The Poem Farm: Revision

Showing posts with label Revision. Show all posts

Tuesday, April 28, 2026

listen - day 28

As I strive to become a better listener and to connect more with my sense of hearing, National Poetry Month 2026 finds me writing daily, handwritten, index card poems inspired by sounds and listening.. I have begun a new notebook to collect the sounds I notice throughout the month, and I will reflect on them in short poems. My ears - and my heart - are open wide.

I invite you to join me in this project, on any of my projects from the past 16 years, or on a project of your very own. To do so, simply write a poem each day of April in any way you wish. Share or don't share, as you wish. Your poems are your poems. Your projects are your projects. And if you wish learn a bit more about writing poetry, I welcome you to the short lessons in the tab above: COAXING POEMS VIDEOS - 2024.

National Poetry Month 2026 Poems

April 27 - drum solo

Here is poem 28 -

Students - Popcorn is one of my favorite foods. When I was a little girl, my dad would often pop a big pot of popcorn on the stovetop. I loved to hear the sizzle and the dings, smell the butter and salt, and crunch those warm and perfect little clouds of goodness. I still make popcorn this way - on the stovetop, in a big pot, with sizzly oil. Yes, I will happily eat microwave popcorn or bags of gas station or grocery store popcorn. I will eat any kind of popcorn. But at least weekly, I pop popcorn on the stovetop, just like my dad. And should I be alone for dinner, this will often BE the dinner. I like making caramel corn, and recently, I found my Grandmother Geraldine's recipe for popcorn balls. These are in my future.

Today's poem was a joy to write. I kept imagining making popcorn and then made some. I also read the lines aloud many times while drafting. I wanted the poem to feel playful and a little bit rushed and exciting (I can never wait to eat popcorn), and so enjoyed repeating words with different line breaks too. I am hoping that the movement of the two repeating word lines feels like the movement of kernels heating up and popping across the hot oil.

Some foods make no sounds. Some foods make lots of sound. What noisy foods do you like to eat? And remember, writing can be a joy, can be fun. Read your words aloud and switch things around until the words feel just right to you. This type of work is what I call "fun work."

This week, I am again in residence Seely Elementary School in the Edgemont School District in Scarsdale, NY for four days full of assemblies and writing with all of the K-4 students. I cannot wait to see these writers and read to read their poetry again.

To learn about many of the wonderful National Poetry Month projects happening online this April, visit the generous Jama Rattigan at Jama's Alphabet Soup.

May you learn to make your own favorite snacks and share them with those you care about.

xo,

Please share a comment below if you wish.

Know that your comment will only appear after I approve it.

If you are under 13 years old, please only comment

with a parent or as part of a group with your teacher.

Friday, September 12, 2025

Make Friends With Your Notebook

A Clearing

Photo by Amy LV

Students - Last night I woke up a few times with a writing idea I had planned to work on this morning. I began that work, but somehow felt it was not the right poem for this day. So I flipped through my notebook and found this draft from April.

April Notebook Draft

Photo by Amy LV

It felt more important to write about magic today, so I decided to type up the above draft to see what would happen. I played around a lot with the sound and read aloud as I worked. And I am happy I did so!

My tip for today is to make friends with your notebook. Just stuff stuff in there: ideas, wonderings, unusual thoughts, bits and snips of poems, cards, photos, sketches, leaves, ticket stubs, stickers, recipes...anything! See, it is not easy for a writer to do all of the things in one day: think of an idea, draft it, play with the sound and structure, and edit. That's a lot to do! So a notebook can be a trusty friend who holds onto your ideas until you may (or may not) wish to turn then into drafts. I used to keep a whole blog about notebook keeping - Sharing Our Notebooks - and I am considering getting back to this as a central practice in my teaching. Our writing in notebooks helps us know what interests and charms us.

You may have noticed that today's poem does not carry a lot of rhyme. Rather, I focused on the sound, playing with short lines, each one almost contained and holding a bit of rhythm. Reading aloud as I write is one of my most important revision tools. If you don't do this now, I recommend giving it a try. Write a bit...read it aloud...revise what sounds off...keep going.

