Bird mnemonics #ThoreaulyInspired #NPM #NaPoWriMo #NationalPoetryMonth #ProgressivePoem #PoetryFriday

Welcome to Poetry Friday, everyone! I am excited and honored to host the roundup this week and to be offering up the next line for the Progressive Poem. As usual, I’m sweating it out and crossing my fingers, eyes, and toes that everything goes according to plan. For those of you new to Poetry Friday, welcome, and here’s a link to our weekly hosting schedule.

First…

Each day during April, I will write a poem-ish piece inspired by a word or phrase mined from the pages of Henry David Thoreau’s jewel-laden journals. I have left my challenge open so that the poems may take any form — haiku, free verse, borrowed line, blackout –and who knows which direction they will go in.

Day #24: Bird mnemonics

A peek at my process —

On April 24, 1852, Thoreau wrote in his journal, “Heard again (in the village) that vetter-vetter-vetter-vetter-vet’, or tchi-tchi-tchi-tchi-tchi-tchi-tchi’ very rapidly repeated, which I heard April 23d,’ and perhaps the same that I saw April 17th (described April 18th)? I am pretty sure it is the pine warbler, yellow beneath, with faint olivaceous marks on the sides, olivaceous above, tail forked, about the size of a yellow-bird. I have not seen the fox-colored sparrow for some weeks. Thought I saw a loon on Walden yesterday.” (The Journal of Henry David Thoreau, Journal III: September 16, 1851 – April 30, 1852, Chapter VII. 1852, p. 464)

As a certified Bird Nerd, I am fascinated by bird mnemonics, as Thoreau appears to have been as well. There are many entries in his journal that include his attempts at recording the birdsong that became familiar to him. I am learning to recognize birds both by sight and sound — birding by ear. I wish Henry were around to teach me a thing or two! Some of the phonetic interpretations I have been studying worked their way into an almost-list-like poem. To learn more, check out Wonderopolis.org’s “What Are Bird Song Mnemonics?“

And now for…

Our Poetry Friday family has launched the 8th annual Kidlitosphere Progressive Poem originally organized by author/poet, Irene Latham. Margaret Simon at Reflections on the Teche is taking over this year as the organizer. Many members of the #PoetryFriday family have signed up to provide a line for the 2020 poem, and now it is my turn! Dun-dun-duuuuuun!

Here’s where things stand with our sweet poem’s adventure thus far.

Sweet violets shimmy, daffodils sway
along the wiregrass path to the lake
I carry a rucksack of tasty cakes
and a banjo passed down from my gram.

I follow the tracks of deer and raccoon
and echo the call of a wandering loon.
A whispering breeze joins in our song
and night melts into a rose gold dawn

Deep into nature’s embrace, I fold.
Promise of spring helps shake the cold
hints of sun lightly dapple the trees
calling out the sleepy bees

Leaf-litter crackles…I pause. Twig snaps.
I gasp! Shudder! Breathe out. Relax…
as a whitetail doe comes into view.
She shifts and spotted fawns debut.

We freeze. My green eyes and her brown
Meet and lock. Time slows down.
I scatter the cakes, backing away
Safely exiting this strange ballet.

I continue the path that winds down to the lake.
Missing my breakfast for beauty’s sake

On Thursday, Ruth rather astutely noticed a lack of smell in the sense category. I’m going with…

But wait, what’s that delicious smell? (I chose this option because it leaves it open-ended which direction the smell is coming from. Ruth’s other option — But what’s that smell up there ahead? — was equally wonderful, but I believe lead to the shore of the lake. I wanted the mystery to linger longer!)

So I’m offering up to Amy Ludwig VanDerwater, the poem’s next host…

1. Something familiar, I know so well. (Could be food or a spring flower. Our explorer is getting quite hungry at this point, but the “whispering breeze” and “promise of spring” make me think more floral. What say you, Amy? Fresh biscuits, pancakes, muffins, or an early spring flower?)
2. Lily of the valley pealing her bells. (Going with personification and a near rhyme. The spring flower route is in honor of May Day, the day after our poem ends. It also plays around with scent vs. sound. We wouldn’t have the gorgeous scent if the “whispering breeze” didn’t make the bells “peal.”)

