Fall in Love, Take Photos, Write

Tree Shadow

Photo by Amy LV

Flower Shadow

Photo by Amy LV

Leaf Shadow

Photo by Amy LV

amylvpoemfarm · Here - a poem by Amy Ludwig VanDerwater

Students - This week I have been falling love with shadows all over the place! I usually do not take photographs of shadows...but this week I did so a few times. And when a person falls in love with something over and over again, it is natural to write a poem about it. 

You may have noticed that the lines in today's poem go back and forth, back and forth. I chose to do this because as I watched plants dancing with shadows, my own eyes went back and forth, back and forth between them.

Keep your eyes open. Fall in love. Take some pictures. Save them. And then write.

Tricia is hosting this week's Poetry Friday roundup over at The Miss Rumphius Effect with a thoughtful and questioning golden shovel poem using a line from "The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock" by T.S. Eliot. We invite everybody to join in each Friday as we share poems, poem books, poetry ideas, and friendship. Check out my left sidebar to learn where to find this poetry goodness each week of the year.

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

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

milkweed...and monarchs

Milkweed
Photo by Amy LV

I will add an audio recording this evening.

Students - I find milkweed to be one of the most beautiful plants in our yard's fall landscape. When I see a full pod of wishes, I sometimes blow them into air, making wishes for strangers. And I know that these seeds will plant themselves, growing food for monarch caterpillars come spring.

In the above photograph and below video, taken a couple of weeks ago, you can see a milkweed pod in our pasture. Notice how the seeds are holding on. But in just a few more gusts of wind...off they'll go, planting themselves in new dirt homes.

You probably noticed that I had some fun playing with the spacing of the words in this poem. I wanted to mirror the feeling of milkweed wish movement.

And why no capitals? Well, I'm not sure about that. Somehow this poem felt softer to me without capitals and punctuation, I suppose.

If you are interested in learning more about milkweed and how the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service harvests milkweed seeds to plant for monarch butterflies, visit HERE. Among other things, you will see a wonderful photograph of milkweed seeds all tight in the pod...that is the milkweed-stage I always think looks fish-like.

If you'd like to see summer milkweed plants in our front garden and read a poem about monarchs and how we love to see them passing through, HERE you go.

Michelle is hosting this week's Poetry Friday roundup at at Today's Little Ditty with a hearty welcome to the 2017-2018 edition of THE BEST OF TODAY'S LITTLE DITTY! We invite everybody to join in each Friday as we share poems, poem books, poetry ideas, and friendship. Check out my left sidebar to learn where to find this poetry goodness every week.

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.

Snake Sheds - What's On Your Desk?

Complete Snake Shed Found by Henry
Photo by Amy LV

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

Students - This photograph is of a snake shed that our son Henry found outside.  It's a special one because it's all in one piece.  You can even see the eye holes!

Eye Holes Close Up

Photo by Amy LV

I didn't know what I would write about this morning, but I knew that I wanted to write something.  So I sat myself down at my desk, looked up, and there it was: this snake shed. Immediately, I began writing the first few words, and immediately I knew that the poem would be long and skinny just like a snake.  This is called a concrete poem, where the shape of the words matches the meaning of the poem.

At first, this poem was going to be a poem about Medusa, my husband's high school class snake.  The other week, Mark had his school picture taken with Medusa (Dusy) around his neck.  She is shedding her skin right now too, and well...maybe I just have snakes on the brain.

Dusy Sheds in September and Hope says, 

"Wow! It looks like Dusy Exploded!"

Photo by Mark LV

Bio Note from Mark VanDerwater, Science Teacher:  Bio note: each eye is covered by its own single scale that is embedded in the rest of the snakes skin (kinda like goggles) and explains why they don't blink.

One thing I'm realizing is that the more interesting things I have around me, the more interesting poems I can write.  Last Friday I wrote about acorns, today a snake shed. Collecting objects helps me to write.

What neat objects do you place in your writing space?  What do you keep nearby that inspires you?  Teachers - what beautiful or curious or fascinating objects might you bring in or invite students to bring in to school?  Here is a beautiful book about keeping a nature table; I may have mentioned it before.

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You can read about snake sheds here at wiseGEEK and watch a snake shed its skin below.

Dan Bailey shares his musical notebooks at Sharing Our Notebooks, and today is the last day to enter the giveaway of a musical notebook!

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Nestle into a Nest - MyPoWriYe Poem #240

Hidden Wonder

Photo by ? LV

Last week, hurrying out the door on his way to school, Henry cupped a chubby nest in his hands.  Henry's third grade class is studying home-building, and he wanted to share this nest from our yard to show how birds build their homes.  Crafted from sticks and stuffed with wool, Henry's nest is a perfect example of how animals work with their surroundings.  Our Icelandic sheep lose tufts of wool as they scratch on trees, and these fluff balls find their way into nests all around our house.

