Happy National Poetry Month! This month I am tagging along with poet/author Amy Ludwig VanDerwater during what has become her annual NPM Project. You can click here to learn more about this straight from Amy! This year she is writing and sharing a new poem every day, each highlighting a different poetic technique, but keeping the same subject. Her challenge, 1 Subject 30 Ways, is also a bit of an informal book study and master class, as she’s using her fall 2017 release Poems Are Teachers (Heinemann) as her guide. Join us!
Today’s poetic technique chosen by Amy is to be inspired by science. My subject is, and will be all month-long, vernal pools. The inspiration for today’s poem came straight from the “Find Ideas in Science” section of Amy’s book. A resource she suggests are the “Wonder of the Day” articles on Wonderopolis.org. Last year my Kindergarten class and I submitted a wonder to Wonderopolis and this winter it was published — Wonder of the Day #2105: What Is a Vernal Pool? (Click here to read more.)
survive harshest conditions
find homes in vernal pools
wetlands, grassland areas
climatic conditions
vernal ponds
ephemeral pools
temporary
seasonal
change
winter
rains arrive
accumulate
small as small puddles
large as shallow lake
bacteria, protozoa, algae
multiply rapidly
food source
aquatic invertebrates
eggs resting, waiting
all-you-can-eat buffet
frogs, snakes, birds, mammals
ecosystem
spring
species grow
flower
bursts of color
summer
dry
disappear
reawaken when winter rains return
amazing adaptations
Using the text from this WOTD, I created a blackout poem, highlighting the text I wished to keep and slightly blacking out what I did not wish to use. As is true with all of my poems for this challenge, it remains a draft that I will return to. For now, the visual image of the final text appeals to me. It somehow reflects the ebb and flow of the vernal pool life cycle.
I hope you’ve been following along the journey of the 2018 KidLitosphere Progressive Poem, a fun annual collaborative project lovingly begun in 2012 by poet/author Irene Latham. This poem has magically, and quite literally this year, been growing right before our eyes daily during the month of April. This year we are following along the journey of Jasmine, a seed, and her companions Moon and Owl. Jasmine, from a long line of poet’s jasmine, began is beginning to make her way in the world and find her poetic voice. The process has been fascinating to follow and I was excited to dive in for the first time with line eighteen. I hope you will follow Jasmine’s journey for the remainder of our Progressive Poem month by clicking on the blogs in the list below. I can’t wait to see what happens next!
April
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This post is part of my personal National Poetry Month celebration. I hope you’ll join me in sharing your favorite poetic gems throughout the month of April whether they are written by you, your students, or another poet.
Wondering and Wandering 
Excellent choice to define vernal pool in a poem. For me the found poem form works better than blackout. I also like the way the found poem makes the pool seem crowded w/ life.
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Blackout poetry is funny. I often end up taking the final collected words and dumping them into another format making it a found poem!
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Supercool….so much information, so much fun, and a great reminder that poems are hiding all around us. xx
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Just like frogs!
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