Poetry Friday -- Uncertainty

photo via Unsplash

Twenty Questions in Three Voices With No Answers

Can I sleep in every day?
Can I play video games all day?
Who will take care of me?

How will I feed my children?
Who will care for them?
What if I lose my job?

Who will feed and care for my students?
How will we fill this gap in their learning?
How can we help?

Why are they taking away all the fun things?
How come we can't have our carnival?
Why is this happening?

How will I feed my children?
Who will care for them?
What if I lose my job?

How will we fill this gap in their learning?

Will testing season be cancelled?

How can we help?

How can we help?

How can we help?

©Mary Lee Hahn, 2020

At this point, I know as much as you do. Ohio schools are closed for three weeks starting Monday. It will be relatively easy for me -- no child care, internet access, lots of books to read, a garden to tend, a sorely neglected house to clean, art supplies, writer's notebook, April Poetry Month project to concoct. But for our families...

There's nothing we can do right now except wait and see. Will we be required to provide distance learning? Will our students have the support to do any of the activities we send home? How will our free/reduced lunch children be fed? How can we help?

I've missed the Poetry Friday community for the past few weeks. I cleared the last of my big hurdles this week with the publishing of the Casting for Recovery Ohio online auction. Check it out and bid, if you're so moved!

This week's Poetry Friday Roundup is at Radio, Rhythm & Rhyme. Thanks, Matt! And good luck with Madness!Poetry.

Poetry Friday -- The Roundup is Here!

Flickr Creative Commons Photo

boiling water

tea leaves understand

relax

©Mary Lee Hahn, 2017

Welcome to the Poetry Friday Roundup! Have a cup of tea and relax. Leave the madness of the world behind for a few minutes while you peruse the offerings in the roundup. My poem today is a pre December-Haiku-a-Day #haikuforhealing from this past week.

A note about next week's roundup. Lisa at Steps and Staircases will be hosting the roundup. Her blogging platform is Tumblr. She shares this information: 

"Hello poetry friends! The topic/prompt I want to suggest for the December 8 Poetry Friday Roundup is either/and: Respond to "When Life Gives You Lemons..." or write a poem using an object/making a drawing, as Amy Krouse Rosenthal did with a lemon drop. (picture below) If your poem can be expressed visually through a picture or drawing -- like Amy Krouse Rosenthal's "When Life Gives You Lemon Drops"-- I would love to post everyone's visuals. No matter what/how you choose to express yourself, I wanted to share Amy's Lemon Drop poem and her Instagram Project 1,2,3. This is only a suggestion. I look forward to reading all of your submissions!"

When participants go to Lisa's Tumblr space, they should click the "SUBMIT" button at the top of the page to leave their link or their visual. Thanks for being flexible with a different kind of roundup next week.

Also, watch for the Call for Roundup Hosts post, which goes live tomorrow, 12/2. It's time to gather hosts for January - July 2018!

Poetry Friday -- A Kind of Poetry

A Kind of Poetry

by Chi Lingyun

To discover a tree's memories is impossible.

To seek a pebble's experience 
is also impossible.
We spy on water's motion

but in the end we still can't touch its core.

The cloud has always been there, we exhaust our energy
to understand its will, yet there's no hope
it will reveal the sky's mysteries.

Poetry also has the will of clouds

with words like rain, to avoid madness

it creates more madness. Just as when love

is written down, it loses half of its sincerity.
When explained, there is only a layer of sticky
mist left. No one is quick or deft enough

to capture poetry for long. Everything perfect
contains a dark cave.

(the rest of the poem is here -- scroll down to the third poem)

My brother found this poem and shared it with me. I loved it in March, but I love it even more after poetry month. The line, "Just as when love/is written down, it loses half of its sincerity" seems to have been written just for me and my PO-EMotion collaborators! And I found so many dark caves last month...

For more Poetry Friday "spelunking," visit Michelle's roundup at Today's Little Ditty.

Poetry Friday: The Roundup is HERE!

Flickr Creative Commons photo by kristin

A TIME TO TALK

by Robert Frost

When a friend calls to me from the road

And slows his horse to a meaning walk, 

I don't stand still and look around

On all the hills I haven't hoed,

And shout from where I am, "What is it?"

No, not as there is a time to talk.

I thrust my hoe in the mellow ground,

Blade-end up and five feet tall,

And plod: I go up to the stone wall

For a friendly visit.

Thanks, y'all, for stopping by for a friendly visit!

Jan at Book Seed Studio is collecting a list of books that feature young poets as characters. She shares one today.

Matt at Radio, Rhythm & Rhyme has a NH Rock Garden for us today -- could be the one the speaker in my Robert Frost poem is working in!

Mrs. Bennett at Used Books In Class had her students write the narratives behind Shakespeare's sonnets. The results are brilliant!

Michelle at Today's Little Ditty celebrates spring with e.e. cummings.

Laura Salas comes to us from Teaching Authors today with a water poem by Christina Rossetti.

Buffy at Buffy's Blog shares her March Madness Poetry Sweet Sixteen poem. There's still time to vote all day today at Think Kid, Think!

