During a trip to the hardware store earlier this week, I found myself standing in front of a rainbow of paint chips. They reminded me of my friend Margaret Simon’s recent post about the poems she and her class wrote using paint chips. The shades of blues were irresistible to me. Without reading the names, I selected a handful of cards.
Later, I sorted the chips into categories. Soon I had a list of weather words, ocean words, and a few miscellaneous words. Margaret wrote unrelated words on the back of the paint chips she prepared for her students. I added words that the color names brought to mind and came up with this draft. The color names are italicized.
celestial light dapples iridescent opal waters rippled by sea winds blowing in from distant shores
Photo by Sime Basioli via Unsplash
This was so much fun I may go back to the hardware store today for more paint chips! I can’t wait to introduce paint chip poetry to students.
Please be sure to visit Heidi Mordhorst at My Juicy Little Universe for the Poetry Friday Roundup. Also, thank you to Stacey, Betsy, Beth, Kathleen, Deb, Melanie, and Lanny for creating this community and providing this space for teachers and others to share their stories every day in March and each Tuesday throughout the year. Be sure to visit Two Writing Teachers to read more Slice of Life posts.
Last week, my lovely and talented friend, Robyn Hood Black, invited her Poetry Friday friends to find a poem in a passage she shared from Cassell’s Family Magazine. The passage reminded me of a collection of cut outs I have that my grandmother and her sister used as paper dolls that date to 1916 or so. A little digging revealed that most of these came from The Delineator, “an American women’s magazine of the late 19th and early 20th centuries, founded by the Butterick Publishing Company.” (from Wikipedia) I searched my grandmother’s collection for styles that matched the description in the passage Robyn shared, but it’s from the 1890s, so fashions had changed. But I was able to find a few stylish dresses that have some similar features.
Because I live in spring-deprived New England, I found all the weather words to create my poem. Thank you, Robyn, for this fun exercise!
WHAT TO WEAR IN APRIL
The long cloak savors of SPRING; it opens at the neck and TRIMS with close feather bands, instead of fur. It is composed of ribbed silk AND EMBROIDERED velvet, the velvet is cut as a Bolero jacket, elongated into panel sides over which fall the long pointed sleeves, embroidered on THE OUTSIDE of the arm, and edged like the jacket with ball fringe in character with the hat. It is a mantle that completely covers the dress. The muff matches the hat, and I notice
women are wearing them WELL ON TO SUMMER, partially because they are so infinitesimal. The floral muffs are often carried by bridesmaids; they are made of satin and COVERED WITH FLOWERS so that little but of the foundation is seen. They let the odour of the flower be easily enjoyed by the holder, and are more to be DESIRED than BOUQUETS because they have a raison d’être. (From Cassell’s Family Magazine)
WHAT TO WEAR IN APRIL
SPRING TRIMS AND EMBROIDERED THE OUTSIDE WELL ON TO SUMMER COVERED WITH FLOWERS DESIRED BOUQUETS
Inspired to try found poetry with your students? Don’t miss Linda Mitchell‘s terrific work with her eighth grade library students!
Thank you to Stacey, Betsy, Beth, Kathleen, Deb, Melanie, and Lanny for creating this community and providing this space for teachers and others to share their stories every day in March and each Tuesday throughout the year. Be sure to visit Two Writing Teachers to read more Slice of Life posts.
National Poetry Month is just around the corner and, like many of you, I’m thinking about ways to share the joy of poetry with my students. One of my favorite poetry warm-ups is creating book spine poetry. Here are a few short verses using books old and new.
Hey world, here I am!
Save me a seat.
This is the chick.
Handle with care.
The girl who drew butterflies
Finding wonders
under the egg.
On a magical, do-nothing day,
another way to climb a tree!
What are you waiting for?
Birdsongs,
voices in the air.
Feathers
soar
north on the wing.
Congratulations to Keri Snowden! Keri is the winner of a signed copy of Meet My Family: Animal Babies and Their Families by Laura Purdie Salas.
Speaking of Laura, please be sure to visit her at Writing the World for Kids for the Poetry Friday Roundup. Also, thank you to Stacey, Betsy, Beth, Kathleen, Deb, Melanie, and Lanny for creating this community and providing this space for teachers and others to share their stories every day in March and each Tuesday throughout the year. Be sure to visit Two Writing Teachers to read more Slice of Life posts.