It is not spring now, not nest-building season at all. In fact, these days I watch flocks of birds rush away, sensing the snow predicted for this week's end.  Birds are on their way out of our parts, but souvenirs from last spring remain - nests blown from trees or silhouetted against dark November skies.  As writers, we can capture any season at any time, whenever we are touched by a dried seed pod or a memory of snow. Seasons blow and change within our hearts just as they chance outside of our windows.

Students - today's poem began as a long list poem, a straight row of one-word-per-line, one-word-after-another.  It was a skinny poem indeed, and after I looked at it, I asked myself, "Hmmm...could I make this poem in the shape of a nest?"  With my computer as a friend, I fiddled around with words until this shape emerged.  It's exciting to discover when a concrete poem hides inside a rectangular poem.

Happy Thanksgiving to you, my dear friends...the ones I know...and the ones I don't!

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It's Wood Stacking Time! - Poem #229

View of Our Porch

Photo by Amy LV

Some chores are more rewarding than others.  Stacking wood is great.  It's an outside chore, and this makes it lovely.  Too, wood is beautiful to touch and makes a pretty sound when it clanks against other logs. When you stack wood, you can see your progress and imagine the snuggly winter days ahead, your warm feet held up to a bright wood fire.

This poem is another concrete poem, though it didn't plan to be one when I began writing.  Once it was finished, that little concrete poem song rose in my mind, This is a concrete poem!  Move the lines around!  So I did.  Can you figure out how to read it?  (Hint - how do you stack wood?)

Students - we all have things we must do, and today's poem grew from an autumn chore around our home.  Homework, chores, pet care...all of these are necessities.  Perhaps you have a chore or responsibility which might get you going on a poem.  Think about Shel Silverstein's "Sarah Cynthia Sylvia Stout" - that poem came from a chore too!

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My Poem Writing Year #207 - The Line

I have had this magical experience a few times in my life.  It's raining.  Now it's not raining.  Walk backwards, and it's raining again.  Wow!

Students - did you ever have a magical nature moment?  When we are outdoors, we can experience the heights and depths of beauty and pain, birth and death, mystery and surprise.  Find a trilobite fossil, unseen for thousands of years.  Hold a bird nest from last spring, just blown down from a tree.  Watch a deer stand on his skinny new legs.  If we spend more time in woods, fields, and streams, magic unfolds itself into our arms and hearts and we can reread these memories for years to come.  This is why I left my laundry this week to play in the woods...

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When I Grow Up - MyPoWriYe #187

Above you can see my revised version of "When I Grow Up", posted the day after I originally posted it.  Somehow, a tightrope poem felt like it should be a concrete poem.  After you read the above version, read the original (below) and ask yourself, "Which do I like better?"  I would love to hear your thoughts.  If it is too small for you to see easily, please just click on the poem image and it will grow before your eyes!

When I Grow Up

I aspire

to walk on wire

point to point

toe by toe

across a cable

high in sky

I'll only have

one place to go

to and fro

up on my wire

a thin line written

on the air

when I grow up

I'll walk a tightrope

in the circus

if I dare.

© Amy LV

Over the past couple of weeks, tightropes been on my mind more than usual.  Last week, on September 24th, French aerialist Didier Pasquette walked a wire between two 23 story buildings in downtown Buffalo.  Our family did not attend this performance, but I watched it on WGRZ and was mightily impressed.

Yesterday afternoon, my mother took us all to the circus, and once more we had the chance to think about and watch high-wire walkers.  This all reminds me of Mordicai Gerstein's book THE MAN WHO WALKED BETWEEN THE TOWERS, a book about high-wire artist Philippe Petit who truly did walk between the twin towers in New York City.  This same Philippe Petit was a teacher to Didier Pasquette.

  

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Students - what skills impress you in others and in yourself?  Watching other people use their gifts wisely, watching them work hard, I admire their talents and think about which skills I would like to strengthen in myself.  Writing from a place of awe and inspiration is a fabulous way to get started.

Tomorrow I will be back at my own home computer, a bit excited to play with the formats of today's and yesterday's poems.  If you happen to be visiting later in the week, feel free to check out some formatting changes to these last two poems.  I have some concrete ideas!

A big "Thank you!" to the Binghamton Area Reading Council with whom I had the pleasure to celebrate poetry yesterday morning.  Much gratitude especially to Kristie Miner, fourth grade teacher and intermediate literacy coordinator in the Whitney Point Central Schools.  Kristie will teach a workshop about Readers Theater at Literacy for All in Cambridge, MA this November and stayed in such close touch to ensure a cozy and inviting morning for all.