So consider it - write in a notebook just to see what you get. Revisit the writings in a few weeks to see if one of the bits may wish to grow into a story or a poem or an essay or a letter or something else. Our brains and hearts do a lot of work that we don't even know about, and a notebook can help us hang onto that thinking and love.

This week, Rose is hosting the Poetry Friday roundup over at Imagine the Possibilities with a bit about her "Snippets" log and a poem about imaginings. Each Friday, all are invited to share poems, poem books, poetry ideas, and friendship in this open and welcoming poetry community.

I send you magic and belief in magic...

xo,

Amy

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Know that your comment will only appear after I approve it.

If you are under 13 years old, please only comment

with a parent or as part of a group with your teacher.

Sunday, April 2, 2023

24 HOURS Day #2 - This One Barn

Welcome to Day 2 of 24 HOURS. For my 2023 National Poetry Month Project, I will share a new daily poem about 1 hour in 1 day in the life of an old barn. I will write 24 hourly poems, 1 for each hour of a spring day, beginning with midnight and ending right before the following midnight. Because April has 30 days, I will write and tuck 6 additional poems into the month, likely 2 at the beginning, 2 in the middle somewhere, and 2 at the end.

I invite anyone who wishes to join me in this challenge too. To do so, simply:

1. Choose a place or a person, an animal or an object you could imagine writing 30 poems about, someone or something you could imagine following and writing about through an imaginary day.

2. If you wish, download the hourly log and note page below to keep track of poem ideas as you have them through the month. You may do this project on your own, with a friend or two, or with your whole class, each person selecting different hours.

HOURLY LOG FOR 24 HOURS

NOTE PAGE FOR 24 HOURS

(Teachers - Please print or make a copy so students can access these.)

3. Write a new poem each day of April 2023. You might write in order of the hours (I probably will), or you might choose to write your hourly poems in a mixed-up order and place them in order at month's
end. If you miss a day, do not worry. Just come on back to your project when you can. Even if you write only a handful of poems around your subject, it will be worth it. And know that I will share some poem writing ideas along the way.

4. Teachers and writers, if you wish to share any 24 HOURS subjects or poems, please do so on social media with the hashtag #24Hours. Teachers, if you have permission from parents and only first names on student poems, I will share those topics and poems here in a Google Slides presentation.

24 HOURS POEMS:

April 1 - Old Barns

And now for Day 2!

Students - As I mentioned, the first two poems of my 24 HOURS project will introduce what is to come in the following days. Yesterday's poem spoke of old barns in general, and today we zoom into our main character of the month - this one barn. My April poems will highlight our family's old barn which you can see below. I took this picture just steps from where I wrote the poem outside this afternoon. (It is a warm day today and so lovely to write outside!)

Old Barn on April 2, 2023

Photo by Amy LV

If you are joining me on this journey and also choosing to introduce your subject to your readers, consider writing a poem of invitation as I have done here. By using the words we and us, I take the reader's hand, inviting them to come along for the observations, to come along for the poems.

Sometimes you will find that it is important to change one word of a poem. I did this today. After typing and recording, I realized that one word would be better than another. The first two lines originally read, Let us do that/Let us stare at/one barn/for one day. As I thought about this, staring at a barn for a whole day seemed a bit much. It made sense in yesterday's poem, in that abstract way. But now, with one particular barn, 24 hours of staring seemed a little wacky. Now, the line reads, Let us do that/Let us study/one barn/for one day. I like this better. Remember: revision is our friend. Even though I had to retype and rerecord, I am glad I did because my poem is stronger.

Tomorrow I begin at midnight. You might choose to begin at a different time. We each are the boss of our own projects!

To learn about more National Poetry Month projects and all kinds of April goodness, visit Jama Rattigan at Jama's Alphabet Soup where Jama has generously gathered this coming month's happenings. Happy continued National Poetry Month!

xo,

Amy

Please share a comment below if you wish.

Know that your comment will only appear after I approve it.

If you are under 13 years old, please only comment

with a parent or as part of a group with your teacher.

