Poetry Friday -- A Poetry Challenge

My students love Poetry Friday. They've never experienced it the way we did it in the past -- browsing for a book on the tall white shelf full of poetry, sitting with a partner or two, heads bent over the book, looking for just the right poem, practicing until it could be said just right, then standing in front of classmates to read with loud enough and expressive voices...and getting the feedback of laughter for the funny poems, or sighs for the beautiful ones, and always the finger snaps of appreciation.

Poetry Friday these days is flying through the interweb to a breakout room, pulling up Irene Latham's or Amy LV's rich online resources, choosing a poem, practicing, then flying back to perform from separate squares in the Google Classroom.

Last Friday, several groups chose the same poem on Irene's site. Hearing the poem over and over again gave us a chance to think about the meaning of the title in relationship to the poem. Maybe you saw it? The poem is called WHY RIVER SMILES IN WINTER, but the poem is mostly about the snow. We wondered why the river was smiling, and figured it was kind of sneaky, greedy smile, since it is gulping the fair snow. A casual "We would love to know why you chose that title" resulted in an explanation and an invitation to join Irene for her last winter poem which uses Sleigh Ride by Winslow Homer for inspiration. (Thank you SO MUCH for your generosity, Irene!) One student took the challenge with me. Here are our poems:

picture via wikimedia commons

Sleigh Ride
By: J.L.
For: Irene Latham

Here we go, very fast
Off to make the good times last.
Our sleigh is zooming,
Our fun is blooming,
Out on our wondrous Sleigh Ride.

No need to hide,
No need to cry,
As we ride our worries away.
Here we go,
Happy today.
Out on our wondrous Sleigh Ride.

SLEIGH RIDE

shhh
say the runners
sliding through the snow

smack
say the reigns
asking horse to go

ching ching
say the bells
on the harness and the sleigh

flap flap
say the wings
of the crows that show the way

peekaboo
say moon and clouds
thanks for coming out to play


© Mary Lee Hahn, 2021

Linda B. has a TIMEly post at TeacherDance for our Poetry Friday Roundup, and be sure to check in with Susan at Soul Blossom Living to share your NPM project and logo. She'll be doing the NPM project roundup this year because of some tech issues Jama's having. 

Winter Memory

Life is not measured by the breaths we take, but by the moments that take our breath away.  ~Unknown

Winter Memory*

When you consider the life

of another creature, it is is

often humbling. The temperature that day was not

much above zero. We measured

the cold by

the

frost on our scarves from our breaths.

We

were by the lake to take

winter pictures, but

we became fascinated by

the

geese in the water. After a few moments

of observation, we could see that

the cold didn’t seem to bother them. We had begun to take

our

photos when we saw it – goose breath

puffing in the cold air. Blew us completely away.

©Mary Lee Hahn, 2018

*Mr. Wald, our classroom stool-repairer, provided the memory that became this poem.

Poetry Friday -- Sky Poem

Poem for the Golden Sky I See Outlining a Web of Winter-Bare Trees and Contrasting the Blue-White Snow-Topped Roofs When I Open My Eyes All Warm and Drowsy After a Nap on a Day Proclaimed to be Too Cold to go to School

I love you.


©Mary Lee Hahn, 2015



Linda has the Poetry Friday roundup at TeacherDance this week.

Science in Poetry

Winter Bees: & Other Poems of the Cold
by Joyce Sidman
illustrated by Rick Allen
HMH Books for Young Readers, 2014

As I noted yesterday, J. Patrick Lewis' anthology title says it all: "Everything is a Poem." Today we'll look at science in poetry. Upcoming posts include nature, history, biography and imagination in poetry.

Joyce Sidman's Winter Bees is the perfect book to usher in this year's first Polar Vortex. Every day, compliments of the TV weather reporters, we are getting a science lesson in meteorology. Sidman's book will answer questions about how animals survive in the cold.

Each of the dozen poems, most about animals ranging in size from moose to springtail, but also including trees and snowflakes, is accompanied by a short sidebar of scientific information that expands the scope of this book to topics such as migration, hibernation, and the shape of water molecules, and introduces such delicious vocabulary as brumate, ectothermic, furcula, and subnivean.

The illustrations are simply gorgeous. You will want to spend as much time with them as you do savoring Joyce's poems. Watch out for that fox -- s/he wanders throughout the book!

As you and your students explore this book and Joyce's others, don't forget to check out Joyce's website. It is a treasure-trove for readers, writers, and dog lovers.


Keri has the Poetry Friday roundup this week at Keri Recommends.

Fox's Garden

Fox's Garden