written stories with me.  Michael's story detailed a memory he had of a girl throwing up on his bus.  What struck me was his use of color: face purple like a grape, white like snow...  When I wrote this poem, I tried to write like Michael.  Try that sometime; write with color words.

Many thanks to Amy Souza for again putting together a wonderful opportunity for artists, musicians, and teachers to collaborate in this way.  This is my fourth time participating, and each time is nourishing and exciting!  All are welcome to participate, and I encourage you to check out the website and the pieces.  Too, Amy Souza, teacher Jamie Palmer, and I still plan to get a small SPARK KIDS going this spring.  More details to follow.

I will share Paula's response to my poem tomorrow, Saturday! 

In other writing news, this week I have a column about ears and holes in the "My View" column of THE BUFFALO NEWS.

Thank you to Ruth Ayres of Ruth Ayres Writes and Two Writing Teachers for her generous sharing of both notebooks and writing process this week over at Sharing Our Notebooks, a resource for teaching students all about notebook keeping and for the nosy among us to peek into others' notebooks.

Jone is hosting today's Poetry Friday over at Check It Out.  Check it out!

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When I'm Here - MyPoWriYe #124

Georgia and Romeo

Photo by Director Eileen Thompson

Sprucelands

Our family has been part of Sprucelands Horseback Riding Camp in Java Center, NY for three years now, and we adore our summer days there, learning and laughing with friends.  Each year, I am moved to see deep bonds form between campers and their horses.  Tacking up, in the ring, and on the trail, horses pay close attention to their riders, sensitive to mood and temperament.  Eileen and her riding instructors teach campers to listen and to show their horses gratitude and love.

In return, horses give right back.  Somehow, troubles from the outside world vanish when we care for an animal.  We lose ourselves, and worries drop away as we give and receive love.

Students - everyone has places that make us feel certain ways: safe, sad, complete, worried, scared, happy, connected.  If you're ever unsure of what to write, thinking about a place is a good way to begin.  Because I know that many people feel content with horses, I wanted my poem to feel like it could be about about any barn or field or wood.  This is why I did not name Sprucelands in my poem; I hope a reader will imagine his or her own horse place.  I think about this often: how can I make my poem specific and universal at the same time?

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