Sunday, April 3, 2016

Wallow in Wonder Day #3 - The Storm Chaser

Welcome to Day 3 of Wallow in Wonder! For my 2016 National Poetry Month project, I will celebrate learning and writing from learning, writing poems from each daily Wonder at Wonderopolis. As I did with my Dictionary Hike in 2012, I am looking to surprise myself with new inspiration daily. This year, such inspiration will show up in my inbox each morning. I will print it and carry each Wonderopolis Wonder around all day...and in the afternoon or evening, I will write and post the poem for the next day.

I invite anyone who wishes to take this challenge too. Just read today's wonder over at Wonderopolis, and write a poem inspired by it for tomorrow. Share it tomorrow at your own site, and if you wish to link in my comments for others to find (or share your poem there), please feel free to do so tomorrow, the day after the Wonder is published at Wonderopolis.

My April Poems Thus Far

April 1 - So Suddenly - a poem inspired by Wonder #1659

April 2 - Thankful Journal - a poem inspired by Wonder #1660

And now for Day 3!

Wonder #779 - from April 3, 2016

Off to Chase a Storm

by Amy LV

Students - I have been so excited about the Wonders at Wonderopolis so far this month. When I read yesterday's wonder, "Why do some people chase storms?" my imagination got rolling. Today's poem is a story poem, a story of one storm chaser heading out for adventure, heading out to learn.

I think that mostly I just followed this poem, listened to the poem that wanted to be written. I began it late last night, knowing that I would not finish and hoping that my brain would continue to crunch away overnight. The first few lines presented themselves --

When the storm chaser catches

a hint of a whiff

of some possibly dangerous weather

And then I just kept following the story. You can see how messy some of that following looks below. You can also see the lists of rhyming words I made on the right hand side, to help me find rhymes that made sense.

Some of The Storm Chaser Draft

Photo by Amy LV

One thing some people might not realize is that writing a poem can be a very active experience: scribbling out, listing, consulting rhyming dictionaries, reading the poem aloud again and again to help the next line write itself, tapping on the desk. Active.

In today's poem, I do not say whether the storm chaser is a male or a female. The reason for this is that the storm chaser could be either one, and I wish for the reader to decide...not me.

Sometimes when I write a poem, I have a favorite part. In this poem, my favorite part is when the storm chaser kisses the dog and the cat. In fact, I liked this part so very much that I chose to end the poem with those furry friends too. Somehow, to me, this makes the storm chaser feel like a real person with pets to love.

You can read another storm poem if you visit Wonder Lead Ambassador, literacy advocate, teacher, and writer Paul Hankins at his Wonder Ground blog where he, too, is writing daily poems from Wonderopolis wonders. He and I are in this together daily and some other writers are joining in on the fun sometimes too. All are welcome to wonder through poems...

Happy Day 3 of National Poetry Month 2016!

Please share a comment below if you wish.

Friday, February 5, 2016

Listening to Voices, Laughing at Ourselves, Learning

Grey Street in East Aurora, NY
February 4, 2016
Film by Amy LV

Students - Last evening, as I drove my daughter to a friend's house, we hit several traffic lights. At one of them, this line flashed through my mind -

Someone is coming.

The streetlights

they whisper....

I liked the rhythm of this, and so I set to work, actually writing the draft of today's poem right in my van, sitting underneath a streetlight in a grocery store parking lot.

Draft

Photo by Amy LV

The original draft, as you can see, continues describing the "streetlights," and I was happy with it. Until.

Until I looked up "streetlights" to see if it is one word or two. This is when I realized something that I already knew but somehow overlooked as I wrote. This poem is not about streetlights at all. This poem is about traffic lights! Streetlights are the lights on the side of the road, the ones that hang a bit over the road, giving white light to pedestrians and drivers. Traffic lights are the ones that change colors, telling drivers when to go, be careful, and stop.

Several weeks ago, I wrote about how reading and learning new things can make a writer realize that she or he needs to abandon an idea. Well, today, I must share that sometimes a writer makes a silly mistake and needs to go back and fix it! This is just what I did last night. See the cross outs? Please, never be afraid to look at something that does not work and change it; that's what we writers do.

Did you notice how the line breaks in today's poem move across the page? I did that because I wanted the reader to feel, just a wee bit, like a rider in a bus or car.

