Lean on a Song & Welcome Guests

Sky After Poeming

Photo by Amy LV

Students - Can you believe that I took the above sky photograph just moments after writing this poem? Well, I did! This week has been so beautiful, so summery in Western New York.

Today's poem leans on the meter of the 1936 song "Dona Nobis Pacem" ("Grant Us Peace" in Latin). If you listen to the recording above, you will hear me read the poem and then sing it to the tune of the song. "Dona Nobis Pacem" lives in my mind this week as I have just joined a newly formed threshold choir (Raven's Call) here in Buffalo, NY, a small choir that will sing at the bedsides of seriously ill and dying people who wish for music. This is but one of the songs we are learning, and I am singing it to myself inside and outside.

I do like to think that this is a true equation: topic + structure + wordplay = poem. Sometimes I begin with a topic, sometimes a structure, sometimes some wordplay. Today, structure (the meter of "Dona Nobis Pacem") guided my way. This and my recent thoughts about how we speak to ourselves in our own minds. 

I've suggested this several times before, but here it is again. If you're not sure where to begin with a poem, choose a song you like and then write words that can fit in the lines perfectly (or well enough!) I like to count the syllables and then match syllables and stresses as perfectly as feels right.

HERE is a beautiful voice and piano recording of "Dona Nobis Pacem," a round that is often sung in three parts, here all sung by Julie Gaulke.

And NOW....is a happy honor to welcome Fourth Grade Teacher Cheryl Donnelly and her poets from Tioughnioga Riverside Academy in Whitney Point, NY who took on the April 24 HOURS Challenge. My goodness gracious! How this school takes poetry on. I was lucky enough to visit these writers in mid-May, and feel grateful to them and to Teacher Cheryl Donnelly and Intermediate Literacy Coordinator Dr. Kristie Miner for all of their joyful sharing.

Enjoy this joyful slideshow of poems, one poem from each poet, and know that each poet wrote many poems as part of their own 24 HOURS project, choosing a favorite for us here at The Poem Farm. Do take notice of the many different voices and poetic techniques these writers chose.

Click the three dots and ENTER FULL SCREEN to enlarge.

Thank you again to this poetic community from Tioughnioga Riverside Academy for joining us today.

Tricia is hosting this week's Poetry Friday roundup at The Miss Rumphius Effect. Each Friday, all are invited to share poems, poem books, poetry ideas, and friendship in this open and welcoming poetry community.

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.

Wallow in Wonder Day 9 - What is a Sun Dog?

Welcome to Day 9 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.  If you would like to share any ways you have used Wallow in Wonder or your own site (safe for children only please), please link to the #WallowInWonder padlet.

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

April 3 - The Storm Chaser - a poem inspired by Wonder #779

April 4 - A Jar of Glitter - a poem inspired by Wonder #641

April 5 - To Make Compost - a poem inspired by Wonder #1661

April 6 - Deciding Now - a poem inspired by Wonder #1662

April 7 - Hummingbird's Secret - a poem inspired by Wonder #1663

April 8 - Limits - a poem inspired by Wonder #1664

And now for Day 9!

Wonder #1665 - from April 8, 2016

Sun and His Dogs

by Amy LV

Students - Today's poem is an English - or Shakespearean - sonnet.  You will notice four stanzas, really, all smushed together.  The first three groupings of lines each have four lines, and the last grouping has two.  I could separate them, but a sonnet is all together, and I want to keep to that look.

Can you find the rhyming words here?  What do you see?  Do you see how the rhyme scheme changes at the end?  

When writing simple sonnets like this one, I very much enjoy patting out the rhythms in the ten-beat lines.  If you haven't yet, you may also read my other sonnet from April 1 of Wallow in Wonder - So Suddenly.  Reading both of them together will perhaps get that sound, that rhythm into your mind.  Maybe you'll even try to write a sonnet line or two?

