Poetry Friday -- Autumn Cadenza

Unsplash photo by NordWood Themes

Autumn Cadenza

Oak leaves drift down, a brown rustle.
Crickets are hushed.
Only sound --
plop --
acorns bonk roof.
Steady
drop.
Winter is here
when they
stop.


©Mary Lee Hahn, 2018


This poem is a Zeno, a form invented by J. Patrick Lewis. It has 10 lines with a syllable count that goes 8, 4, 2, 1, 4, 2, 1, 4, 2, 1. The single syllable words rhyme.

I've seen several Zenos in the Poetry Friday Roundup recently, and I thought I'd give it a try. I was inspired by the acorns falling, and I found my rhyming words first. The temperature dropped from the 80s to a morning temperature today in the 40s. On my early morning walk today, the silence was a bit shocking -- no crickets! I'm sure we'll have some more warm weather, but winter has served notice -- she's on her way!

Laura Purdie Salas has the Poetry Friday Roundup this week at Writing the World for Kids.

Poetry Friday: One Topic Many Ways

I was so inspired by the 30 poems Amy wrote about Orion for her NPM18 project. I thought, "What a perfect way to end the year--with an engaging, choice-filled writing workshop!"

We're studying the similarities and differences between first- and second-hand accounts of immigrants, so I put the names of about 15 countries whose people have emigrated to the US in one bag, and, knowing that countries and people wouldn't be everyone's first choice, the names of about 15 animals that migrate into another bag. After the choosing (and liberal numbers of trades), we spent some time gathering information from the encyclopedias. (It's what you do when all of the computer carts are being used for MAP testing.)

Tuesday we started our digital collections in either Google Docs or Google Slides. On Tuesday, the anchor poems/strategies we looked at from Poems Are Teachers were write from first person, start with a question, and use repetition. On Wednesday, the anchors/strategies were write from facts, write from a photo, and ask What if?.

A new poetry form was invented on Tuesday. Harmony attempted a haiku, but counted words instead of syllables, so we named this form the Harmoniku. On Wednesday, Monta reversed the word count to 7-5-7, inventing the Montaiku.

Here is a selection of poems from my students:


Why We Left

When I asked my mother why we left,

she said, “ We couldn't worship freely.”

When I asked my father why we left, 

he said, “ It was the government’s will.”

When I asked my sister why we left, 

she said, “ For a chance.”

by Jawaher

Harmoniku

I was in WWII, FIGHT!!
I had a terrible leader, Adolf Hitler.
I am strong, proud, GERMANY! 

by Harmony

Storks

Why is this baby so heavy! I am flying at 60 mph because I’m late.
Why is this baby so heavy? I betcha her parents are worried.

Why is this baby so heavy! I’m almost there!
Why is this baby so heavy? I’m getting tired!
Why is this-AHHHHHHH!!!
BONK!
Why is this baby so----HEAVY!
At least the baby made it when I threw her!
Wait.
I ate that big bass for lunch
So that means…..
I’m the heavy one!

by Juan

Spain. Especially
Spain. Immigrants all over earth.
Some come, some leave. Why?

by Rayan

Montaiku--Bats

Millions a night fly in the sky
Hunting thousands in the dark
Hunting moths, mosquitoes every night then rest

by Monta

Jama has the Poetry Friday roundup this week at Jama's Alphabet Soup.

Poetry Friday -- One Last Word

One Last Word: Wisdom from the Harlem Renaissance
by Nicki Grimes
Bloomsbury, January 3, 2017
review copy provided (thankyouthankyouthankyou) by the publisher

There is so much to love about this book!

First of all, it is a tribute to the Harlem Renaissance poets. A brief history of the movement begins the book, and there are short biographies of each of the featured poets in the end matter.  The importance of this literary movement, in light of current events, should be one we remember and study and celebrate. 

"These literary lights, writing at a time when the lynching of black men filled the news, were more than familiar with racial profiling, racial violence, and every variety of injustice imaginable. Yet they ascended to great heights in spite of it all...Above all, they understood how to make the most of their freedom, despite living in a nation that had not then, and has not yet, fully realized its promise of freedom and justice for all." --Nikki Grimes, in the forward "The Harlem Renaissance"

Also of note are the gorgeous illustrations. Fifteen illustrators contributed to make this book as vibrant in pictures as it is in the words. Short biographies of the artists in the end matter highlight the talents of these illustrators.

Far and away the most amazing thing about this book is the unique (and challenging!) form in which Nikki Grimes writes her poems of tribute -- the "Golden Shovel." For each of Grimes' poems, she takes a line (or sometimes the whole poem) and uses each of the words as the last word in her poem. Hence, the title of the book.

For example, the line "A thousand hearts echo the sigh" from Clara Ann Thompson's poem, "The Minor Key" is followed by this poem by Nikki Grimes:

COMMON DENOMINATOR

by Nikki Grimes

Anger is a hard itch to scratch; laughter a

secret tickle we let out in a thousand

sneezes, sometimes to camouflage cracked hearts;

love, envy, fear--we all hear their echo.

Peel us to the core, we're indistinguishable. Press the

solar plexus of any, you'll hear the selfsame sigh.

I gave this form a try, using the poem "Nothing Gold Can Stay" by Robert Frost. I liked adding to a poem of submission an element of strength and endurance. 

NOTHING GOLD CAN STAY

by Robert Frost

Nature’s first green is gold,

Her hardest hue to hold. 

Her early leaf’s a flower; 

But only so an hour. 

Then leaf subsides to leaf. 

So Eden sank to grief, 

So dawn goes down to day. 

Nothing gold can stay.

WE ARE HERE TO STAY

by Mary Lee Hahn

We'll begin again from scratch, with nothing.

There is not enough gold

in all the coffers of the world that can

stop us. We are here to stay.

Buffy has the Christmas Eve Eve edition of the Poetry Friday roundup at Buffy's Blog. Happy Christmas/Hanukkah/Kwanza to you!

Reading a Poetry Book With Nonfiction Eyes

The Poem that Will Not End
by Joan Bransfield Graham
illustrated by Kyrsten Brooker
Two Lions, 2014

Like many new nonfiction picture books, this book has lots going on on every page. There is the main text -- the poem-story of how Ryan O'Brian's brain is taken over by rhythm and rhyme -- accompanied by the poems Ryan O'Brian writes as he goes through his day. There are detailed and entertaining illustrations that elaborate on Ryan O'Brian's adventures. At the end of the book, there is more information about the different forms (19 in all!) and the different voices (narrative, lyrical, mask, apostrophe, conversational) he uses in his poems.

So, in the same way that a multi-text nonfiction book can be read and re-read for many purposes, this is a book that readers can return to again and again. It will be interesting to share this book next to a nonfiction book in a minilesson in reading workshop on text structures. In writing workshop, I can share it as a resource for examples of poetry forms and voices. On Poetry Friday, we can be entertained by the main story, or any one of Ryan's poems.

Lots of possibilities here!


Last January, the book launch blog tour began with Sylvia at Poetry For Children. Check the links at the bottom of her post for other blogs on the tour.