Let it Happen - I Fell in Love with a Stone Bowl

Stone in My Garden

Photo by Amy LV

Students - We have had a spell of spring weather here in Western New York, and yesterday found me raking a few garden beds, including the one you see above, the front garden with so many snowdrops and an old stone bowl.  In his poem Aimless Love, Billy Collins writes about falling in love with all kinds of inanimate objects, from a dead mouse to a bar of soap.  And so it is.  Yesterday I fell in love with this stone bowl.

Isn't erosion amazing?  I love looking at stones with small hollows and with rivulets of pattern on their backs, adore seeing wind-changed land forms and feeling the smoothness of beach glass.  No matter what we do, wind and water keep on keeping on.  I know that I can learn from this.

You might want to try learning from nature too, as a writing exercise, and as a life exercise.  Go outside.  Fall in love with an inanimate object.  And then write.  Write about what you love and what lesson you might learn from this object.  Let the silence of the object speak to you.  (Yes, this is personification.) And let me know how it goes.

This week was a very happy week for me and for my first book!  On Tuesday, the Society of Children's Book Writers and Illustrators announced that FOREST HAS A SONG won the first ever SCBWI Lee Bennett Hopkins Poetry Award.  

Available through IndieBound

For those of you who know that Lee Bennett Hopkins has been one of my life and writing mentors, you will understand that FOREST winning this award is very meaningful to me.  I am grateful.

I am happy, too, to share this happiness with two wonderful poets and honor books.

DEAR WANDERING WILDEBEEST by Irene Latham is a rich collection of poems about animals gathered at a waterhole on the African grasslands.

Available through IndieBound

FEEDING THE FLYING FANELLIS by Kate Hosford is a joyful collection of poems from the perspective of a circus chef.

Available through IndieBound

Margarita Engle won a great SCBWI award this week too! Her beautiful ENCHANTED AIR: TWO CULTURES, TWO WINGS: A MEMOIR won the Golden Kite Award for Nonfiction.

Available through IndieBound

Much gratitude to SCBWI and to Lee himself for giving awards to poem books. I am thankful.

Over at my other blog, Sharing Our Notebooks, I am happy to host high school teacher Stacey Dallas Johnston from the Las Vegas Academy of the Arts with a post about her students' notebooks.  Please stop by, check out the notebooks, and leave a comment to be entered into a drawing to win Anne Lamott's BIRD BY BIRD.

And if you missed my Monday post here, featuring Irene Latham's latest...FRESH DELICIOUS, you'll want to go back and write a persona poem with Irene.  I will draw a name this evening for a book winner,donation thanks to WordSong!

Robyn is hosting today's Poetry Friday Roundup over at Life on the Deckle Edge. Everyone is always invited to these Friday fiestas, and we hope you will join us!

Please share a comment below if you wish.

That Day - When Writing Comes from Many Places

Milkweed Plants on Raiber Road

Photo by Amy LV

Students - The picture you see above is of a little stand of milkweed plants on our road.  Early in August, my husband and I took a walk down the road and counted monarch caterpillars on the underside of the leaves.  I went back a couple of weeks later to look for chrysalises, but I did not see any, and I'm still wondering if those caterpillars turned to butterflies just a few yards away from our home. I smile to remember that weeks-ago-walk,  just looking for caterpillars and counting them together.  It is one of my favorite summer memories.

Later in August, our family visited and camped in Acadia National Park in Maine, and as part of our trip we went to Southwest Harbor where we found many more monarch caterpillars here in front of a shop called Sawyer's Specialities.  Can you see that chubby caterpillar just enjoying so much green?

Monarch Caterpillar in Front of Sawyer's Specialities

Photo by Amy LV

Well, yesterday I walked down our road again, and when I looked at the milkweed plants, I remembered the summer's excitement of finding caterpillars, imagining their mysterious change into butterflies.  The first line of today's poem just wrote itself on the page...and I went from there.

Remember in the summer

You might wish to try this.  Try beginning a poem or an essay or a story with the word remember.  See where the word leads you.  And once you arrive somewhere interesting in your writing, led by the hand by remember, you can decide whether to keep it as a first word or not.  You may choose a different beginning to your finished piece, but remember is a wondrous way to begin.

It is true that we found caterpillars this summer and true, too, that we often see wee toads.  Still, though, today's poem, I am sure, came from another place as well. From a book.  From TADPOLE'S PROMISE, written by Jeanne Willis and illustrated by Tony Ross.  I learned about this book years ago, and a friend just reminded me of it the other day.  So, I pulled it out and shared it with our teenagers.  It's a funny and different book, and I won't say another word!

Available at Your Local Bookstore

Poems surprise us in the way they take the many colorful threads of our lives - our readings, play, work, chats, loves, despairs, wonders, fascinations, confusions, joys, quiet times - and weave poemcloth.  You never know which thread will appear when in a poem.  And this, of course, is what makes writing such great fun.  Who knew that last month's poem would appear in my mind yesterday all mixed up with an unusual picture book?  No one knew.  That's a good enough reason to write, if you ask me.  Write to find out which poemcloth will weave itself that day.

Let your mind and heart surprise you when you write.  And if something you don't expect but that tickles you shows up on the page, please let me know.  It would be great to have you share it in this space.

Speaking of sharing, at my other blog, Sharing Our Notebooks, I continue to feature writer and teacher Michelle Haseltine.  Stop by to peek inside her notebook and leave a comment to be entered to win a new notebook!  In that space, I am currently seeking some folks to make and share little videos about how to use a writer's notebook: videos of teachers explaining notebooks, videos of students giving short tours of their notebooks, all notebook celebration videos.  I am also seeking notebooks of guy notebook keepers of all ages.  Please drop me a line at amy at amylv dot com if you are interested in sharing in such a way.

Today's Poetry Friday roundup is over at Today's Little Ditty with Michelle.  Enjoy her poem of remembering and celebrate poetry with friends old and new. All are always welcome at the Poetry Friday table.

Please share a comment below if you wish.

Read Seasons in Sunflowers...Poem #210

 August

Photo by Amy LV

 September

Photo by Amy LV

Driving around a couple of days ago, I saw this drooping sunflower.  I felt sad when I remembered its glory just two months before.  Then I felt happy, thinking about ten months from now, when all of its sunflower babies will be standing tall, some nearby and some far away.

Students - This poem is simply a description, a word picture, of one sunflower at two times in its life.  You probably noticed that this poem is divided into two stanzas, and each one takes place during a different month. In this poem, I wished to snap a wordshot of how a sunflower's head position changes over time.

Something about words here too: while this poem does not rhyme at the ends of its lines, you will hear that the first stanza rhymes some internal vowels: gazes, straight, and face.  In the second stanza, you hear more repetition of sounds: seeds, deeply, and weep.

A writer thinks much like being a scientist.  Look closely.  Quiet down.  Observe.  Today on the playground or later at home, stare at things.  Let one image capture you like a prisoner, and do not look away.  If you are reading this in writing workshop now, walk over to the window or take a walk outside.  Be wowed by an image.  Then write your description, as finely and truly as you are able.

As always, I would love to read any student poems that grow from your visits here.  Teachers, please leave a note in the comments if you are willing to share student work on a Poetry Peek Friday!

(Please click on COMMENTS below to share a thought.)