Poetry / Writing

SOL: Poetry Friday is Here!

Catherine Flynn52 Comments

poetry-friday-1-1    11454297503_e27946e4ff_h

Welcome to Poetry Friday! Today is my first time hosting, so I feel like celebrating, and there is a lot to celebrate today. To begin with, it’s the first day of spring! It’s also the International Day of Happiness. What better way to spread happiness than by sharing poetry? So share your poems, read what others have shared, and enjoy! And, to celebrate the publication of The Poetry Friday Anthology for Celebrations, edited by Sylvia Vardell and Janet Wong, I’ll be giving away a copy to one lucky person. Just leave a comment and a winner will be chosen at random. In the meantime, visit Poetry Celebrations for a sneak peek at this fun-filled collection.

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It’s also World Folk Tales and Fables Week. To celebrate that, I’m sharing an original poem inspired by this photo (from a calendar I received for Christmas) and “The Frog Prince.” Although “The Frog Prince” is technically a fairy tale, the connection was too good to pass up.

Automaton, Swiss, 1820 Metropolitan Museum of Art, Gift of Murtogh D. Guinness, 1976
Automaton, Swiss, 1820, Metropolitan Museum of Art, Gift of Murtogh D. Guinness, 1976

No princess would refuse this frog
with shiny ruby eyes.
His pearl encrusted legs
would surely mesmerize.

But, oh, poor frog, trapped within
this jeweled enamel toy;
no longer can he jump and splash,
or sing his songs of joy.

Her company cannot replace
the summer sky above.
Back to the pond he’d rather go,
And forsake her possessive love.

© Catherine Flynn, 2015

Please leave your link in the comments and I’ll be back throughout the day to round up your links. Thanks so much for stopping by!

Spring is sprouting everywhere today!

Robyn Hood Black at Life of the Deckle Edge starts us off by celebrating spring with a triolet all teachers will relate to.

Buffy Silverman has a menagerie of animal poems at Buffy’s Blog.

At Friendly Fairy Tales, Brenda Davis Harsham has gorgeous photos and a lovely concrete poem about the coming season.

Michelle Barnes welcomes Laura Shovan to Today’s Little Ditty, where shares her plans for an upcoming poetry workshop and a list poem from Heidi Stemple.

Jama is also celebrating spring with a poem from Wendy Cope, a bouquet of photos, and a giveaway of a Julie Paschkis print! 

At Random Noodling, Diane Mayr has two poems for Heidi Mordhorst’s March CH challenge, and at Kurious Kitty, she shares Wallace Stevents “The Poems of Our Climate.”

Keri Collins Lewis, of Keri Recommends, takes us traveling to California with a tanka for Michelle’s challenge.

Colette Bennett celebrates the anniversary of Gen. Douglas MacArthur’s “I Shall Return” speech with a tribute to teachers at Used Books In Class.

Matt Forrest Esenwine is sharing his original poem, “No-Moon Day” at Radio, Rhythm & Rhyme.

Linda Baie at Teacher Dance has another sign of spring with her original haiku, “Arrival.”

Charles Waters has a poem of spring and a basketball poems for Heidi’s CH challenge today at his Poetry Time Blog.

Over at GottaBook, Greg Pincus tries to convince us he’s in a poetry drought. I, for one, find that hard to believe!

At The Opposite of Indifference, Tabatha Yeatts has a beautiful poem, written by her daughter, about finding poems.

Robins have arrived at The Poetry Farm, and Amy is celebrating with an original poem.

At My Juicy Little Universe, Heidi isn’t letting a little snow spoil spring sharing from hatCHing out. Her original poem about 4 year old chefs is making me hungry!

Laura Shovan and Laura Gehl have an interesting discussion about whether rhyming picture books are poetry at Author Amok.

There are more spring poems at Reflections on the Teche, where Margaret is sharing two poems from her talented student, Erin.

Cathy Mere at Merely Day By Day contemplates the beauty of being up before dawn in her original poem.

At The Logonauts, Katie is featuring Jane Yolen,Heidi Stemple and Melissa Sweet’s lovely new book, You Nest Here With Me.

Memories of childhood inspired Donna Smith of Mainely Write to write a hatCH poem for Heidi’s challenge.

Mary Lee ponders hummingbird hatCHings at A Year of Reading.

Catherine Johnson shares a peek into Alice Walker’s book of poems, There is a Flower at the Tip of My Nose Smelling Me.

Myra has a wonderful clip of spoken word poets Sarah Kay and Phil Kaye performing “When Love Arrives” over at Gathering Books.

Tricia at The Miss Rumphius Effect has two inconceivably good poems, both entries from her March Madness rounds.

Have you ever wondered what those black carts full of books at the library are thinking? JoAnn Early Macken share her idea in an original poem at Teaching Authors.

At The Drift Record, Julie Larios is sharing a spring spell, of sorts.

Julieanne Harmatz is sharing an amazing found poem her students have written from their responses to Jacqueline Woodson’s Each Kindness at To Read To Write To Be.

Karen Edmisten is in today with James Weldon Johnson lovely poem, “Deep in the Quiet Wood”.

Bridget Magee has a tanka about a crane fly for Michelle’s challenge at Wee Words for Wee Ones.

At Bildungsroman, Little Willow is sharing “If Spirits Walk” by Sophie Jewett.

Ruth has an original poem about a multitude of tears at There is no such thing as a God-forsaken town.