And do traffic lights really whisper? No. That's just a bit of personification. I do like to pretend that the lights whisper to each other,though, telling secrets about us humans coming by in our buses and cars.

So, remember! Make changes when you need to . And listen. Sometimes a line of poetry will just sneak up and tap you on the shoulder, maybe even at a strange time such as when you are sitting in traffic.

Tricia is hosting this week's poetry party with Pablo Picasso's cat over at The Miss Rumphius Effect. Visit her wise blog to find out who is sharing which poetry gifts and links, all around the Kidlitosphere, all week long.

Please share a comment below if you wish.

Friday, December 11, 2015

Free Verse & Cutting Unnecessary Words

Scene from a Bookshelf

Photo by Amy LV

Students - Like last week, this week I find myself writing from an object, this time with a bit more imagination. Lying by our heater, warming my feet, I looked up and saw the below painting that our daughter Hope did in school when she was in eighth grade. She had brought objects from home and painted: a vase that her Aunt Heather made, a poofy orange bandana, a ball, a box, and the orange wooden horse that my Great Aunt Kay gave to my mom many years ago when I was just a little girl. You can see mousie tracks too, from where a mouse lent a paw to the painting as it dried in school overnight.

Looking at the painting, I fell in love with the painting again, and too, with the orange horse. I took it down from its shelf and held it in my hands, remembering how I would take it down from Mom's china cabinet where it lived with fancy porcelain eggs and crystal bowls and delicate figurines.

I thought about how the horse had belonged to Great Aunt Kay, to Mom, to me, and how our chidlren love it and maybe how someday their own children will too. I imagined what the horse thought about watching generations of humans growing up around him.

And I wrote. I began to write in rhyme, but then I decided to instead push myself to write in free verse, to just capture this brief snapshot of the horse. A simple snapshot was my goal.

My first drafts had more words. Take a look at this below draft, and find the words that do not appear in my final poem. You will notice that the final line breaks are different too.

Poemdraft

Photo by Amy LV

Revision can mean cutting words Streamling. Here are the words you see in the handwritten draft above that do not appear in my final poem.

"The" has disappeared from my final lin line 1. I have learned from Lee Bennett Hopkins to cut any "the" I can.

"Only" has disappeared from my final. I realized that "six" implied young, and "only" was not necessary.

"Outside" does not appear in my final. "Real grass" is always outside, and so "outside" was a filler word.

Try rereading your own writing for extra words. Feel comfy with cutting. It may feel difficult to you at first, but the elegance of your writing will shine best with fewer, not more words.

And look around your house for old objects with stories. I find so many ideas this way!

At my other blog, Sharing Our Notebooks, I welcome educator and author Tanny McGregor. Her notebooks just blew me away, and I welcome you to come take a peek. You can also discover who won this month's giveaway of the great Peter Catalanotto's books.

Tara is hosting this week's Poetry Friday roundup over at A Teaching Life. All are invited to come, read poems, find new friends, and hang out in our weekly poetry clubhouse.

Please leave a comment if you wish.

Monday, April 6, 2015

Day 6 - National Poetry Month 2015 - Sing That Poem!

Happy National Poetry Month!

Welcome to Day 6 of this Year's Poem Farm Project!

Find the Complete April 2015 Poem and Song List Here

First, I would like to welcome all old and new friends to The Poem Farm this April. Spring is a busy time on all farms, and this one is no exception. Each April, many poets and bloggers take on special poetry projects, and I'm doing so too. You can learn all about Sing That Poem! and how to play on my April 1st post, where you will also find the list of the whole month's poems and tunes as I write and share them. If you'd like to print out a matching game page for yourself, you can find one here, and during April 2015, you'll be able to see the song list right over there in the left hand sidebar.

Yesterday's poem was Winterspring. Here is the tune that goes along with it, below. Did you figure it out?

And here, below, is today's poem. Look at the song list in the sidebar or on your matching form to see if you can puzzle out which tune matches this one.

Wyoming

Photo by Amy LV

Students - Today is April 6th, and this means that we have waltzed our way through one fifth of the poemsongs for this month. I thought it would be a good idea to offer a tip for figuring out the tunes. This hint comes from how I write them.