Now I turn things over to Amy at The Poem Farm. I can’t wait to see what she does while writing in Betsy the Camper. That’s where the magic happens! Scroll on down to the bottom, so you can see where the poem heads next week.

Thanks for joining me for this week’s roundup. Click the link and bring on the poetry, friends!

You are invited to the Inlinkz link party!

Click here to enter

And here’s the itinerary for the final days of the Progressive Poem.

1 Donna Smith at Mainly Write
2 Irene Latham at Live Your Poem
3 Jone MacCulloch, deowriter
4 Liz Steinglass
5 Buffy Silverman
6 Kay McGriff at https://kaymcgriff.edublogs.org/
7 Catherine Flynn at Reading to the Core
8 Tara Smith at Going to Walden
9 Carol Varsalona at Beyond Literacy Link
10 Matt Forrest Esenwine at Radio, Rhythm, and Rhyme
11 Janet Fagel hosted at Reflections on the Teche
12 Linda Mitchell at A Word Edgewise
13 Kat Apel at Kat Whiskers
14 Margaret at Reflections on the Teche
15 Leigh Anne Eck at A Day in the Life
16 Linda Baie at Teacher Dance
17 Heidi Mordhorst at My Juicy Little Universe
18 Mary Lee Hahn at A Year of Reading
19 Tabatha at Opposite of Indifference
20 Rose Cappelli at Imagine the Possibilities
21 Janice Scully at Salt City Verse
22 Julieanne Harmatz at To Read, To Write, To Be
23 Ruth, thereisnosuchthingasagodforsakentown.blogspot.com
24 Christie Wyman at Wondering and Wandering
25 Amy at The Poem Farm
26 Dani Burtsfield at Doing the Work That Matters
27 Robyn Hood Black at Life on the Deckle Edge
28 Jessica Bigi at TBD
29 Fran Haley at lit bits and pieces
30 Michelle Kogan

And lastly, I am also excited to share that I have joined the Teach Write blogging team and will be writing a Poetry Ponderings blog post for them every month. My first offering, Finding Your Poetry Secret Decoder Ring, is now live and May’s post, about inviting poetry into your classroom, will be up soon. And my blogging teammate, Paula Bourque, offers up Quick Write Sparks to Kindle the Poet In All of Us for her first Think & Ink post in honor of National Poetry Month. I hope you will take a peek at all of the posts by the Teach Write team!

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Pools in woods floored with leaves #ThoreaulyInspired #NPM #NaPoWriMo #NationalPoetryMonth #ProgressivePoem

Each day during April, I will write a poem-ish piece inspired by a word or phrase mined from the pages of Henry David Thoreau’s jewel-laden journals. I have left my challenge open so that the poems may take any form — haiku, free verse, borrowed line, blackout –and who knows which direction they will go in.

Day #13: “…pools in woods floored with leaves…”

A peek at my process —

On April 13, 1855, Thoreau wrote in his journal, “The small croaking frogs are now generally heard in all those stagnant ponds or pools in woods floored with leaves, which are mainly dried up in the summer. At first, perhaps, you hear but one or two dry croaks,
but, if you sit patiently, you may hear quite a concert of them at last,…” (The Journal of Henry David Thoreau, Journal VII: September 1, 1854 – October 30, 1855, Chapter VIII. April, 1855, p. 304)

Those “pools in woods floored with leaves” are the vernal pools that my students and I love to explore in the conservation land behind our school. In the spring, we are often accompanied by our amazing Kindergarten Biologist-in-Residence, Emilie, from Grassroots Wildlife Conservation. Under Emilie’s watchful eye, we headstart wood frog eggs in our classroom — this year my home! I honor Emilie in my poem as the “Biologist gallumping!” She actually does this with grace and style in her hip waders with attached boots!

Henry was fond of vernal pools, too. His journal entries for March, April, and even May, across the years, report activity in pools he encountered on his daily walks. His many names for them, and names that we still use in this part of New England, include woodland pools, spring-holes, pond-holes, hollows, mud pools, and ditches. Whatever name you use, vernal pools are teeming with life — at least until they begin to dry up as the rain decreases and the sun’s rays begin to dry them. I wrote today’s poem for my students as they begin to meet those who inhabit, at least for a short time, these secret pools in the woods. To learn more, check out Wonderopolis “Wonder of the Day” #2105: What Is a Vernal Pool?

