Naomi Shihab Nye has famously said that “poems hide…What we have to do is live in a way that lets us find them.” I often find inspiration in images, and when I saw this photo on Twitter recently, I knew a poem was hidden within:
Indigo Milk Cap, by Dan Molter [CC BY-SA 3.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0)%5D, via Wikimedia CommonsWhat I didn’t expect was where this poem would take me. Which is, after all, the point of writing.
At a bend in the trail I freeze, startled by an upturned mushroom. Suddenly, I’m at your kitchen table, wisps of morning breeze, rich with melodies of songbirds, drifting in through wide-open windows as you set an ancient flow-blue bowl before me. Nestled within its chipped rim are glistening blueberries, which you rose at dawn to pick, making sure to leave a few for the birds.
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 Tuesday. Be sure to visit Two Writing Teachers to read more Slice of Life posts.
Today, the KidLitosphere is celebrating poet and anthologist extraordinaire Lee Bennett Hopkins‘s 80th birthday. Although I’ve never met Lee, he has been a guiding light to me for years. Pass the Poetry, Pleasewas one of the first professional books I purchased when I began teaching, and the poetry section of my classroom library is filled with anthologies Lee has edited over the years. More recently, Lee’s wise words have helped me write and polish my own poetry.
It was impossible for me to choose one favorite Hopkins book or poem to share today, so I created a found poem using the titles of some of Lee’s books.
To Lee Bennett Hopkins, on his birthday:
Pass the Poetry, Please!
Good Rhymes! Good Times! Days to Celebrate: Hanukkah Lights, Christmas Presents, Halloween Howls, Morning, Noon, and Nighttime, Too!
Wonderful Words: Alphathoughts, Hand in Hand Jumping Off the Library Shelves
I Am the Book Blast Off! The Sky is Full of Song, Full Moon and Star
Sky Magic Sharing the Seasons On the Farm A Dog’s Life, A Pet For Me
My America Home to Me Amazing Places City I Love
World Make Way Time to Shout: Happy Birthday!
Please be sure to visit Robyn Hood Black at Life of the Deckle Edge for a special Poetry Friday Roundup of birthday wishes for Lee Bennett Hopkins!
Today’s poem was inspired by Janet Wong’s prompt for Renée LaTulippe’s Community Collection earlier this week. Janet shared “Joyce’s Beauty Salon,” a poem from her book A Suitcase of Seaweed and other Poems. Inspired by Janet’s mother’s beauty salon, the poem recalls women leaving the salon “carrying a lighter load” because of Joyce’s magic. Janet asked poets to consider this: “Is there something you can do—or someone you can count on—to help you “carry your load”?
As I was thinking about Janet’s question, I turned the page on my desk calendar and saw this photo:
Short-tailed Albatrosses, photo by Tui De Roy
These two birds are surely helping one another carry their load! A little research revealed that the short-tailed albatross was hunted nearly to extinction at the turn of the 20th century for its delicate white and yellow feathers. Today, it breeds on only two Japanese islands, one of which is threatened by volcanic eruptions. Scientists are working to establish additional colonies on other islands in an effort to save these beautiful birds.
The look of content on the smaller bird’s face inspired this poem:
No gilded palace or cushioned throne could lure me from our island home.
Murmuring in the moonrise beak to pearly beak, By your side forever, cheek to feathered cheek.
As you may know, April is National Poetry Month. Many poets and bloggers are writing and sharing a poem a day in celebration. I won’t be posting daily, but I am following these projects and joining in when I can. Today, I’ve created a Golden Shovel (Mary Lee Hahn’s project) with a line taken from a recent episode of Krista Tippett’s program, On Being.This is one of my favorite podcasts. Tippett interviews a wide range of theologians, scientists, philosophers, poets, among others to, as explained on their website, “pursue deep thinking and social courage, moral imagination and joy, to renew inner life, outer life, and life together.”
In “Cosmic Imagining, Civic Pondering,” Tippett facilitated a conversation between the creator and editor of Brain Pickings, Maria Papova, and Natalie Batalha, an astrophysicist at NASA’s Ames Research Center. Their rich and thought-provoking exchange was full of insights, and I found myself nodding in agreement over and over again. After poring over the transcript, I chose this line to create today’s poem:
“We share this tender planet.” Maria Papova
Photo by Douglas Mills via Flickr
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 Tuesday. Be sure to visit Two Writing Teachers to read more Slice of Life posts.
For the first time in five years, I am NOT celebrating a month of slicing. Despite a record number of snow days, despite staying healthy, posting a slice every day eluded me. That’s not to say I haven’t been writing. I have. I just couldn’t get into a groove with slicing.
Photo by Aaron Burden via Unsplash
Even though I didn’t participate in the challenge on a regular basis, I did want to post something today. But as I drafted a few ideas last night, nothing clicked. Then, this morning, I read my friend Linda Mitchell’s Poetry Friday post. Linda had used Gary Soto’s “Ode to Pablo’s Tennis Shoes” as a mentor for a poem she read at a friend’s Bar Mitzvah. This was exactly the form I needed for my end-of-March slice.