Songs often have patterns, and these patterns are built from syllable counts per line and repeated words and repeated rhymes and other sounds. To write these poemsongs, each day I begin with a song in mind. I choose a tune from the matching form or the list in the sidebar there to the left and then count out the number of syllables per line all the way through the song.

You can see an example of this below. Look at the right hand side of my notebook, and you will see the syllables I've counted out for today's poem. (The title is underneath that napkin in the upper left hand corner. No peeking!)

Notebook Draft - Click to Enlarge

Amy LV

Sometimes I sing the original song with syllable counts instead of the words. The first stanza of this song would sound like this:

1-2-3.
1-2-3-4.
1-2-3-4.
1-2-3-4.
1-2-3.
1-2-3-4.
1-2-3.
1-2-3.

Originally, I wrote today's verse out with these line breaks, to match what you see above in the handwritten draft. See how the syllables in each line match what you see in my notebook and in the numbers I just wrote.

Sometimes, though, line breaks can be heard differently. I looked up today's song, and I found that the lines actually break in a different way than I originally heard them, in the way you see below. There are the same number of syllables as you see in my handwritten and longer version above, but this version has fewer, longer lines. Check out the comparison. Same numbers but different line breaks.

SYLLABLES I DECIDED UPON (Final Poem - Up Top)

1-2-3-4-5-6-7.

1-2-3-4-5-6-7-8.

1-2-3-4-5-6-7.

1-2-3-4-5-6.

MY FIRST DRAFT SYLLABLES (Longer Version - Just Above)

1-2-3.

1-2-3-4.

1-2-3.

1-2-3-4.

1-2-3.

As poem writers, we always decide not only how we want our poems to sound, but also how we want our poems to look. In this poemsong, I prefer the longer, fewer lines. But often I try the same words a few different ways to see what feels, what looks best.

Can you sing the song yet? If not, go to the matching form or sidebar song list and count out the syllables in the first few lines of each song. What matches what I counted above? I try to stay quite true to the numbers so that these songs are easily singable. It is a bit like a math puzzle, isn't it?

Oh, and that cute kitty? That's Wyoming. We found her at a county fair this summer, lost and crying in a thicket and covered in fleas. We brought her home all snuggled in my green fleece and within a few weeks, we found her a wonderful home with a lady whose beloved "Sammy" cat had just died. It was a beautiful pairing.

Many of my poems are about cats, and sometimes I write about longing for pets. We do love animals around here.... Meow!

Please share a comment below if you wish.

Friday, September 12, 2014

Free Verse and a Visit from Irene Latham

Wet Leaves

Photo by Amy LV

Students - Today's poem is a quiet poem, and it is about the picture you see above, a picture I took just yesterday. On my way into a school yesterday morning, after an 80 minute drive in the rainy dark, I emerged from my car to see these magical leaves, made even more magical by rain and morning sun.

While part of me wished to hurry into school, another part of me said, "Stop, Amy. Take a picture of this. You will want to remember this pretty scene, here where you least expected to find one." I could have taken a picture with my mind. I could have stopped to draw the scene. Instead, yesterday, I took a photograph. And here it is. In photo captured then and later, captured with the photo of words.

This is a quiet poem because this small still life gave me a quiet feeling inside. So rather than focusing on rhyme-playfuness today, my poem focuses on focus - on looking carefully at one beautiful, surprise life-painting just left there in my busy path. If you have visited The Poem Farm before, you may know that I sometimes push myself to write free verse, unrhymed, poems. This moves me out of my comfortable home in rhyme and bouncy meter.

When you look around at the world, not at a screen and not at the busythoughts inside of your head, you will see beauty in many surprising places. Each time I do, I feel tremendously lucky.

Speaking of lucky...

Today we are all lucky to welcome poet and novelist Irene Latham. I invited Irene to share about revision and her newest book, DEAR WANDERING WILDEBEEST, a cool, informative, and beautifully written collection of poems about animals from the African grasslands.

Available through

your Independent Bookseller

or through Amazon

Thank you, Amy, for inviting me to talk about revision! The Poem Farm is one of my favorite places to visit... so warm and inspiring!