I had to do some learning to write this poem.  I did not know what a sundog (or sun dog) was.  But now, thanks to writing, I do. In reading a few articles about sundogs, I was especially interested in the fact that people are not sure why these patches of light are called sundogs, but they think that perhaps it is because they appear so near and so loyal to the sun, just as real furry dogs are near and loyal to their masters.

If you have not yet done so, do read the Wonderopolis post from yesterday, and you will know too.  And don't miss these sundog and moondog pictures at Atmospheric Optics.  It is a beautiful gallery.

You can read another poem inspired by Wonder #1665 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. 

Yesterday's post had a giveaway!  Should you leave a comment on yesterday's post, you will be entered into a giveaway generously offered by Barry Lane - 3 Barry CDs to one winner, and I will draw the name on Sunday (tomorrow) evening. Please be sure to leave a way to contact you.  Thank you, Barry!

I am thrilled to host middle school teacher and librarian Stefanie Cole and her students from Ontario, Canada to Sharing Our Notebooks this month.  Do not miss this post; it is full of notebook inspiration, a video clip, and a great book giveaway from Stefanie.

Happy Day 9 of National Poetry Month 2016!  

Please share a comment below if you wish.

Orion - Finding Peace in Nature

Friends

by Amy LV

 

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

Students - Whenever I look up at the sky and see Orion, I feel better about everything in the world.  For me, knowing a constellation, and recognizing it like a good friend brings a lot of happiness and peace.  One day, maybe soon, I will learn more constellations.

This poem is about a group of stars in the sky - a quiet group of stars.  It doesn't really hold my hand, and it doesn't really stare at me or whisper.  But I imagine that it does, and I imagine that Orion is a real person that does things a real person would do.  In poetry, we call this giving of human qualities or feelings or actions to non-human things personification.  Personification is a technique I use often when writing poems because in my mind, everything has feelings just like I do.

This is a poem I have had for years, and every several months, I bring it out and fiddle with it a bit more.  The poem probably isn't finished, but today felt like a good day to share it with you.  Do you have any old poems that you revisit from time to time?  Do you have favorite mountains or trees or constellations or anything else in the natural world that bring you happiness and peace?

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!

A Lovely Lunar Eclipse with Poem #266

Draft

by Amy LV

Last night was a total lunar eclipse, coinciding with the solstice this year.  According to the NASA Eclipse Website, "The entire event is/was visible from North America and Western South America."

SpaceWeather.com writes, "Is this rare?  It is indeed, according to Geoff Chester of the US Naval Observatory, who inspected a list of eclipses going back 2000 years.  'Since year 1, I can only find one previous instance of an eclipse matching the same calendar date as the solstice, and that is December 21, 1638, says Chester. 'Fortunately, we won't have to wait 372 years for the next one...that will be on December 21, 2094.'"

To better understand this phenomenon, I asked my patient science teacher husband to demonstrate a lunar eclipse with common household objects.  With a green yarn ball (Earth), a white sock (moon) and a floor lamp (sun), he showed me how it works.  The combination of this with Fred Espenak's article, "Lunar Eclipses for Beginners" helped me to understand how lunar eclipses differ from solar eclipses.  I printed this out, underlining passages and jotting notes to help me remember and make sense of these movements.  To see some wonderful animations of sky-happenings, check out Shadow & Substance.

Students - on the draft above, you will see a few things which helped me write this poem.  The alphabet in the upper right hand corner always helps me find rhyming words which make sense together.  You can see some of those in the lower left hand corner.  This time I needed a little drawing too, to help me remember the positions of each player in this night sky drama.

Of course my revisions included my husband Mark.  I asked him, "Would you please read this to see if I got the science right?"

I hope that some of you got to see the eclipse last night.  (It was too cloudy here to see much.)  If you missed it this time, take a peek at the NASA Eclipse Website and mark down the date for the next eclipse where you live.  

For a beautiful 2010 poetry book about the sky, don't miss SKY MAGIC, edited by Lee Bennett Hopkins and illustrated by Mariusz Stawarski.

Shop Indie Bookstores

Happy eclipse!  Happy solstice!

(Please click on COMMENTS below to share a thought.)