Doll School - Writing About Play

Doll School

by Amy LV

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

Students - The idea for this poem came first from a conversation with a work friend.  She told me about her daughter Melanie who plays school with her dolls.  Hearing about this, I was immediately transported back to my childhood home in Vestal, NY, remembering how I played school for so many years with neighbors, animals, stuffed animals, dolls, everyone. I always wanted to be a teacher, and now I am lucky to be a writing teacher.  Our play helps determine who we will become when we grow up.

If you look at the rhyme scheme in this poem, you will notice that except for the italicized teacher voice stanza, each odd line rhymes with its next even line.  The line breaks, however, do not line up perfectly with the rhyme.  It just seemed better to me this way, seemed like it made more sense.  If you listen to the recording, you will see what I mean. The way I read the poem is the way that makes sense to my ear, something very important for poets and all writers to consider.

What do you like to play?  What did you once play?  Our play lives are important in so many ways, one of which is that they are storehouses of joyful writing ideas!  I so wish that I could sit down with Melanie and some cocoa today, just to talk about this.

Robyn is hosting today's Poetry Friday roundup over at Life on the Deckle Edge. Visit her place to take a tour of all of the poetry goodness in the Kidlitosphere today!  And if you are doing some literary holiday shopping, don't miss Robyn's etsy shop, artsyletters!

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Dollhouse - Play is Real

A Peek Into Our Dollhouse

Photo by Amy LV

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

Students - Did you ever have a day when you sat down to write and had no idea what to write?  I sure have.  Sometimes it feels so scary, as if there are no ideas left in the world...or as if all of the good ones have been used by someone else.  But you know what?  This is never true.  Poet Maya Angelou said, "You can't use up creativity. The more you use, the more you have."   And this is completely true.  Creativity is like love.

So, even when that "I don't know what to write" feeling sets in, I write.  Today I looked around and just picked something I saw - the little girls in bed in our dollhouse.  This dollhouse is so big that it cannot fit through most doorways in our home, so it will forever live in the living room, even when our children are all grown up.  If you were to visit us, you could play with it!

Can you see that this whole poem is written in quatrains?  Almost.  One part is not.  Why do you think I made that decision?

I am tickled that Nicole Gulotta has chosen my poem "Apple Pockets" for her guest post over at Jama's Alphabet Soup.  She has paired the poem with a delicious-looking recipe for apple muffins which I plan to make this weekend...yum!

This week's Poetry Friday roundup is over at Tabatha's place, The Opposite of Indifference. Along with a lovely poem and this week's poem menu, Tabatha is planting seeds for Poetry Month, such a welcome winter idea!

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MyPoWriYe #180 - Tea Party Time

Tea Party

Photo by Amy LV

There is something magical about stuffed animals and dolls, a realness that only children and some grown-ups can see. When I was in the upper elementary grades, my best friend Keisha would sleep over, and we'd snuggle all of my stuffed animals into the bottom of our zipped-together sleeping bags. We'd build small houses for them out of shoe boxes, and we'd take care of them with pretend toys and food.  When I was alone, I would play with my Ginny dolls for hours, admiring their tiny silver tea set and laying out their shiny perfume bottles on the small dresser.  Ginny even had an ice skating outfit, red with white fur trim.

Students - our pretending lives are as real as our real lives in so many ways.  What do you most love to pretend?  Thinking about the world of your imagination opens many doors to writing possibilities.  You might wish to make a list of all of your favorite pretend games, and see which one sparks a poem or a story.

This adorable picture book includes letter writing, a bear, and a surprising tea party.

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