What Did You Find?

Hello again, my dear friends. I have been away for a long time, and I am grateful to return. I know that this community of generous writers and sharers has been here all along, making the world kinder and wiser through words, and it feels good to be back. I rejoin today with a poem about finding things and feelings.

Robin Eggs

Photo by Mark VanDerwater

 

Students - As is often the case, when I began to write today's poem, I did not know what I would write about. I waited. (The ideas do come, you know. They sneak up on you.) When I look back, however, I understand that this poem grew from gathered images I have held without realizing. Earlier this spring, my friend Christian told me stories about the robin family living in her garage. Later this spring, I found half of a robin egg at a park. Earlier this week, my husband shared the above photo with me, taken outside of his parents' garage. 

Summer is fantastic for finding, and you can always write a poem about something you find. If you would like to write a poem similar to this one, just write two stanzas: the first stanza describing what you found and the second stanza telling your feelings and emotions around it.

Margaret is hosting today's Poetry Friday roundup over at Reflections on the Teche with an original list poem titled "Eight Reasons to Take a Walk on a Sunday Morning." All are welcome each Friday as folks share poems, poem books, poetry ideas, and friendship. 

I wish you joy!

xo,

Amy

Please share a comment below if you wish. 

If you are under 13 years old, please comment only with a parent 

or as part of a group with your teacher and class.

I Hear the First Robin - Listening for Poems

Happy Spring!

Photo by Amy LV

Students - Spring is reaching Western New York!  And I am filled with joy.  And sometimes...when one is filled with joy, one must write a a poem about it.  Just the other day, we counted four robins sitting on a patch of grass (a patch of grass, not snow) in our yard.  It was fun to just count them, to think of all of the flowers and birds and goodnesses that will be bursting back to life in the next few weeks.

When I sat down to write yesterday, I began by imagining that I was hearing the flapping of robin wings from a far far distance, that I could hear spring coming, flap-by-flap, all the way to New York State.  That idea may find its way into another poem, but somehow, this robin in the verse above just wanted to sing its own poem today.

Listen for the poem that wants to be written.  For what wants to be written might surprise you.  You might not even know that you have a robin - or a lightning bolt - or a seashell - or a baseball - or a bowl of ice cream - living inside of you, waiting to speak.

We call these poems, poems that are in the voice of other beings or objects, persona poems or mask poems.  When you write such a poem, you have the opportunity to try on a new voice, to imagine what it would be like to speak and think and feel as another.  That's just neat, don't you think?

To learn more about the American Robin and to listen to its voice, visit All About Birds, the website of the Cornell Lab of Ornithology.

Happy first day of spring...from me and from the robin too!

In book sharing news, I have a giveaway going through the rest of today for two copies of THE POETRY FRIDAY ANTHOLOGY FOR CELEBRATIONS from pomelo books - one student edition and one teacher/librarian edition.  

Available through QEP Books

This is a big book full of fun and thoughtful poems for all year long, in both English and Spanish.  The poems were selected by Sylvia Vardell and Janet Wong creators of Poetry Friday Anthology series, and I am excited to have written the October 31 poem for Halloween.  If you would like to be entered to win a copy of this book, please leave a comment on the giveaway post at The Poem Farm Facebook page, a place where I share all kinds of poems and poetry news.  I'll announce the winner there tomorrow.

Catherine is hosting today's Poetry Friday party over at Reading to the Core.  All are welcome to stop by her place and join us as we pass the poetry cookie plate.

Please share a comment below if you wish.

Building Nests, Making Metaphors

An Artist
by Amy LV

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

I received a lovely note from Musician and English Professor Gart Westerhout who "has a regular habit of doing what might be called a cold singing of poems, in other words singing the poem before even having read it." Below you can enjoy Gart, who runs a community theater ((osugimusicaltheatre.com) in Japan, singing "Robin." 

Students - Robins won't be back to Holland, NY for a while, but that doesn't keep me from thinking about them.  Around our house, trees are getting browner and browner before the world will (soon) turn white.  We'll all stay hunkered down for a many months, feeding the fire with wood and ourselves with chili and crusty bread.  And then...many months from now...we will once again see that little red chest of a hopping robin, pulling spring up from the south in her beak.

Today's poem is not about something I can see outside right now, but it is about something I can see in my heart's eye.  One of the great gifts of poetry is that through the lines of a poem, we can relive our best moments and resee our favorite people and times.  The robin may not be in our yard...but I can still keep her close.  Can you think of something that is not happening right now, maybe something from a long time ago, something you would like to hold onto?  Close your eyes and try.  You can hold that thought, that place, that person...with a poem.

You may have noticed that today's poem compares a robin to an artist.  Making a comparison in a poem like this is called a metaphor, and if you read and listen carefully, you will find metaphors everywhere.  Life and writing is made more interesting when we can learn to see things as other things, when we can tie different experiences together in magical and unexpected ways.

Did you notice the repeating line in this poem?  It just appears twice, but it's there.  

For any of you wondering about the title of "Robin," this is a case where the title gives a reader a wee bit of information than the poem.  The poem does not actually name the type of bird at all, though careful readers would probably guess from one particular clue.  Which one?

Please share a comment below if you wish.

To find a poem by topic, click here. To find a poem by technique, click here.

Like The Poem Farm on Facebook for more poems, articles, and poemquotes!