Imagine Yourself in a Story

Deer Sheds Found at The Poem Farm

Photo by Amy LV

Students - This story poem grew from a conversation I was fortunate enough to have last week with a few young hunters at Elba Elementary School in Elba, NY.  We were talking about the deer sheds I'd brought along, and they were kind enough to share some hunting stories with me.

I am not a hunter, and I have no interest in learning to hunt.  Yet hearing these young men speak with passion and reverence for nature and this skill filled me with curiosity and wonder.  Though I will likely never hunt or shoot a deer myself, in this poem I imagine the moment of transition between life and death.

In today's poem, I have pretended to play a part in a story I will likely never live.  And in so doing, I have been remade.  I see hunting in a new way, through the eyes of my young teachers and through my own imagination.  Since I write this from imagined and talked experience, though, I am not sure if there are details that are off or missing or untrue.  So, young hunter friends in Elba....if you read this, would you please tell me if there is something clearly wrong here?  Something that feels totally untrue?  If so, please send me an e-mail through your librarian, Mrs. Perrault.  And if you would like to share any of your own hunting poems or words around hunting, please let me know as I would love to include some of words here.  Thank you for that talk we had...I have been thinking about it all week.

This week I was fortunate enough to visit two wonderful elementary schools in Paramus, NJ, and I would like to extend so much gratitude to everyone at Parkway Elementary and Stony Lane Elementary for such a joyous two days of celebrating poetry and notebooking.  I loved writing with you and am now thinking about stories and ideas we shared together too.

At Sharing Our Notebooks, I am so happy to welcome third grade teacher Dina Bolan and her writers from Alexander Hamilton Elementary School in Glen Rock, New Jersey.  Please read their nonfiction notebook entries, and leave a comment to be entered into a drawing for a lovely new notebook.  I will draw a name next week!

Donna is hosting today's Poetry Friday roundup at Mainely Write with a bouquet of beautiful poetry postcards. Each week, we gather our posts together at one blog, so if you visit Donna this week...you will be introduced to many new poets and blogs and books.  Please join us!

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.

Day 7 - National Poetry Month 2015 - Sing That Poem!

Happy National Poetry Month!

Welcome to Day 7 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 I Will.  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.

Secret Language

by Amy LV

Students - Today's poem is based on a memory I have with my old friend, Keisha. We would go to the school near my home or to the mall and pretend that we spoke another language besides English.  It was a made up language, and it didn't mean anything to us or to the people around us, but we loved inventing and playing with the sounds of the words. Because Keisha and I both had brown eyes, we imagined that the strangers around us likely thought we were sisters from a different country, speaking our native tongue.  We were quite mysterious indeed.

For some reason, this childhood memory with Keisha popped up in the writing of today's little verse.  My daughter said, "It was easy to make your nonsense words fit the meter" - and she is right!  But the funny thing is that it did take me a while to figure out how to make the nonsense words sound just right.  To be honest, I was a little bit nervous about it.

Classrooms of Students - If any of you are interested and willing to share your singing of one of these poems, I would adore hearing your voices and would like nothing more than to feature your recording here on The Poem Farm. Please feel free to send me a SoundCloud (free app) link, and you're on!

Please share a comment below if you wish.

Grace - Still Thankful After Thanksgiving

So Much Grace

by Amy LV

Students - This simple poem is offers my thoughts about yesterday.  I adore Thanksgiving, and here, on the day after Thanksgiving, I am still so full of gratitude for family, for good friends in my daily life and far away and here in Poetry Friday land.

The holiday season ahead of us is one filled with excitement and goodness.  I am excited to make a gingerbread house, to decorate, to fold more stars for our windows, and to make sweet and spicy walnuts.  But right now, and in many small pauses throughout the month, I plan to stop.  Stop to look around at the simple beauties before me.  Stop to feel thankful. Stop to write about the small surprising things that make life grand.  

This poem just tells of a normal everyday part of our family's life - dinner grace.  But yesterday, somehow, it felt different, perhaps because there were more of us around the table, perhaps because I am more aware that life does not always stay the same.  It is important that I feel thankful now for now.  

What are you thankful for?  Big things and small things...they all count. And you know what?  Each one of the things on your list could inspire some writing.  That's where I will continue in my notebook later today.

Over at my other blog, Sharing Our Notebooks, you can learn the winners of this month's books!