I have lived in New England my entire life. Certain snowstorms are vivid in my memory. In the late 60s, a drift the size of a dump truck blocked our street for what seemed like days and we had to get fresh milk straight from the farm across the street. When we returned to school after the blizzard of ’78, the snow was drifted to the roof of our sprawling, one-story school in some spots. I even remember one winter when we didn’t have a single snow day until March. Then we had one every week.
But I can’t remember any winter that compares to the weather we’ve had in the past two weeks. Three nor’easters since the beginning of March have dumped almost two feet of snow at my house, and we’re on the lower end of the snow totals! Even though it’s still winter, the days are getting longer and snow melts quickly at this time of year. There was even a tiny hint spring in the air last week.
So when I reread the poems Nikki Grimes and Michelle Heidenrich Barnes shared for this month’s ditty challenge, this line, from Nikki’s poem, “Truth, by Tyrone Bittings,” shone out like a beacon:
a reason for a song
It made me think of a photo of crocuses blooming in the snow I’d seen recently and inspired this Golden Shovel:
By Meneerke bloem (Own work), via Wikimedia Commons
Please be sure to visit Linda Baie at TeacherDance for the Poetry Friday Roundup. And thank you to Stacey, Betsy, Beth, Kathleen, Deb, Melanie, and Lanny for creating this community and providing this space for teachers and others to share their stories every day in March and each Tuesday throughout the year. Be sure to visit Two Writing Teachers to read more Slice of Life posts.
This conversation reminded me that for the past few years, I’ve celebrated Pi Day with a Pie poem. This year, I used 3.14159 syllables to structure my poem.
Blueberry, Peach, Lemon meringue. Sweet fruit wrapped in flaky crust. Every care melts away with one bite.
Thank you to Stacey, Betsy, Beth, Kathleen, Deb, Melanie, and Lanny for creating this community and providing this space for teachers and others to share their stories every day in March and each Tuesday throughout the year. Be sure to visit Two Writing Teachers to read more Slice of Life posts.
Last week, Slicer Christie Wyman of Wondering and Wandering realized she was writing about a topic she’d written about last year. (Another nor’easter; my New England friends don’t even want to think about the new one brewing for next week!) Christie wondered, “do you have a slice from last year’s SOLC you could revisit because some things never change? Or maybe because they have!”
I had already been considering revisiting an exercise from Karen Benke’s Rip the Page: Adventures in Creative Writing. (Read another post inspired by this book here.) Here’s the explanation of “Juxtaposition” (found on page 56) from last year’s post:
This exercise begins by folding a piece of paper in half lengthwise, then choosing ten words from one of the many word lists in the book. Next, add a descriptive word in front of each of the chosen words. Turn the paper over and follow the directions for what to write next. When you unfold the paper, write “Poetry Is” at the top. Try various combinations from the assortment of words and phrases you wrote until you find a “juxtaposition…two unlike things (side by side) to wake up your ears and make your mouth smile.”
In response to last year’s post I wrote, Some of these pairings aren’t really a surprise, but I liked the images they conjured.
I did not reread the last year’s poem before starting this year, but some images appeared again anyway. I guess those words and ideas are deeply ingrained in me. Last year’s poem is structured differently from this year’s poem, and I think I like it a little better, but this year’s poem created some images that deserve a poem of their own.
Poetry hides…
In gentle rains of summers past In rippling, whispering waves In the soft peaks of a lemon meringue pie
Poetry lurks…
under the slow drift of pale sunshine inside the molten silver of Wednesdays behind the secret of cerulean blue
Poetry lives…
inside a cosmic whirl of serenity in the full moon of my imagination within the quickening spark of my heart.
This activity is exactly what Benke’s subtitle promises: an adventure in creative writing. Students love it for many reasons. Some of the combinations turn out to be very funny. It also provides a structure that reluctant writers find comforting and supportive. Confident writers will appreciate the flexibility they have to play with the format of their poem. The possibilities are endless!
Photo by Jeff Golenski via Unsplash
Thank you to Stacey, Betsy, Beth, Kathleen, Deb, Melanie, and Lanny for creating this community and providing this space for teachers and others to share their stories every day in March and each Tuesday throughout the year. Be sure to visit Two Writing Teachers to read more Slice of Life posts.
I spent much of the evening working on a writing project that I hope to tell you about one day. After playing with one four-line stanza for the better part of an hour, it was time to step away. My brain was too muddled to make any more progress on this day. Then I realized I hadn’t written anything for Poetry Friday! I searched my recent jottings and found the bare bones of this poem hiding in my notebook. Since this is what I’d been doing all evening, it seemed appropriate to polish it up a bit and share it today.
