25 - Poems Can Play with Words

Welcome to my 2020 National Poetry Month Project
See My Last 10 Poetry Projects HERE

Each day of April 2020, I will share three things:

• A dice roll of three word dice
• A video explaining one poetic technique titled POEMS CAN... You can also find these at Sharing Our Notebooks as part of my ongoing Keeping a Notebook project
• A poem inspired by one or more of the dice words and the technique

Here are All of This Month's Poems:

10 Years of National Poetry Month History at The Poem Farm

April 1 - Poems Can Go Down the Page

April 2 - Poems Can Play With Space
April 3 - Poems Can Tell a Story
April 4 - Poems Can Compare Two Things

April 5 - Poems Can Borrow a Pattern from the World
April 6 - Poems Can Define a Word
April 7 - Poems Can Rhyme
April 8 - Poems Can Not Rhyme
April 9 - Poems Can be Written in Stanzas
April 10 - Poems Can Ask Questions
April 11 - Poems Can Be Circles
April 12 - Poems Can Be Songs
April 13 - Poems Can List
April 14 - Poems Can Repeat Words and Lines
April 15 - Poems Can Spell a Word with the First Letters of Lines
April 16 - Poems Can Give Nonhuman Qualities to Humans
April 17 - Poems Can Include Sound Words (Onomatopoeia)
April 18 - Poems Can Repeat the Beginning Sounds of Words
April 19 - Poems Can Describe a Person, Place, Thing, or Idea
April 20 - Poems Can Emphasize a Word with a One-Word Line
April 21 - Poems Can Give Advice
April 22 - Poems Can Be Written in the Voice of Another
April 23 - Poems Can Borrow a Writing Structure or Format
April 24 - Poems Can Slow Down Toward the End

And now, for today's words! 

Day 25 Words

Photo by Amy LV

If you would like to learn more about other National Poetry Month projects happening throughout the Kidlitosphere, Jama has rounded up many NPM happenings over at Jama's Alphabet Soup.  Happy last week of National Poetry Month 2020.

xo,
Amy

Antoinette Finds Words in HEART

Photo by Amy LV

Please share a comment below if you wish.day 

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

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

Have a Special Sandwich with Poem #339

PBJF

by Amy LV

Students - this poem was just plain fun to write.  My brain was flying in a hundred directions, just listing all kinds of phrases in my notebook.  Phrases like, "I used to be a bug" and "The opposite of patience" were filling up the lines and adding up to...nothing.  Then, suddenly, the words "peanut butter and jellyFISH" jumped from my pen and I just followed them.  It's just plain silliness!  Playing with the sounds of words is so much of the fun of writing.  What new words might you combine?

(Please click on POST A COMMENT below to share a thought.)

Poem #253 is about mi abuela...and food

Students - I've said this before, but sometimes poems are like dreams.  They come from all kinds of places, a swirly twirl of memories and moments and now and then.  As far as I can figure, this poem came from several places:

my mother and mother-in-law, both wonderful grandmas

the fact that I ate Mexican food (veggie fajitas) for lunch yesterday

a recent conversation with a friend about her son's Spanish class

Monday's dinner conversation about being an exchange student

our children's exceptionally strong and beautiful hugs

If you are a person who is fortunate enough to speak two or more languages, you might want to try whirling them together into one poem...just like a recipe with a bit of salt and a bit of sweet!  (Chocolate covered pretzels, anyone?)  I do not speak Spanish, but I do know a few Spanish words, and tucking them into this poem gave it a warmer more intimate feeling.  The more languages and words we know, the more possibilities we hold in our fingers.

Here is a bilingual Spanish/English book for all of us.  If you live in the southern hemisphere, let it help you kick off summer.  If you live in the northern hemisphere, may it remind you of warmer days.  These poems in both languages are full of bright and joyful imagery.

Shop Indie Bookstores

Words are the writers' tools, and today I have pledged to save two words - kexy (brittle, withered) and namelings (persons bearing the same name) - over at Save the Words, a very neat website referred to me by my librarian friend Gayle Kerman over at Country Parkway Elementary in Williamsville, NY.  Readers can adopt words-on-their-way-out-of-use, promising to help to bring them back to life through spoken and written language.  As a 40-year-old Amy, I have many namelings! 

Please let me know if you adopt a word.  They need us.

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