Robyn at Life on the Deckle Edge workshops a haiku for us today.

Beth at Tiny Readers and Writers shares one of her four year-old daughter's original poems.

Jama at Jama's Alphabet Soup is hosting a vintage tea party. She's also the official collector of our Poetry Month 2014 projects and celebrations. Be sure to let her (and us) know what you'll be up to in April!

Diane has three offerings: at Random Noodling, a poem by Tess Gallagher; at Kurious Kitty's Kurio Cabinet, a trip to the circus; and at K.K.'s Kwotes, a poetry quote by Edmond de Goncourt.

Tara at A Teaching Life has a Mary Oliver tribute to her dog Sophie, who makes her pause.

B.J. at Blue Window also has a third round poem in March Madness. Good luck, Authletes!

Irene at Live Your Poem has a Poetry Friday gift for us -- a group SoundCloud page where we can record our poems! How cool is that?!? (As soon as I'm caught up with the roundup, I'll definitely check it out!)

Linda at TeacherDance shares a sweet alphabet poem.

Keri at Keri Recommends ends her celebration of Laura Purdie Salas' Water Can Be... with her favorite spread and a give-away.

Bridget at Wee Words for Wee Ones has a pithy comment on the seemingly endless (snow forecast here YET AGAIN for tomorrow) winter.

Jone at Check It Out is playing with pantoums.

Margaret at Reflections on the Teche writes about her student-voters in the March Madness competition. She took it to another level when she had her students use one of the Authlete's words in their own poems!

Tabatha at The Opposite of Indifference has poetry from the herbary today.

Carol at Carol's Corner shares her favorite spring daffodils with us.

Donna at Mainely Write has bedtime stories and grandparenting on her mind today.

Travis at 100 Scope Notes is back at it with Book Spine Poems! Dump your shelves and make one to submit for his gallery!

Crystal at Reading Through Life shares spoken word poetry, poetry in music, and a few poetry book recommendations.

Dori at Dori Reads has a cinquain from Myra Cohn Livingston.

Charles at Charles Waters Poetry has a smorgasbord of offerings today!

Lorie Ann at readertotz shares a Jane Yolen book of poetry for your little ones, and a haiku at On Point.

Supratentorial recommends a book with poetic text that explores the concept of memory.

City Muse Country Muse shares a poem by Peter Everwine.

Shannon at Van Meter Library Voice tells about a fabulous project two schools created that incorporates Rainbow Loom research and Joyce Sidman's poetry!

Kathleen at What's Next? weaves a Louis Armstrong song with her own words.

Amy at The Poem Farm shares a poem of address, a school visit, and a Poetry Month Project announcement.

Jeannine at Views from a Window Seat shares her thoughts about the new verse novel Miss Emily by Burleigh Mutén, and remembers a conversation about poetry with the author.

Sylvia at Poetry for Children shares the line-up for the Texas Library Association Poetry Roundup session. What an amazing 10-year legacy AND a great line-up for this year!

Little Willow plants seeds of hope with a line or two by Gertrude Stein.

Sherry at Semicolon Blog features Dante Gabriel  Rossetti.

Myra at Gathering Books has a Maya Angelou poem for us today.

Cathy at Merely Day by Day is wandering today.

Ruth at There is No Such Thing as a God-forsaken Town is thinking about the life of words (thanks to a student and Emily Dickinson).

Becky at Tapestry of Words is gearing up for National Poetry Month AND celebrating her 100th post!

Greg at GottaBook announces his plans for 30 Poets/30 Days this year, and shares an original poem from earlier in the week.

Joy at Poetry For Kids' Joy shares a bus ride poem.

Janet at All About the Books shares the rhyming book Animal Snackers.

Catherine at Reading to the Core offers an original poem filled with wonder.

Poetry Friday -- Pancakes!

Flickr Creative Commons Photo by TIm Hamilton

PANCAKES
(Heaven must be a place where there are pancakes.)


Pancakes, pancakes, I love you.
Batter, butter, syrup, too.

Mix them up and pour them out,
use a ladle or a spout.

Pour them in a pan that’s hot,
cook them well, but not a lot.

Get them brown, don’t let them burn
Use a spatula to turn

them over when one side is brown.
Be careful and flip UP not down.

Stack them on a plate real high.
Look at them, let out a sigh.

Melt the butter, pour the maple
(don’t get any on the table!).

Get your napkin, tuck it in
(don’t get maple on your chin!)

Now your fork…get ready…GO!
Eat your pancakes, 10 in a row.

Oh my goodness, this won’t do –
I am full down to my shoes!

Let me rest for just a bit…
Okay, now 10 more will fit!

The bacon’s ready now, you say?

Life is good! I say, “HOORAY!”

©Mary Lee Hahn, 2014

Julie Larios has the Poetry Friday roundup this week at The Drift Record.

Next week, on the brink of Poetry Month 2014, the roundup will be here. I'm hoping you'll share a description of your PoMo14 project for a special roundup within the roundup.

Best wishes to the authletes who are participating in March Madness! Write on!