And now for…

Our Poetry Friday family launched the 8th annual Kidlitosphere Progressive Poem originally organized by author/poet, Irene Latham. Margaret Simon at Reflections on the Teche is taking over this year as the organizer. Many members of the #PoetryFriday family have signed up to provide a line for the 2020 poem.  Here’s our sweet poem thus far.

Sweet violets shimmy, daffodils sway
along the wiregrass path to the lake.
I carry a rucksack of tasty cakes
and a banjo passed down from my gram.

I follow the tracks of deer and raccoon
and echo the call of a wandering loon.
A whispering breeze joins in our song.
and night melts into a rose gold dawn.

Deep into nature’s embrace, I fold.
Promise of spring helps shake the cold
hints of sun lightly dapple the trees
calling out the sleepy bees.

Our little poem travels down under today into the very capable kayak-paddle-holding hands of Kat Apel. Kat, again, offers a line choice for the next host, Margaret. You can find her new lines on her blog, Kat’s Whiskers. I’m excited to provide the 24th line on Friday, April 24th. I hope you’ll join us to see what happens! Here’s the itinerary for the poem.

1 Donna Smith at Mainly Write
2 Irene Latham at Live Your Poem
3 Jone MacCulloch, deowriter
4 Liz Steinglass
5 Buffy Silverman
6 Kay McGriff at https://kaymcgriff.edublogs.org/
7 Catherine Flynn at Reading to the Core
8 Tara Smith at Going to Walden
9 Carol Varsalona at Beyond Literacy Link
10 Matt Forrest Esenwine at Radio, Rhythm, and Rhyme
11 Janet Fagel hosted at Reflections on the Teche
12 Linda Mitchell at A Word Edgewise
13 Kat Apel at Kat Whiskers
14 Margaret at Reflections on the Teche
15 Leigh Anne Eck at A Day in the Life
16 Linda Baie at Teacher Dance
17 Heidi Mordhorst at My Juicy Little Universe
18 Mary Lee Hahn at A Year of Reading
19 Tabatha at Opposite of Indifference
20 Rose Cappelli at Imagine the Possibilities
21 Janice Scully at Salt City Verse
22 Julieanne Harmatz at To Read, To Write, To Be
23 Ruth, thereisnosuchthingasagodforsakentown.blogspot.com
24 Christie Wyman at Wondering and Wandering
25 Amy at The Poem Farm
26 Dani Burtsfield at Doing the Work That Matters
27 Robyn Hood Black at Life on the Deckle Edge
28 Jessica Big at TBD
29 Fran Haley at lit bits and pieces
30 Michelle Kogan

In other news…I am also excited to share that I have joined the Teach Write blogging team and will be writing a Poetry Ponderings blog post for them every month. My first offering, Finding Your Poetry Secret Decoder Ring, is now live. And my blogging teammate, Paula Bourque, offers up Quick Write Sparks to Kindle the Poet In All of Us for her first Think & Ink post. I hope you will take a peek!

 

Sun Dog #ThoreaulyInspired #NPM #NaPoWriMo #NationalPoetryMonth

Each day during April, I will write a poem-ish piece inspired by a word or phrase mined from the pages of Henry David Thoreau’s jewel-laden journals. I have left my challenge open so that the poems may take any form — haiku, free verse, borrowed line, blackout –and who knows which direction they will go in.

Day #6: Sun Dog

A peek at my process —

On April 5, 1859, Thoreau wrote in his journal, “Mr. Haines, who travelled over the lots with us this very cold and blustering day, was over eighty. ‘What raw, blustering weather!’ said I to my employer to-day. ‘Yes,’ answered he. ‘Did you see those two sun-dogs on Saturday?’ They are a pretty sure sign of cold and windy weather.“ (The Journal of Henry David Thoreau, Journal XII: March 2, 1859 – November 30, 1859, Chapter II. April, 1859, p. 115)

I confess to never having heard the term “sun dog” (or sun-dog) until reading this particular journal entry. In fact, I don’t recall learning much about the sun or moon phases as a student, but they do intrigue me. Eager to learn more, I turned to my good friends at Wonderopolis for help. As luck would have it, Wonderopolis Wonder of the Day #1665, What Is a Sun Dog? was waiting for me! I used the text from the Wonder for today’s blackout poem. In addition, here’s a more conventional layout of the poem created with Canva.

