Asters - Writing about Beauty

Stopping by Raiber Road
Photo by Amy LV

Driving home from a school on Wednesday, I was struck by the absolute beauty of autumn wildflowers lining country roads. Gold and purple, brown and green...the mosiac of color and changing life made my soul sigh in wonder.

As I neared home, I pulled my car to the side of the road, got out, and took several photos, including the one at the top of this post. I couldn't shake this picture, those purple faces, fireworks, shouting out to the world, "We are here! It is autumn! Rejoice!"

What do you find so beautiful that it stops you from walking, from talking, from riding your bike? If something makes you pause, makes you think, makes you long for more...write.

Was I inspired by a favorite poem here?  I am certain that I was.  X.J. Kennedy's poem "Blow-Up" speaks of a cherry tree losing its blossoms.  It, too, rhymes the words blast and last.  It, too, is about time's fast passage.

In the words of the Lebanese American poet Kahlil Gibran, "Poetry is a deal of joy and pain and wonder, with a dash of the dictionary."

Listen to your heart.

If you have not yet visited my new blog, I invite you to Sharing Our Notebooks, a growing blog peeking into the notebooks of all kinds of people and appropriate for classroom sharing and mini lessons.  This week, writer Luke Reynolds has opened up his pages to us!

Anastasia Suen is hosting today's Poetry Friday roundup over at Picture Book of the Day.

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Poetry Friday & Dandelion Grandmas

 Old Gray Ladies

Photo by Amy LV

Oh, this time of year!  I love the dandelions in spits and spots, on roadsides and decorating whole meadows.  Years ago, I didn't like them.  Now I do.  Part of this change is due to my husband's love of nature (which has rubbed off on me), and part of it is because we live in the country where all kinds of flowers and animals roam free.  And of course, now I see dandelions as food.  Our family has not made fritters yet this year...maybe tomorrow.

Students - this poem grew from our current yellow polka dot world!  And it also grew from somewhere else.  Years ago, I read a first grader's poem which will always stay with me.  Her poem compared a dandelion to a lion throughout the lion's life, ending with a "gray mane/the hairs blowing off."  This young child's image has rested in my heart for a long time, and yesterday it returned as I looked at dandelions and thought, "They're like little grandmas!"

It's a funny thing about writing.  We never know when an image, a memory, a word, a  dream, or a line from a poem or book will appear across our mindscreens, when it will whisper to us from years past, when such a surprise will echo, "Write me!  Write me!"  As writers, it is our job to listen and to write what we hear.  So students....listen.  Always listen.

For anyone who might have missed last week's announcement, many congratulations to J. Patrick Lewis, our 2011 Children's Poet Laureate.  Author of more than 50 children's poetry books and winner of the 2011 NCTE Award for Excellence in Poetry for Children for the body of his work, we are lucky to have J. Patrick Lewis at our helm!

This week's Poetry Friday is at The Drift Record with Julie Larios.  Puff your way on over, wishing all the while, and visit poetry growing in the KidLitosphere!

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Tulips Know Today Brings Spring! #354

Tulip Decisions

by Amy LV

Students - If you have never planted tulips, one of the interesting things about them is that they are bulbs.  You plant tulip bulbs in the fall and waits all winter for them to pop up and announce spring.  Every spring, I say to myself, "Oh!  I should have planted more tulips!"

This poem is a lot like poem #272, "Perfect Timing."  It is fun to examine the same idea and thought with different words.  This poem, like that one, is a wondering poem.  If you write a poem every day, you will find that many of your thoughts circle 'round and find different words to say and wonder and examine and hope the same thing.

What do you wonder about nature?  What small things did you walk by this morning that made you pause and think?  Those small things are the stuff of writing.

Today is the first day of spring!  Happy Equinox!

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Poem #350 (a Haiku) Welcomes Snowdrops

Our First Snowdrops

Photo by Amy LV

Today I offer my first haiku of 350 poems.  This week we have been simply tickled to see our first red-winged blackbirds, our first snowdrops, our first of everything spring!  Such a newness creeps into one's very marrow, and so this poem called out to me in the shower yesterday morning.

Students - if you are a maker of poems, a maker of stories, a maker of music, or a maker of art, be aware that you can make in your mind even as you do other things.  When you shower, walk to school, knit, ride your bike...you can think about what you are making and let those thoughts simmer in your mind like a fine rich soup.

For a wonderful radio show about haiku, listen to Tom Ashbrook's On Point - Haiku and You.  For an article about writing haiku, visit Teach Poetry K-12.

If you would like to hear a Hans Christian Andersen fairy tale about a snowdrop, visit the Hans Christian Andersen Center, and read The Snowdrop.

Did you know that you can press flowers into pictures?  My husband's Aunt Pat has done this, hammering flowers onto fabric, making beautiful art.  The photo below is not near as lovely as the real thing, but can you believe that these flowers are all made by pounding petals with a hammer?

At Rhythm of the Home, you can read and follow a very clear tutorial about how to do this yourself.

 Pounded Flower Art by Aunt Pat Rybke

Photo by Amy LV

Dale Sondericker, my farmer-teacher inspiration for yesterday's poem, Manure Day, sent me a note last night - 

It will make you happy to know that the first time I heard it (the poem) was when I was in the tractor spreading a load of manure at 5:40 this morning.  My wife went on your blog and read it to me over the phone.

He's right.  That made me happy.

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