Writing, Brains, and Notebooks

Writing is Exploring is Writing

by Amy LV

Students - Today's poem is really a how-to poem, but not a clear cut how-to such as "How to Make a Peanut Butter and Jelly Sandwich."  Rather, it is a poem about how to do something that is in a way concrete, and in a way, mysterious - writing.

You will notice that I compare writing to walking a dog.  That's because when I walk my dog, I never know where she will want to go.  We have discoveries and adventures.  Such a sense of discovery and adventure is writing at its best too.

When I started writing this poem, I had no idea where it would go.  Rather, I just followed my pen and mind and there appeared the tracks.

Trust yourself.  If you don't know what you wish to exactly write, just get started, and see where you go.   Allow your pen to find its way into the brambles of metaphor and the secret paths of simile. You may well find a hidden room.

Today I am tickled to welcome English Language Arts director, Mary Wheeler, from St. John School in Houston, Texas with this zany Poetry Peek!  Enjoy!

Thank you, Mary, for e-mailing me these joyous pictures to share here today.  If anyone tries this way to display poetry, or if you have another way that you like to share students' poems, please let me know as I would love to feature it.

Now that our brains are feeling colorful, I would like to extend an invitation to all. In the past week, my other blog, Sharing Our Notebooks, has lit up like a bonfire. It started when Kimberley Moran of iWrite in Maine wrote and asked me about hosting some ideas for student notebooking over the summer.  She wrote the first one, and now we already have 27 entries!  All are welcome to contribute, and you can see the list of how to post here and the list of entries already up here.

Here's how easy it is to share.  Just think of one way you get inspired to write in your notebook (or on your napkin or on your computer or on your arm...) and then write up a paragraph sharing that idea/exercise. Then, snap a photo of a page (or napkin or screen or arm...) and e-mail or Google Doc it to me with a brief bio. Then, I put it up with all the others, and we all have a wondrous list of writing exercises to inspire not only our students...but us too.

All are welcome - students, teachers, writers, artists, mechanics, chefs, jotters, scribblers of all types.  The more variety, the merrier.  I welcome you to share and hope that you will.

Here's an easy Tweet if you just want to copy and use it -

@amylvpoemfarm is collecting #notebook ideas! Share your short paragraph, photo, bio here to join the fun - http://bit.ly/1LbP1K1 #writing

Matt Forrest is hosting today's Poetry Friday party at Radio, Rhythm, and Rhyme...with wonderful news.  Please stop by, enjoy all of the poetry offerings, and congratulate Matt on his book contract!

Please share a comment below if you wish.

Hearts - A Little List Poem of Love

Sock Heart

Photo by Amy LV

This poem 

is trying

to be

in a book.

xo, Amy

Students - Happy almost Valentine's Day! We call our little home Heart Rock Farm because we love finding rocks shaped like hearts in our creek.  Many people like to find hearts in the world: in petals, in clouds, in patterns on our pets' fur.  We can find hearts and we can make them ourselves.  Tomorrow is Valentine's Day. Don't you think it would be fun to leave little secret hearts around your home for the ones you love?  (Warning: the sock heart is tricky.  It took me a while!)

Today's poem is a list poem.  Each line is simply one more way to bring hearts into our lives.  Then, as with most list poems, you hear that change, that twist, that surprise at the end.  If I had simply ended the poem with another way to make a heart, the reader might not realize that the poem was finished. However, by breaking the pattern at the end of the poem, I make this clear.

Here are two more Valentine poems from The Poem Farm archives: "February 14" from 2011 and "February 13" from 2012.

In honor of Valentine's Day and love, today I would like to offer a recommendation and a giveaway of LEND A HAND: POEMS ABOUT GIVING written by John Frank and illustrated by London Ladd.  This is a book that reminds me of the many ways people are kind, and of the many ways I can be kind too.  You can read the Kirkus review of this wonderful book here.  I will draw one name from the commenters on today's post next Thursday, February 19 to be announced next Poetry Friday.  This person will win a copy of LEND A HAND.

IndieBound

Teachers and Other Adults - If you enjoy poetry and poetry books and poetry quotes and news, please know that I keep a Poem Farm Facebook Page as well. Over there, I share news about books and awards and poetry goodness that comes my way during the week.

This month over at my other online home, Sharing Our Notebooks, I could not more pleased to host Olga McLaren and her Grandmother Journals.  Please visit and comment on Olga's post to be entered into a book giveaway.

Cathy is hosting today's sweet Poetry Friday party over at Merely Day By Day. Pack up your heart, and head on over to join the roundup.

I wish you many surprise hearts today, tomorrow, all week long!

Please share a comment below if you wish.

Tonight - A Love Poem to Summer Camp

Bedtime at Camp

by Amy LV

 

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

For the past five years, our family has spent two weeks each summer at Sprucelands horse camp.  Our children are campers, we are hill parents, and Mark and I could not be more grateful for all that director and owner Eileen Thompson has taught us about horses and life.  Summer camp is a magical world, a place where people come together after months or years, and it feels like no time has passed.  At camp, people who might not find each other in "real life" do find each other.  We run into friends' arms and hug, knowing which songs we'll soon sing together, and wondering about which favorite meals, games, and skits we'll take on this year.

Today's poem is a love poem to Sprucelands, and to some of what our family will always carry in our hearts from this second home.  The camp is for sale, and while we all cross our fingers that someone who wants to keep it a camp will step forward, times are uncertain.  Should you have any interest in such a venture, know anyone who might wish to run a camp, or have a friend who would like to fund a nonprofit - please drop me an e-mail to amy at amylv dot com.  This is an enchanting place, and we long to help keep it a camp.