In other news —

I am also excited to share that I have joined the Teach Write blogging team and will be writing a Poetry Ponderings blog post for them every month. My first offering is Finding Your Poetry Secret Decoder Ring. And last week my blogging teammate, Paula Bourque, offered up Quick Write Sparks to Kindle the Poet In All of Us for her first Teach Write Think & Ink post. I hope you will take a peek at our posts!

And now for…

On Wednesday, members of the Poetry Friday family launched the 8th annual Kidlitosphere Progressive Poem originally organized by author/poet, Irene Latham. Margaret Simon at Reflections on the Teche is taking over this year as the organizer. Many members of the #PoetryFriday family have signed up to provide a line for the 2020 poem. Kay McGriff takes a turn today, again offering a line choice (it’s now officially a thing) for the next host, Catherine.  You can find Kay’s line choices on her blog. I’m excited to provide the 24th line on Friday, April 24th. I hope you’ll join us to see what happens! Here’s the itinerary for the poem.

1 Donna Smith at Mainly Write
2 Irene Latham at Live Your Poem
3 Jone MacCulloch, deowriter
4 Liz Steinglass
5 Buffy Silverman
6 Kay McGriff at https://kaymcgriff.edublogs.org/
7 Catherine Flynn at Reading to the Core
8 Tara Smith at Going to Walden
9 Carol Varsalona at Beyond Literacy Link
10 Matt Forrest Esenwine at Radio, Rhythm, and Rhyme
11 Janet Fagel hosted at Reflections on the Teche
12 Linda Mitchell at A Word Edgewise
13 Kat Apel at Kat Whiskers
14 Margaret at Reflections on the Teche
15 Leigh Anne Eck at A Day in the Life
16 Linda Baie at Teacher Dance
17 Heidi Mordhorst at My Juicy Little Universe
18 Mary Lee Hahn at A Year of Reading
19 Tabatha at Opposite of Indifference
20 Rose Cappelli at Imagine the Possibilities
21 Janice Scully at Salt City Verse
22 Julieanne Harmatz at To Read, To Write, To Be
23 Ruth, thereisnosuchthingasagodforsakentown.blogspot.com
24 Christie Wyman at Wondering and Wandering
25 Amy at The Poem Farm
26 Dani Burtsfield at Doing the Work That Matters
27 Robyn Hood Black at Life on the Deckle Edge
28
29 Fran Haley at lit bits and pieces
30 Michelle Kogan

 

A Wonder-inspired Hummingbird Haiku #PoetryFriday #BirdDay

It’s Poetry Friday and Jama Rattigan of Jama’s Alphabet Soup has all the poetry goodness being offered up today. Perhaps you’ll join us? Jama has a lovely May Day celebration waiting for you.

— Christie Wyman, 2019 (draft)

I’m celebrating Bird Day (not to be confused with National Bird Day) a day early this year. As I write this post, I am awaiting the arrival of my first hummingbird. My feeder has been up for three weeks now, as these tiny creatures have been spotted in the area. Each time I pass the window that looks out upon the feeder, I can’t help but take a glance.

I wanted to create a new poem in honor of these tiny beauties, so for inspiration I turned to Wonderopolis’ Wonder of the Day #556: Do Hummingbirds Really Hum? Several poetic Wonder Words were waiting there for me! Word Swag offered up lots of fabulous hummingbird images, and I was lucky enough to find one that demonstrates that unique pendulum swinging motion the hummingbird uses while it’s hovering. There’s an amazing video on the Wonderopolis page of someone hand-feeding a hummer! Don’t miss it!

And while we are awaiting their grand entrance, here are two of my earlier hummingbird-inspired poems.

Thanks for hosting this week, Jama!

