Bottles - Writing from Words People Say

Memory Bottles

by Amy LV

Students - There are many reasons to keep a notebook, and one of them is to find out what will surface in your mind when you are free to roam the pages like a dog in a huge field.  No limits, no assignments, just you and the page.  What will happen?  What idea, thought, memory, or opinion will rise to the top of your writing heart?

Yesterday, I was doing just this, roaming the blank pages like a joyful beagle, and I found myself writing words that my mother used to and still does say -

Notebook Blip

by Amy LV

Why did I write this?  Who knows!  But there it was...and off I went.  Lately, I've been struck by the number of red-winged blackbirds out on these country roads, and so that beautiful animal made its way into today's poem as well.

For me, poems are a way to celebrate the people and things I love.  And often, sitting to write, I do not know what I will write about at all.  This happens to all writers, I think, and it is always fun to be surprised by our own selves.

What are some words that people have said to you in your life, words that come back to revisit you when you are alone?  Any one of these phrases might be a great place to begin a poem or story or piece of your own.

Sometimes people ask about where to break stanzas.  With this poem, I thought about breaking it into quatrains, as the rhymes fall.  But then I thought again and decided to break it into two parts: the first part about the bottles and today's collecting and the second part reflecting on the importance of these bottles.  There is no right way to break stanzas, but it is important to understand and be able to talk about the decisions we make.

Teachers and Adult Readers - Something I found inspiring yesterday is  Dani Shapiro's most recent blog post which you can find here.  It is always good to find others who find themselves by first allowing themselves to get lost.  A relief, indeed, not to be alone.

Mary Lee, who so wisely and graciously rounds all of us up all year long here on Poetry Fridays, is hosting today's roundup with a fun sounding book (baa!) over at A Year of Reading.  Gallop on over to her place to learn about the poetry happenings all 'round the Kidlitosphere this week.

Please share a comment below if you wish.

MyPoWriYe #55 - Bonfire (two versions)

Yesterday, I again had the opportunity to work with fifth and sixth graders at Caledonia-Mumford Central Schools.  Together with teachers Katrina Hatch, Courtney Monahan, Kyle Leonard, and Deborah Bussewitz, we are studying and writing poetry about the local area as a part of a larger project, Buy Local Build a Future where each project hosts its own blog.  Soon, poems by these students will be bound into books and read along with music from Kyle's student ukulele players.  

As part of our book-making project, students will colorize photographs of the area and are also welcome to draw or paint scenes from their hometown to go along with the poems.  We will share copies of these anthologies with the school libraries, public library, local museums, and maybe even a town diner.  Spending this morning in the Big Springs Museum, I found part of myself wishing to be from Caledonia-Mumford too!

Somehow today, these students and I began talking about building bonfires.  At our home, Henry is in charge of this cookout-chore, and when I said so, one fifth grade boy said, "Sometimes I get to light the match."  I could not stop thinking about his words today, for with great responsibility comes new learning.  I believe that such rites of passage may be more valuable than we know.

Here is a second version of the same poem.  The first is the original, but this morning I got to playing with line breaks to see how it might work as a concrete poem.  I'd be interested in hearing which one you like better.  Sometimes concrete poems feel forced to me, and I'm not sure yet which of these I prefer.

This week, Tricia at The Miss Rumphius Effect offers us the challenge of math poems.  My poem is in the comments...about four leaf clovers.  Feel free to post your own math poem over on this week's "Monday Poetry Stretch".

Thank you, Garrison Keillor at The Writer's Almanac, for informing us that today is the birthday of poets Ralph Waldo Emerson and Theodore Roethke.  Let their spirits guide us all...

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