Carol is hosting today's Poetry Friday roundup over at Carol's Corner.  Visit her place to find poetry and good poetry people.

Please share a comment below if you wish.

New Puppies and Third Grade Poets

Madi and Dixie
Photo by Amy Holland

Jack and Hawk

Photo by Heidi Ludwig Zvolensky

Libby and Brewer

Photo by Heather Tielens

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

Students -  My nieces and nephews all have gotten new dogs within the past year, and so today I am celebrating all of them!  Libby and Teo have Brewer, Jack has Hawk, and Sam, Davis, and Madi have Dixie!  Woof!

Did you ever find something just when you needed it?  Well, that's what happened to me with today's poem. This poem is one that I found in my files, and I knew that it was the match for this Poetry Friday.  We're celebrating new lambs and kitties here, so it's a spring full of animal-love.

You will notice today's verse has two short stanzas.  The first one paints a moment, and the second is simply an exclamation, the real words that a person might say upon greeting a loved pet. There is one pair of rhyming words in the first stanza (fur/her) but the rest of the poem is just heart.  Write about love, and everything is good.

Today I welcome third grade teacher Peggy Wiedemann and some of her poets from Arcade Elementary in the Pioneer Central School District in Arcade, NY.  This class has been writing poems, and they were generous enough to allow me to share them here.  I invite you to notice their use of...

Description

by Alyssa

Conversational Structure

by Tyler D.

Repetition

by Jack

Line Breaks

by Tyler B.

List Structure

by Mary

Much gratitude to Peggy Wiedemann and her students for visiting The Poem Farm. Be assured that the rest of the class is full of poetry too!  It was a pleasure to read all of their poems and to share a few here today.  Lucky us.

For Metaphor Monday this week, Catherine Johnson shared my poem April Waking along with some beautiful photographs and metaphors to go with fiddleheads.  On Wednesday, she followed up with my husband Mark's Mother's Day fiddlehead frittata recipe.  But that is not all.  Unbeknownst to me, Catherine invited fellow poets to write and share fiddlehead poems at their own blogs.  You can read these festive and fun verses by following these links: Cathy Ballou Mealey, Freeda Baker Nichols, and Penny Klostermann.  Thank you to Catherine, Cathy, Freeda, and Penny for the wonderful surprise!

Jama is hosting today's delicious Poetry Friday roundup over at Jama's Alphabet Soup.  If you're hungry for all kinds of sweet and spicy poetry dishes....head on over to her beautifully set blog and enjoy.

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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One - A Sad and Happy Cat Day

Little Wilbur

Photo by Amy LV

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

Students - Friday was a sad day and a happy day.  The sad part was that kittenWilbur died. He was the runt of Freya's litter, and he lived for six weeks. We'd named him after Wilbur from CHARLOTTE'S WEB, in the hopes that he too would survive.  But it was not to be. We tucked Wilbur's body into a tiny box, and in the rain, Mark buried him in our little graveyard underneath the pear tree.

The saddest picture we've had here at our farm in a long time is the picture of mother Freya licking her little Wilbur, trying bring him back to life.  Writing today's poem helped me to do something with the teary feelings   I held in my heart that night.

The happy news was that Phoebe (Freya's sister), who had two dark gray kittens as of Friday morning, gave birth to two more (sandy and orange) on Friday!  This was a complete surprise as we did not know cats could do that.  The four new babies are doing well, and the three (six week) old kittens are now ready for homes.

Update on May 14, 2013 - Third grade teacher Jennifer Wright and her students read this poem and allowed it to inspire their own heartfelt and honest poems of loss.  Jennifer explains her lesson and shares some very beautiful poems at her wise blog, Teaching Simplicity. 

Phoebe and Her Four Kittens

Photo by Amy LV

Today I bring you two poems by student friends.  The first is by fifth grader Grace McCormick, who some of you remember from Sharing Our Notebooks.  Her class decorated their door to match FOREST HAS A SONG cover, and Grace's poem was written on one of the leaves.  This joyful verse celebrates red boots, something the girl in my book wears on many many pages.

Red Boots

by Grace McCormick

Dakota's poem comes to us from Silver Star School in Vancouver, Washington.  School librarian Ms. Mac from Check It Out always invites anyone who wishes to request a poem postcard in April with a poem written by a student in her school.  I was lucky enough to receive this powerful one.

by Dakota M.

Thank you, young poets, for sharing your poems with all of us!  We are very grateful.

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!