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Day 26: Writing for my students #NaPoWriMo #playwithpoetryNPM #PoetryFriday

It’s Poetry Friday! My dear poetry pal and fellow Wonderopolis Lead Ambassador, Carol Varsalona, is hosting the round up this week. I do hope you will visit her at Beyond Literacy Link as well as other PF participants throughout the upcoming week. Carol is lucky to live on the Long Island coast and that setting provides her with loads of poetic inspiration, even if it’s a foggy and gray day. Thanks for hosting the round up this week, Carol!

A peek into my poems and process.

• Lately I have been trying to write more poetry to use with my students. Why not, right? We love to take nature walks so I wrote this one just for them. It’s perfect for Earth Day week, too!

Just four more days of National Poetry Month to go. If you are looking to share a little poetry wonder with your students, check out this Padlet of all the poetry-related wonders on Wonderopolis. Perhaps they’ll find a bit of inspiration here!

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And introducing….

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 line comes from Linda Kulp Trout at Write Time. Participants are having fun lifting favorite song lyrics to create the next line in the poem. I was excited to provide the 14th line on Sunday, April 14th. I hope you’ll join us to see what happens! Here’s the itinerary for 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

Day 24: Haiku Generator #NaPoWriMo #playwithpoetryNPM

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:

• We have a tulip that’s a newcomer in our garden this spring. I can’t remember her name, but she’s a stunner. I love how rose-like the layers of petals are. I’ve been wanting to write about her since she made her first appearance here the other day.
• Have you ever tried Poem Generator online? I noticed a few folks using it to drum up a bit of inspiration, so I thought I’d give it a try. I selected the Haiku option and ran word choices through a few times. I didn’t love (or even like, for that matter) any of them in their entirety, but the last one created a phrase I thought was worth hanging on to — “at the perfect sky.”

• Wondering about the origins of haiku? Check out Wonderopolis Wonder of the Day #70: What is a Haiku?

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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 line comes from Tabatha Yeatts. 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

Day 22: Equation Poem #NaPoWriMo #playwithpoetryNPM

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.

wood frog eggs + warm weather = backstroke

A peek into my poem and process:

• Today’s poem is an equation poem. We’ve been enjoying Laura Purdie Salas’ new book, Snowman – Cold = Puddle: Spring Equations in our classroom this spring. We’ve even been trying our hand at our own equation poems. You can read more about Laura, her book, and this fun form here. (P.S. I’m excited to present at NCTE in Baltimore with Laura at a Wonderopolis-sponsored poetry roundtable! I hope you’ll come and see us!)
• Last week we were on April Vacation. Our biologist-in-residence delayed giving us the wood frog eggs we are to head-start in our classroom, because she didn’t want them to hatch while we were away. She kept them in a safe trap in the vernal pool on our campus until we returned.
• Last night our science coordinator sent us an UH-OH email saying it was so warm last week and over the weekend, that the eggs hatched! Our poor biologist had to gather up tadpoles from the vernal pool in her gorgeous hip waders. That must have been like herding cats! The subject line in the email read: “Warm Weather Plus Wood Frog Eggs Equals…” I couldn’t resist using it in an equation poem!

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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 line comes from Catherine at Reading to the Core. 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

Day 20: Borrowed Line #NaPoWriMo #playwithpoetryNPM

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.

“I am precious and you can preserve me to save me before I am gone” is a borrowed line from Tyler, one of Margaret Simon’s former students.

A peek into my poem and process:

• Wetlands Spring is a poem that I’ve been playing around with for a couple of years. I revisit it from time to time as I spend more time in this fascinating and fragile ecosystem.
• Wetlands vary depending on what part of the country you live in. I live in New England and my #playwithpoetry playmate Margaret Simon lives on the Bayou Teche of Louisiana. While I have not visited there yet, I can see from her posts that our wetlands are quite different. We are both inspired to write about them often. In surfing around her wonderful blog, Reflections on the Teche, a post of hers from 2013 caught my eye — Wetlands Writing. In it, she features a lovely poem by Tyler called Song of the Wetlands.

• Tyler’s final line is powerful and poignant. I couldn’t have said it better myself, so I hope he doesn’t mind if I borrow it for my final line.
• While I borrow a line from Tyler’s poem, I could easily have borrowed one from Wonderopolis’ WOTD #2105: What Is a Vernal Pool. Are your students learning about different ecosystems and habitats? Why not try a borrowed line poem from a Wonderopolis post about them.

