Turkey Tree
Photo by Amy LV
Students - Yesterday I was lucky enough to see nine turkeys in that small empty tree you see above...not the evergreen, but the deciduous tree in front. I was driving my car along, and when I looked out the window, I could not believe my eyes. The tree looked to be covered in enormous and strange ornaments. But they really were turkeys! This picture is the moment after they all flew away. Can you still hear their wings flapping?
Today's poem is a free verse poem, no rhyme or regular meter at all. But I still read it aloud many times to be sure that the rhythms - while not regular - sang each into the next. When you write a free verse poem, many of the decisions you will make are decisions about line breaks. Where exactly would you like the reader to pause, even for just a wee bit? Put your line breaks there.
It is interesting to write from photographs, and if you visit here regularly, you know that I do this often. Usually, though, I write about the moment in the photograph or something from the photograph that anyone could see. Today, though, my focus is on a different moment. You might try this too. Find a photograph or think of one and write about the moment before or the moment after the picture was taken. The piece you write could be true or it could come from your own wild imagination. You might write a poem, but you could also write a story, or anything else. The ways we best find ideas will work for us across all types of writing.
Today's poem is a free verse poem, no rhyme or regular meter at all. But I still read it aloud many times to be sure that the rhythms - while not regular - sang each into the next. When you write a free verse poem, many of the decisions you will make are decisions about line breaks. Where exactly would you like the reader to pause, even for just a wee bit? Put your line breaks there.
It is interesting to write from photographs, and if you visit here regularly, you know that I do this often. Usually, though, I write about the moment in the photograph or something from the photograph that anyone could see. Today, though, my focus is on a different moment. You might try this too. Find a photograph or think of one and write about the moment before or the moment after the picture was taken. The piece you write could be true or it could come from your own wild imagination. You might write a poem, but you could also write a story, or anything else. The ways we best find ideas will work for us across all types of writing.
Mary Lee Hahn is the winner of last week's giveaway of LEND A HAND written by John Frank and illustrated by London Ladd. Mary Lee, please just send me an e-mail and let me know if you would like the book sent to you or to a friend!
If you have not yet visited Olga McLaren's grandmother journals over at my blog Sharing Our Notebooks, I welcome you to do so. She has written an inspiring post, and there is a giveaway as well.
Linda Baie is hosting this Poetry Friday Palooza over at TeacherDance. Please head on over there to enjoy the poems, the festivities, and the friendship!
Please share a comment below if you wish.