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MyPoWriYe #186 - In My Pocket

You have just read a revised version of "In My Pocket", which was first written in a straight line down (see below).  After writing it the first time and thinking about it, after getting to my own computer (fingers itching!), it became concrete.  How could a poem about Mexican jumping beans not jump?  That would not be right.  I posted the above poem two days after the original.  Students - it's healthy to come back to poems again and again, even after you think they might be finished.  I once read a quote by Paul Valery, "A poem is never finished, only abandoned."  So often I feel that I must abandon poems in order to find new ones.  But then, somehow, I find myself cycling back to old friends like this one.

In My Pocket

You might think

that it's odd

but I carry

a pod

in my pocket.

What is it?

A bean.

A flop-again

hop-again

stop-again

pop-again

Mexican

jumping

machine!

Amy LV

Yesterday, I wrote this poem to the sound of my daughter's three Mexican jumping beans clicking around in their tiny box.  I was visiting my mother's house, and as everyone else slept...those jumping beans and I kept each other company.  These little guys are all the rage at my children's school lately, and one of their friends even had one hatch.

I remember having Mexican jumping beans when I was very little.  Even if you know that there's a little larva in there, the beans feel so mysterious and exciting.  Holding them feels like you have your own tiny pets.  Georgia even named hers: Tracy, Bill, and Fred.  As these are small living beings, we will be sure to water them and take care of anything which may hatch.

Students - what are the fads right now in your school and life?  Or what was all the rage and you can't forget it?  Fashion, foods, toys, games, fads...all of these things come and go in waves of popularity.  Any of these things would make great writing ideas.

When we return home to our own computer, I look forward to playing with a few formatting changes on this poem.  I'll share them with you as a before and after.

It is the final day of Banned Books Week for 2010.  Today let's celebrate THE LORAX, by Dr. Seuss as our banned book of the day.

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Amaized - My Poem Writing Year #125

Corny Paths

Photo by Amy LV

We live nestled between two farm fields, and each year we wonder what the farmers will decide to plant.  It's important for them to change crops from year to year as this keeps the soil healthy.  Well, this year we have corn on both sides, and everyone loves rustling between the stalks, finding secret open areas, and getting lost in a very safe way.  It's such fun to watch the field go from rows of tiny shoots to tall stalks.  And I love hearing my children repeat the folk poem, "Knee high by the fourth of July!"  We always predict whether it will be so, and usually...it is.

The format of this poem comes from an anonymous poem that I have tucked in a notebook somewhere.  While I forgot the title, I remember the poem:

Read        see         that          me.

up             will         I                love

and           you         love        you

down        and         you         and

If you like quirky poets that closely observe our world and sketch it too, you will love author and illustrator James Stevenson's  poetry books with the word 'corn' in their titles.  These short poems are genius in their brevity, humor, and insight.  And Stevenson's illustrations are full of zest and sensitivity.

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Didn't Stevenson have the neatest idea to name this series of books after different types of corn?  If you don't own any of these yet, do yourself a favor and splurge.

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MyPoWriYe #34 - Poem Double Header

Our son Henry's first baseball game of the season was this evening, and the game offered a second poem.  So, this makes today a poem double header, in honor of baseball season.  At the Baseball Almanac, you can read Casey at the Bat and also learn all of the words to Abbott and Costello's Who's on First?.  My children were working on that one the other weekend, and it's quite a way to spend a Saturday morning!  So here's to baseball...

(click if this is too small to read)

Did that poem take a while to read?  I hope you were able to figure it out.  It's in that "puzzle" category, much like that mohawk poem from a few weeks ago. 

Students - here is a fun thing to try.  Write a poem as you normally would, and then afterward ask yourself, "Might this work in a different shape?"  Usually the answer will be 'no', but sometimes you will stumble across an interesting idea.  Neither of these two poems started off as concrete poems; they just had regular good pausing line breaks.  But I asked myself, "Hmmm...what might I do with the words to help their shape match their meaning?"  This is different than writing a bunch of any words in the shape of a cat or a tree.  Try to make the shape match the meaning...it's a game.

On another note, there's nothing like finding an interesting object with no obvious purpose. 

Over at The Miss Rumphius Effect, Tricia offers us a new 'Monday Poetry Stretch' - this time she challenges us to write a Korean sijo.  You can read the poems, including mine, at The Miss Rumphius Effect.  This Monday stretch is a usual feature over at Tricia's blog.

Play ball!

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