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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 line comes from Buffy. You may find her line here on her blog. Our little poem is now waltzing in the waves. 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

Day 19: List and Borrowed Line Poems #NaPoWriMo #playwithpoetryNPM #PoetryFriday

It’s Poetry Friday! My dear poetry and notebook-keeping mentor, Amy Ludwig VanDerwater, is hosting the round up this week. I do hope you will visit her at The Poem Farm, and lots of other PF participants throughout the upcoming week. In addition to her sweet (and often sad) poem project about John and Betsy, Amy offers up a bit of “how to advice” for writing list poems, the form which her poem takes today. My Kindergarten poets love writing list poems, so I have been working on one, too, with different words for walking that I have been collecting.

— Christie Wyman, 2019 (draft)

 

And now for more playing with poetry!

A collaborative poem written by Margaret Simon and her students.

Yesterday my #playwithpoetry playmate Margaret Simon honored me by borrowing a line from my haiku I shared on Wednesday. (Click here to see her original post.) Today I am repaying the favor by borrowing a line from a collaborative poem she wrote with her students — “In the spring-sprinkled garden.”

I turned to one of my #playwithpoetry tools, magnetic poetry, for the rest of the poem.

“In the spring-sprinkled garden” appears courtesy of Margaret Simon and friends.

A peek into my poems and process.

• I’ve been collecting words for a long time. My list poem about walking features just some of the many words for walking, one of my favorite pastimes. A favorite walk of mine and my husband’s is the nearby Emerson-Thoreau Amble. Dear friends Henry David Thoreau and Ralph Waldo Emerson enjoyed walking together, and one of their favorite woodland walks was the 1.7 mile path that began behind Emerson’s home and ended at nearby Walden Pond.  You can read more about this walk here. The “good friends” in my poem was inspired by these famous good friends.
• Here in New England we are only just beginning to see true signs of spring in our gardens. “Sprinkled” is the perfect way to describe the hints of color beginning to crop up here and there.
• The photo in my spring poem is of a long, narrow garden bed that runs alongside my driveway. It makes me happy when I pull in and see some sprinkles of color.
• When the sun is shining, and there is a light breeze blowing, the intoxicating perfume from my early spring bulbs in bloom wafts in through my open windows. It is truly delicious!

One full week of National Poetry Month to go, gang. If you are looking to share a little poetry wonder with your students, check out this Padlet of all the poetry-related wonders on Wonderopolis. Perhaps they’ll find a bit of inspiration here!

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And introducing….

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 line comes from Heidi Mordhorst at My Juicy Little Universe. Participants are having fun lifting favorite song lyrics to create the next line in the poem. I was excited to provide the 14th line on Sunday, April 14th. I hope you’ll join us to see what happens! Here’s the itinerary for 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

Day 16: Skinny Poetry #NaPoWriMo #playwithpoetryNPM #SOL19

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.

No need to turn to playful prompts today.

A peek into my poem and process:

• The world watched with horror and sadness yesterday as the magnificent and beloved Cathedrale Notre-Dame de Paris burned for hours on end. I visited there in January 1986 while studying abroad my junior year in college. While that was 33 years ago, and I have not managed to track down my photos as of yet, the memory of that cold winter day, with the wind blowing off the Seine, will linger indelibly in my memory.
• I again turned to Word Swag to create my final poetic image. There were many photos of Notre Dame to select from. I opted for a calm, peaceful, and contemplative indoor image rather than an iconic outdoor shot of the now painfully disfigured grand dame.
• When rolling the dice to select a text layout, the final selection appeared to show my words drifting upwards to the heavens, sadly reminiscent of the history that drifted upwards with the flames.
• My poem is in the skinny form — 11 lines, 1st and 11th identical phrases, 2nd, 6th, and 10th repeating, all lines apart from 1 and 11 individual words. More details about this form can be found here.

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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 line comes from my Wonderopolis Wonder Buddy, Carol Varsalona. You may find her line here. Our little poem is now waltzing in the waves. 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