Rarely have I written a poem that didn't go through extensive revisions. Simply changing one word in a poem constitutes a new draft... and often it is that one word that I can't imagine until it wakes me up in the middle of the night! I love watching a poem become more clearly what it was meant to be all along. One of the best ways to be able to “see” this is to allow a poem to rest between drafts. Just like bread, a poem needs a chance to breathe after it's been kneaded. Then you can come back to it and bake it to a nice golden-brown in your mind's oven.

I'm not sure a poem is ever really done, but at some point, we must stop and move on. I was revising the poems in DEAR WANDERING WILDEBEEST right up until we went to press. A litmus test that I use for myself when putting together a collection is this: if this poem is the only poem a reader ever reads out of this book, will I be satisfied with that? It took me a long time to find the “yes” to that question regarding the snake poem. It's kind of a tricky poem, as it includes all five snake species native to the African continent. That's asking a lot of a poem! Anyhow, here's the poem that appeared in the version of the book when it was first acquired by Millbrook Press:

Lifestyles of the Sleek and Sinuous

My name is Black Mamba.

Wanna chasssssssssssse?

Boomslang, that's me.

Welcome to my treehouse.

They call me Cape Cobra.

Seen any weaver birds lately?

Saw-scaled Viper's my name.

When I sizzle, you shake.

I go by Puff Adder.

Step on me, if you dare.

-------------------------

See how I tried to include in each couplet a quality unique to that particular kind of snake? That was a good approach, and I wanted to keep it. BUT. I wanted to employ more poetic techniques to really make this poem shine, so I kept at it.

Lifestyles of the Sleek and Sinuous

Black Mamba

races

chases.

Boomslang

Cape Cobra

herds

weaver birds.

Saw-scaled Viper

rubs, shrugs

sizzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzles.

Puff Adder

hisses –

rarely misses.

----------------------------------

See how I kept some of the things that were working in the earlier version, but pared the poem AND amped up all the remaining word choices? I made sure there was rhyme in every couplet while still giving information unique to each snake. And now, yes, if this is the only poem you read out of DEAR WANDERING WILDEBEEST, I am satisfied that you've gotten a taste of what the rest of the book holds. No weakling poems allowed! The goal in a collection is to make each and every poem shiny enough to be the title poem. It's something to strive for, anyway. :)

Click to Enlarge this Spread from DEAR WANDERING WILDEBEEST

If you're reading this, and writing your own poems, be patient with yourself. Remember that we have millions of words to choose from, so endless variations are possible. Keep tinkering – that's where the joy is! And also, rest. You'll know when it's time to stop.

Thank you, Amy, for having me – and for all the ways you share the love of poetry with the world! xo

I am very grateful to Irene for joining us today here at The Poem Farm and also at Sharing Our Notebooks. To peek into Irene's notebooks, head over there, peek away, and comment to be entered to win your own copy of DEAR WANDERING WILDEBEEST.

Renee is hosting today's Poetry Friday party over at No Water River. All are welcome to join in, visit, share, and love poetry in her joyous space today.

Please share a comment below if you wish.

Wednesday, April 30, 2014

Thrift Store Goodbye - Poem #30 for April 2014 Poetry Project

This is not a new post for Poetry Friday, but it is an invitation to visit any of the April 2014 poetry project THRIFT STORE poems you missed. I will be taking them down soon, but for now...they are all in the sidebar.

For this week's Poetry Friday roundup, visit Katya at Write. Sketch. Repeat.

Happy Poetry Friday! xo, a.

LIVE!

Learn about this, my April 2014 Poetry Project, HERE!

Thrift Store Checkout

Photo by Amy LV

Students - I was not sure how to end today's series. I still have photographs that need poems, and I've had such fun visiting many thrift stores with poetry in mind. I feel the way my mother describes finishing a book, "It's like losing a friend." But April 2014, National Poetry Month, is drawing to a close today. And so the series ends.

Whenever I do not know how to end a piece of writing, I go back to the beginning. So today's final poem brought me back to April 1, Thrift Store where I found the line, "I push the heavy thrift store door." I began today's writing with just that line, and I followed it to the verse you find above. You may also notice another snip of repetition from that April 1 poem. Can you find it?