Find a word write it down play with its meaning listen to its sound.
Pick another do the same string them together make it a game.
Soon you will have a new work of art a story or poem straight from your heart.
Please be sure to visit Michelle Heidenrich Barnes at Today’s Little Ditty for the Poetry Friday Roundup. Also, a big thank you to Stacey, Betsy, Beth, Kathleen, Deb, Melanie, and Lanny for creating this community and providing this space for teachers and others to share their stories every day in March and each Tuesday throughout the year. Be sure to visit Two Writing Teachers to read more Slice of Life posts.
My mother is a shadowy mountain. I scale her thick, furry limbs. I ride along on the broad, flat ridge of her back as we roam our rain forest home. I snuggle into the cave of her arms, safe, when we nest each night. The mountain sustains me. My mother.
This poem was inspired by the photo of a carved mountain gorilla mother and child shared by my partner-in-poetry and Slicing, Christie Wyman, for Laura Shovan’s Ekphrastic Poetry Project. For me, the facial expressions of these critically endangered animals brought this carving to life. It appealed to me immediately, and I had a general idea of what I wanted to write. What I needed was a form that suited my ideas.
There are many well known poetic forms that I could have tried, but I wanted something that would ring true to the African roots of this carving. I didn’t find anything suitable in a search through my poetry reference books, so I turned to Google. There I found an form called the “Eintou.” Described as an “African American septet syllabic/word count form consisting of 2 words/syllables in the first line, 4 in the second, 6 the third, 8 the fourth, 6 the fifth, 4 the sixth, and 2 the seventh.” In addition, “Eintou” is from a West African dialect and means “pearl, as in pearls of wisdom.” The structure also reflects the African and African American philosophy that “life is a cycle. Everything returns to that from which it originates.”
An Eintou felt exactly right for this poem. Now my only problem was matching the word count. I drafted several versions that stuck to the structure explained online, but it just wasn’t working. In keeping with my efforts to develop my Habits of Mind, I decided that by “creating, imagining, and innovating,” I could modify the structure and add a 10 word line in the middle and work back to two words from there. (This form has the added, unintentional bonus of being shaped like a mountain!) I think I maintained the spirit of the form. Also, I definitely stayed true to the purpose of Laura’s project, which “is to practice the habit of writing regularly,” the same purpose of the Slice of Life Challenge.
Thank you to Stacey, Betsy, Beth, Kathleen, Deb, Melanie, and Lanny for creating this community and providing this space for teachers and others to share their stories every day in March and each Tuesday throughout the year. Be sure to visit Two Writing Teachers to read more Slice of Life posts.
Have you ever had the experience of passing an object on a daily basis and not really seeing it? We get so wrapped up in our busyness that we fail to notice the beauty present all around us. This is certainly true of this silk embroidery. It was given to my husband’s grandfather, an Army major, when he served in Southeast Asia during World War II. (I’m embarrassed to admit I don’t know exactly where or by whom.) When our son, the first son of a first son, was born, Rodney’s grandparents gave it to us. It’s been hanging in our upstairs hallway ever since, but I never really stop to LOOK at it.
When Laura Shovan announced that her February Poetry Project would be ekphrastic poetry inspired by art in participant’s homes, I knew I wanted to share this embroidery. These playful birds and delicate petals deserve a poem. (Or a dozen or more!)
Playful swallows swoop
among dancing white blossoms
chittering, chirping
iridescent acrobats
tumbling on a spring breeze
Don’t forget to visit Renée LaTulippe at No Water River for the Poetry Friday Roundup. Also, thank you to Stacey, Betsy, Beth, Kathleen, Deb, Melanie, and Lanny for creating this community and providing this space for teachers and others to share their stories every day in March and each Tuesday throughout the year. Be sure to visit Two Writing Teachers to read more Slice of Life posts.
Every month I look forward the Ditty Challenge that Michelle Heidenrich Barnes shares on her blog. In February, to celebrate their new book, Last Laughs: Prehistoric Epitaphs (Charlesbridge, 2017), J. Patrick Lewis and Jane Yolen challenged Michelle’s readers to write an epitaph poem. All month I’ve been at a loss for a topic. Then, yesterday, inspiration arrived in the mail:
“An Epitaph for Medusa”
With slithering, serpentine hair
and a cold, penetrating stare,
you turned men into statues of stone, so most mortals left you alone.
But while you slumbered in bed, Perseus chopped of your head. Now, instead of resting in Elysian’s field, you’re entombed on Athena’s bronze shield.
Reading to the Core 