Students - You will see that today's offering is a free verse poem.  When an idea is dear to my heart, sometimes I would rather rely on image than rhyme.  And I know that moments and memories and smells and laughs from Sprucelands will follow all five of us - and so many many more - throughout our lives.

With much love and gratitude to Eileen and all of our Sprucelands friends...

Today I am so happy to welcome author Deb Lund to my other blog, Sharing Our Notebooks where she allows us to peek into her notebooks and meet her inner critic.  Thank you to Deb for her post and for the two books she is giving away!

Teachers, if you teach students about keeping a writer's notebook, I have designed this blog for you.  I will continue to add links and resources throughout this summer, soon cataloging the posts as I have done here at The Poem Farm.

Gather a few poems into your arms and heart today over at A Teaching Life, where Tara hosts today's Poetry Friday roundup.

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!

My Dictionary, A-Z

Welcome to the complete 

April 2012 Dictionary Hike!

During April 2012, I wrote a poem for each letter of the alphabet. How did I find the ideas for these poems? Why, in the dictionary, of course! Below you can see me as a paper doll, sticking out of my children's dictionary.

Photo by Amy LV

Each day, I closed my eyes and opened my dictionary to a new letter, checking beforehand where that day's letter began and ended in the book. I began with A and worked my way to Z. Once the dictionary was open to a page, I would swirl my finger around around, and then I'd let it land.

Photo by Amy LV

Finger on a word, I opened my eyes to see which word I had landed on. And then, each day, I wrote a poem using the word under my finger!

This project was inspired by "The Lanyard" by Billy Collins as well as the 2012 March Madness poetry tournament over at Ed DeCaria's Think Kid, Think!  It was also inspired by something we teachers often say in writing workshops, "Just pick a word and go!"

When you scroll through all 26 poems below, you will be reading a month's worth of work. If you are interested in knowing more about any one of them (how I got the idea, something about the form, an idea for you to try), just click on the magenta heading and you will be sent directly to that day's post.

Under each poem, you will also find a recording of me reading the poem to you. I am hoping that this will feel like one of those museums or zoos where people get to learn and listen with headphones!

At the end of March, I had no idea what I would do here for National Poetry Month. One day in March, I was blogging along and just typed in the idea that I'd do a Dictionary Hike. It was a very spontaneous thought, and I could not have guessed how much I would have learned or enjoyed this journey. It's been wonderful to read the poems and comments from haiku-friend Lisa Vihos and several others, and I tried some new forms and wrote about words I never would have chosen on my own.

The Dictionary Hike taught me that if we want to, we can write from anything. The whole world is inspiring.

Here's the Hike in its entirety, except for D & F, which are currently under consideration for a new collection.
Click the title above each poem to learn more about it.
Click the arrow below each poem to listen to the poem.
Click below for an audio introduction to the Hike.

 

A is for ANCIENT

B is for BLUEGRASS

C is for CASE

 

D is for DRAW

E is for EXPONENT

 

F is for FELT

G is for GROUND

H is for HABIT

I is for INFLATION

 

J is for JAMAICA

K is for KNICKKNACK

L is for LIVELY

 

M is for MACARONI

 

N is for NORTHERN IRELAND

 

O is for OVER

P is for PRESCRIBE

Q is for QUAINT

R is for RESTORE

S is for SILVER

T is for TEEPEE

U is for URGE

 

V is for VULTURE

W is for WOKEN

X is for XENOPHOBIA

 

Y is for YET

Z is for ZAIRE

And that, my friends, was the Dictionary Hike.  

26 poems on all kinds of topics. Now I will sit and drink a glass of water, thinking about all that I read and learned this month.  I will be back next Monday for regular postings.

In the meantime, today I am visiting two different places!

I am very happy to be spending the day at Author Amok with Laura Shovan as a part of her series of 30 Habits of Highly Effective Poets sharing a bit about my revision process.  Author Amok is one of my "poetry haunts," and you can visit Laura there regularly to find poetry, writing advice, teaching ideas, and more.  Thank you, Laura, for having me over to visit!

Today I will be happily visiting Wonderopolis as well!  Today's WONDER is What is a Poetry Slam? and I have written the Try it Out! section.  If you do not know Wonderopolis, this site asks and answers a different questions - from any area - every day, and then answers it in all kinds of ways.  It's perfect for home and classroom too, feeding the curious.

Over at The Poem Farm's sister blog, Sharing Our Notebooks, many poets have visited in April, generously sharing their writer's notebooks and process.  This is a fantastic resource for teachers and writing workshop classrooms, and I invite you to stop by.  You can head on over there and peek right inside the pages of others' notebooks, something that nosy people love to do.  These are the poets who have posted this month:

Janet Wong
Laura Shovan
Rebecca Kai Dotlich
Suz Blackaby
Allan Wolf - The drawing for Allan's ZANE'S TRACE will take place on Monday evening.

Our final notebook-sharer of April 2012 at Sharing Our Notebooks is Heidi Mordhorst.  She takes us through her notebooks and tells us about double-drafting-by-hand.  She has also offered a very generous giveaway of a specially modified version of her beautiful book PUMPKIN BUTTERFLY to a reader.

Today is the first chalking celebration over at Teaching Young Writers, and Betsy welcomes us to come and see who is chalking which poems today.  If you have a moment, a road, and some chalk...consider chalking a poem yourself!   

Here is my offering, an old favorite.

Please share a comment below if you wish.

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

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