Ode to Lost Slices
They wait in my notebook half-baked, embryonic ink-smudged at the edges where I feverishly scribbled ideas before they evaporated, my attention grabbed by a bird at the window. Some thoughts made it to page, to screen to you (who are you?) Others are gone, out of reach.
Now it’s the end of March. I sit at my desk, listening to the birds chittering it the treetops, grateful for warm sunshine. My ideas, friends who flutter through my brain are whirling. I should not have slept, But I did. (Wisps of dreams still cling to my hair.)
I want to tame my thoughts, still wild and winged, capture them on this page where they’ll make some sense to me, to you, a friend, to whomever stumbles across them in this vast universe. I love writing, polishing ideas until they shine, then sending them out to fly on their own. But I’m distracted. I skink into my chair. My eyes sting from the harsh words
that inundate our world. I need eight hours (days?) of peace and quiet to let ideas settle, grow their flight feathers, and soar.
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.
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.
The scene outside is all too familiar: fine, steady snow being buffeted about a persistent northeast wind. Inside, the scene is a little different: an flower pot filled with potting soil awaits a rooted begonia leaf. To heck with snow. It’s spring, and I’m planting!
This cutting is descended from a plant that originally belonged to my great-great grandmother and was kept alive for the better part of the twentieth century by my great-aunt. After she passed away, my mother inherited the plant. Now, my sister and I are keepers of this hardy, giant-leafed plant. Starting a new plant is as simple as cutting off a leaf and plopping it into a jar of water. It doesn’t take long for roots to erupt from the bottom of the stem. Once they’ve appeared, the leaf can be planted. Today’s plant is for my son and his fiancé’s new apartment.
The parent plant has taken over this part of my bedroom!
I’m not ordinarily a rebellious person. But planting this next generation begonia today was my act of defiance against all this snow. Happy spring, everyone!
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 family’s different–each family is just right!”
Laura Purdie Salas
Welcome to the latest stop on the Blog Tour for Laura Purdie Salas’s beautiful new book, Meet My Family: Animal Babies and Their Families (Millbrook Press, 2018). When I first read Laura’s heartfelt words and saw Stephanie Fizer Coleman‘s lively illustrations, I knew this book was a perfect mentor text for student writing.
Laura was inspired to write Meet My Family by feelings she had about her own family growing up. In her interview with Kirby Larson (the link is listed below), Laura says that “my family felt very different from other families.” She hopes “this book might erase some of the shame so many kids feel about their families.”
One of my colleagues is the most amazing Kindergarten teacher on the planet, and she welcomed me into her classroom to share Laura’s book with her students and work on this writing project with them. After reading Meet My Family to the children, we talked about all the different kinds of animal families in the book. Then we talked about all the ways our own families are different. After brainstorming together, the kids wrote a sentence about their own family.
The next day, we reread the book, this time looking closely at the subtext on each page. Again, using Laura’s text as a mentor, the students added details to their writing about their family. Some chose to write about activities they do together, others wrote about favorite foods. Everyone gained an appreciation for all the different kinds of families we have!
Illustrations are a very big deal for Kindergarteners, and they couldn’t wait to start drawing their families. We even used the cover layout as a model for the cover of the book we created.
Here is their work:
I live with my mom and dad in my house. We love to babysit my baby cousin.
by R.
I am the only child. And sometimes I go out to walk with my family.
by R.
I have three sisters. I watch TV with my sisters.
by S.
I moved across the country. Sometimes we go on hikes!
by J.
I live with my family. We go to Five Guys for burgers.
by L.
I am the smallest in my family! My family likes to bike together! I like my family!
by K.
I am the youngest in my family. I went with my family in the forest. We had fun.
by A.
I live with my brothers and my baby sister. My family likes to go to the beach.
by I.
I live with my mimi and poppy. We like to go out to dinner.
by Z.
I have one sister. After school we go to gymnastics. It is tiring and it is fun.
by B.
I live with my mom and my brothers. We play Manhunt outside. I am fast.
by L.
My brother is eight and I am five. My baby sister is two. I live with my Nana and my PopPop, my puppy and cats.
by E.
I live with my mommy and dad and my baby sister, too. After school I help mom and dad make chicken for dinner.
by L.
These Kindergarten students are very proud to share their work today, and are already busy planning their next writing project. Thank you, Laura, for writing this informative, inspiring book!
Thanks to Laura’s generosity, one lucky reader will win a copy of Meet MyFamily!Just leave a comment before midnight, Thursday, March 22nd, to be entered in the drawing.
To find out more about Laura and this wonderful book, be sure to visit the other stops on the Meet My Family Blog Tour:
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.
Reading to the Core 