My #NaPoWriMo Poem-A-Day project is Playing With Poetry. I am tagging along with Margaret Simon, Jone MacCulloch, Molly Hogan, and Mary Lee Hahn. We will be playing with Haikubes, Magnetic Poetry, Metaphor Dice, and Paint Chip Poetry (I raided Home Depot). I’m even throwing in nail polish color names as inspiration, just for fun! Play along, if you’d like! We are using the Twitter hashtag #playwithpoetryNPM to see what poetic mischief everyone is getting into.
A peek into my poem and process:
- I’m obsessed with cardinals. While they are common to our area of the northeast, I don’t see them every day. This makes my rare sightings that more magical.
- Yesterday, after a very challenging day, one appeared outside my classroom as I sat picking up the pieces of the afternoon. His song (bright red, so I know it’s a he) drifting through my classroom window lifted my mood instantly.
- Today’s poem is in the tanka form — haiku (5/7/5) with 2 bonus 7/7 lines referring back on the first three.
- I have yet to take a really good photo of a cardinal, so for now I’ll rely on a great shot in Word Swag.
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And now for….
On April 1, the Poetry Friday family launched the 7th annual Kidlitosphere Progressive Poem organized by author/poet, Irene Latham. (Click here to learn more.) Many of us have signed up to provide a line for the 2019 poem. Author/poet Matt Forrest Esenwine kicked things off with some familiar “found” phrases merged to get us going. Today’s fabulous line from “The Rainbow Connection” (love that song!) comes from Penny Klostermann. You may find her line here on her blog. Participants are having fun song lyrics. I was excited to provide the 14th line on April 14th. You can read it here. I hope you’ll join us to see what happens next! Here’s the itinerary for the rest of the poem.
April
1 Matt @Radio, Rhythm and Rhyme
2 Kat @Kathryn Apel
3 Kimberly @KimberlyHutmacherWrites
4 Jone @DeoWriter
5 Linda @TeacherDance
6 Tara @Going to Walden
7 Ruth @thereisnosuchthingasagodforsakentown
8 Mary Lee @A Year of Reading
9 Rebecca @Rebecca Herzog
10 Janet F. @Live Your Poem
11 Dani @Doing the Work that Matters
12 Margaret @Reflections on the Teche
13 Doraine @Dori Reads
14 Christie @Wondering and Wandering
15 Robyn @Life on the Deckle Edge
16 Carol @Beyond LiteracyLink
17 Amy @The Poem Farm
18 Linda @A Word Edgewise
19 Heidi @my juicy little universe
20 Buffy @Buffy’s Blog
21 Michelle @Michelle Kogan
22 Catherine @Reading to the Core
23 Penny @a penny and her jots
24 Tabatha @The Opposite of Indifference
25 Jan @Bookseestudio
26 Linda @Write Time
27 Sheila @Sheila Renfro
28 Liz @Elizabeth Steinglass
29 Irene @Live Your Poem
30 Donna @Mainely Write
Wondering and Wandering 
Reading this cheery poem was the perfect way to begin my morning…thank you! There is a magic about cardinals for sure…I think they stick around through winter just to help us all get through it. I smile every time I think about you at that table, surrounded by words and colors… xx
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I’ve always thought of cardinals as magical and spiritual. They are so bright in the landscape. Your tanka is just right, observation and emotion.
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This is really lovely! Your poem got me wondering whether we even have cardinals in my area of South Dakota, so I did a googling and discovered that before 2001, there had been only 3 sightings of cardinals in western SD between 1954 and 2001! Apparently there have been more sightings since 2001 and their numbers are growing, but they’re still incredibly rare. Who knew? Thanks for sending me down a fascinating morning Internet rabbit hole!
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Cardinals are so beautiful. Thank you for celebrating your sighting with your lovely tanka poem!
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Your tanka is lovely, Christie. I agree that cardinals are magical. We always have at least one pair fluttering around our feeder, but I’ve seen as many as three pairs at one time.
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