At Reader Totz, Lorie Ann is sharing “Paulette” from Bronzeville Boys and Girls by Gwendolyn Brooks and illustrated by Faith Ringgold. She also has an original haiku at On Point.

Football season may be over, but that’s no reason not to celebrate Jone’s poem in The Poetry Friday Anthology for Celebrations.

Over at Pleasures from the Page, Ramona shares her thoughts about I Lay My Stitches Down: Poems of American Slavery by Cynthia Grady with illustrations by Michele Wood.

Just in time for National Poetry Month, Kim of Flukeprints has a review of A Poem in Your Pocket, by Margaret McNamara and G. Brian Karas, as well as how she plans to celebrate with her students.

At Poetry for Children, Sylvia Vardell’s 700th (!) post is celebrating the publication of The Poetry Friday Anthology for Celebrations and features “Spring” by Jane Lichtenberger.

Carol Varsalona is anticipating spring in a lovely CH poem at Beyond Literacy Link.

This post is doing double duty for the March Slice of Life Challenge at Two Writing Teachers. Thank you to Stacey, Tara, Dana, Betsy, Anna, and Beth for this space for teachers and others to share their stories each day during the month of March and on Tuesdays throughout the year. Be sure to visit Two Writing Teachers to read more Slice of Life posts.

52 thoughts on “SOL: Poetry Friday is Here!”

  1. Welcome to hosting Poetry Friday, Catherine!

    Thank you for sharing such an intriguing frog-prince poem, with those amazing “pearl-encrusted legs.” I wish this frog could go hop into the old pond with Basho’s frog.

    I have an original poem today, too – a triolet from the point of view of a spring-feverish student (feeling kind of trapped like your frog!): http://www.robynhoodblack.com/blog.htm?post=989350

    So many things to celebrate this week – thanks for all the bright light, and thank you for hosting.

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  4. Happy Poetry! Happy Happiness! And not-so-happy, but oh-so-beautiful frog! Wonderful twist on the classic story, Catherine. Oh, and happy hosting too! Hard to believe this is your first time. It can get a bit cray-cray, but I know you’ll have fun with it!

    On Today’s Little Ditty, Laura Shovan is sharing her process of developing a list poem workshop for elementary school students. http://michellehbarnes.blogspot.com/2015/03/laura-shovan-list-poem-workshop.html

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  5. Happy Spring!

    Poor frog! He sure is beautiful though, and the poem is wonderful. 🙂

    At Alphabet Soup, I’m celebrating Spring with a Wendy Cope poem and a special giveaway of any medium size print from Julie Paschkis’s new shop, Julie Paprika.

    Also, I’m putting together another Poetry Month Kidlitosphere Roundup and asking for links and info from bloggers.

    http://wp.me/p1GE6P-3Ug

    (My link goes live at 6 a.m. EDT)

    Thanks for hosting, Catherine!!

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  7. Hello Catherine! Nice to see you as our newest hostess. The automaton sure is a beauty, and you’ve captured it well–“pearl encrusted legs” sounds luscious to my ears.

    I have two posts, the first, at Random Noodling has more of my Ch poems written in response to Heidi Mordhurst’s challenge. http://randomnoodling.blogspot.com/2015/03/poetry-friday-ch-challenge-continued.html

    The second you’ll find at Kurious Kitty. We’re embracing SPRING big time, and hoping the snow predicted for Friday night stays far south of NH! http://kuriouskitty.blogspot.com/2015/03/poetry-friday-its-officially-spring.html

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  23. Holy crap that was a good poem! (that’s a technical term) I’m going to share it with my second graders as we head off to a play called “Once Upon a Wolf” at the high school today.

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  24. Catherine,
    Yay! I’m so happy you are hosting. Your poem just made me smile. We have many frogs who sing into the night near our house. I can only image how one would feel to be trapped and brought inside. I’m thinking not even a princess could make that work. Frogs surely would miss the beauty of the outdoors. You word choice and rhythms are perfect for this poem.

    Today I’m sharing an original poem, The Black of Morning: http://merelydaybyday.blogspot.com/2015/03/slice-of-life-black-of-morning-20-of-31.html

    (I’m pretty excited to have managed to get my “Slice of POETRY” posted on the early side of the day.)

    Thanks again for hosting,
    Cathy

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  39. Thank you for hosting and all the celebrations! So happy to included in the collection you are giving away. :~) And I enjoyed your poem!

    At readertotz we have Bronzeville by Gwendolyn Brooks with fantastic illustrations by Faith Ringgold. What a beauty!

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  42. Catherine, thanks for hosting! I can see why you couldn’t resist using this bejeweled frog photo for inspiration. The poem is really lovely. Of course, he misses the joy of being alive in a spring pond!

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  43. Catherine, I love your poem about the bejeweled frog! This Poetry Friday bunch of bloggers are either early risers, planners in advancers, or both. Hoping I’m not too late. I’m sharing a book of poetry, I Lay My Stitches Down, that I was introduced to at NCTE in November, checked out from the library in January, and finally got around to sharing for Poetry Friday in March. That took awhile!

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  47. What a beautiful poem about the enamel frog. It is amazing how inspiration is found all around us!! And how thrilled I was to hear it was Happiness Day! That word is precious to me for it is the meaning of the name I gave to my daughter, Allegra! Thank you for a lovely post, Catherine!

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