Thrift Store Goodbye - Draft Page Spread #1

Photo by Amy LV

In the draft above, you can see how many attempts I made at that one line. I may go back and work on it even more, but I did want to point out to you how often writers find ourselves writing many many lines just to find the right few words.

While I sigh for this goodbye, I am smiling too! For I am tickled to truly end this poetry project with a poem by my new friend and mentor, Olga McLaren. Earlier this month, I was fortunate enough to work with students at St. John's School in Houston, Texas as a visiting poet sponsored by the Olga McLaren Poetry Endowment. When Olga retired from teaching at St. John's school, she left the school with a special gift: a visit from a poet each year. She and her husband Theron hosted a delicious dinner, and I got to see their magical gardens too. It was a complete honor and pleasure to be this year's visiting poet, and to meet Olga, someone I truly admire.

Olga is a big thrift store shopper too, and you can read how both of us hear the objects speaking to us when we walk thrift store aisles and hold different objects. I love the phrase "eye-shop" and the way Olga describes these items as "new friends." I was sad to leave my new friend in Olga, and I'm a bit sad about ending this series too. It has been a joy and a reminder of how much beauty and use we can find in the things that others leave behind. Thank you, Olga, for bringing me to St. John's, and thank you for your poem.

Thrift Shops

by Olga McLaren

The winners of last Saturday's book giveaway are:

FOREST HAS A SONG - Carol

THE POETRY FRIDAY ANTHOLOGY FOR SCIENCE - Cathy

Please send me your snail mail addresses to my e-mail address at amy at amylv dot com, and those books will be on their way to you next week.

Thank you to everyone who has joined me for a bit of this month's thrift store journey. I did not know what it would be when I began, and I certainly learned a lot along the way. From videotaping my own writing to playing with LiveWriter to sharing daily drafts and process, this was a very instructive month for me, and I look forward to looking back and thinking about what I have learned and what to do next with these poems.

I will not be posting this Friday, May 2. Please feel free to browse through and read the thrift store poems you may have missed. I will leave them in the sidebar for a few days after the month ends!

Now, just spend a bit of time in the gardens of Olga and her husband Theron. Amazing!

Fence in the Gardens of Olga and Theron McLaren

Photo by Amy LV

Birdhouses in the Gardens of Olga and Theron McLaren

Photo by Amy LV

Birds in the Gardens of Olga and Theron McLaren

Photo by Amy LV

Little Free Library - Built for Olga by Theron

Photo by Amy LV

Please share a comment below if you wish.

Monday, April 28, 2014

Fur Coat - Poem #28 for April 2014 Poetry Project

LIVE!

Learn about this, my April 2014 Poetry Project, HERE!

Fur Coat

Photo by Amy LV

Students - This was not the first photo I planned to write about today. I was going to write about a cool silver tea set. But when writing time came (and today writing time was thinking time while driving), I chose this fur coat instead. Why? I do not know why, but I do know that I tend to follow my gut instinct when it speaks about writing topics.

I tend to write many of my poems with eight syllables per line or four syllables per line, and today I wanted to try something different. Once again, I advise you to look at the poems you have been writing and mix it up a little here at the end of poetry month.

If you always write rhyming poems, try some free verse. If you always write free verse, try some rhyme. If your lines are generally short, write some long ones. If your lines are always long, go short. Experiment! Try copying the rhyme scheme and meter of a poem exactly. All of this is good exercise.

Today's poem has a lot of my history in it. Willa Cather has been quoted as saying, "“Most of the basic material a writer works with is acquired before the age of fifteen," and I think this is true. Again and again I find bits and scraps of childhood memories woven into my words.

Aunt Kay did have a big brown fur coat. She did smell like roses. She did have a big car and a big laugh. She did tell me stories. But I do not think I ever hid in her coat. Or maybe I did?

Fur Coat - Draft Page Spread #1

Photo by Amy LV

Most of this verse was written orally, just me talking out loud to myself, trying to remember the lines of the poem as I drove home late in my car. When I walked in the house, I ran to the couch with my notebook to remember whatever I could.

Did you notice that for the last few days I have not been writing in the red notebook with the cream pages? I filled it up this month!

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