Poetry Friday -- Recipe

Recipe

The yellowed newspaper clipping
is attached to an index card
with brittle cellophane tape.
"Nov. 1949
Women's Day Kitchen"
is written in faded ink
at the top of the card.

Her canned tomatoes
were from the garden,
mine are from the store.
Her biscuits were made from scratch,
mine are a boxed mix.

She washed up the prep bowls
by hand,
tired after a long day's work.

Some things don't change.


©Mary Lee Hahn, 2014



I am participating in Month of Poetry (#MoP) again this year. It is coordinated and led by Australian poet and children's author Kat Apel, a "friend in my head" (never met her in person) from the March Madness 2012 poetry tournament. The discipline of writing a poem a day for at least a semi-public audience is good practice for April. It's a healthy reminder that I have to take what I get in the 20-30 minutes of #nerdlution writing I've promised myself on a daily basis. I wrote this poem while dinner was cooking last night.

The actual recipe is in Mom's recipe box. It's a childhood favorite that I cooked for her while I was home at Christmas. I copied the recipe down (not word for word) to bring a little HOME back home.

Hamburger Cobbler
Nov. 1949 Women's Day Kitchen

1 sm onion, chopped
1 clove garlic, minced
3/4 lb hamburger
1 tsp salt
1/4 tsp pepper
1/4 tsp marjoram
1/4 lb sliced cheese
1 (cup) can drained diced tomatoes
2 T worcestershire sauce
3 T ketchup

(ingredients for homemade biscuits)
2 1/4 c Bisquick + 2/3 c milk

Sauté onion and garlic, then add hamburger and seasonings and brown. Spread in a 9x9 baking dish. Put sliced cheese on top, then the tomatoes mixed with worcestershire and ketchup. Put blops of Bisquick on top of the tomato mixture. Bake at 450° for 25 minutes.



Donna, at Mainely Write, is cooking up the Poetry Friday roundup this week.

Poetry Friday -- The One I Didn't Submit

Flickr Creative Commons photo "Macro Smiley" by BlueRidgeKitties

SEARCH ENGINE BLUES 

It seemed like a valid request. 

My computer didn’t agree.

Its cold, inhuman glare

left no uncertainty:

there would be no cooperation, 

no figures and nary a fact.

In an ironic change of conditions

I was the one getting hacked.

© Mary Lee Hahn, 2013

This is the poem I didn't submit in the second round of Madness 2013, the poetry tournament hosted by Ed DeCaria at Think Kid, Think. My word was INHUMAN. I tried to write about Orion (human-shaped on an inhuman scale) but my muse wouldn't allow it. Or maybe I should say, I couldn't make anything of it. Whatever the case, I didn't trust the poem I eventually submitted, so I wrote this one and asked a few people to pick their favorite. Hands down, the one I submitted was preferred. You can't believe how scary it was (for me) to submit a poem with regular rhythm and rhyme! That is WAY outside my box. But it was the right poem at the right time. I moved on, and voting is in progress on the third round of poems.

My third round poem using the word CONSERVATIVE is here. When I signed up for #MMPoetry, I knew that most often, funny, rhythmic, rhyming poems carry the day in this contest. In the second round, I played that card myself! So we'll just have to see what my "gorgeous word portrait" (thank you, Carol Wilcox!) can do against an over-confident baseball player. Make sure you visit ALL of the third round poems. Read, vote for what YOU think are the best poems, and join the fun in the comments. 

Greg has the Poetry Friday roundup today at GottaBook, and I'll be hosting next Friday, on the eve (almost) of Poetry Month. I'm hoping to hear about lots of your Poetry Month 2013 projects. I'm hoping I will have decided by then what I'm going to do!



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March Madness Poetry--Round 2 Voting is Open!

INHUMAN vs INCONGRUOUS

a hard working kid thwarted by March weather 

vs. 

the unlikely bond between a tarantula and its prey

Thank You, March Madness Poetry Voters!

Poetry Friday

THE DANCE OF LIFE

Oak,

not mobile,

chaperones,

roots tapping

the season's

beat.

© Mary Lee Hahn, 2013

It's been an amazing poetry week for me. My poem using CAIRN is in a WON a neck-and-neck race with Lori Degman's using CLAQUE in the March Madness 2013 poetry tournament. I'll get my next word tonight, and guess what I'll be doing tomorrow!!

I was interviewed for an Education Week article about poetry in "the Common Core Era." When you share space in an article with Georgia Heard, and Joyce Sidman comments on it on FaceBook, you've got to sit back and have a little wow moment.

I'm starting to gear up for IRA in San Antonio at the end of April:

And, I'm playing a fun little line-by-line game of poetry email ping-pong with today's roundup hostess, Jone, at Check it Out. More on that when we decide it's ready to share.

March Madness Poetry 2013--Time to Vote!

The Round One Poems are up on the Live Scoreboard.

My poem using the word CAIRN is here. 

It is a poem about balance. 

I dedicate this poem to Franki,

and to ALL teachers,

who struggle daily to keep their

"rock piles"

in balance.

http://farm1.staticflickr.com/22/28102100_da5b480bd8.jpg

March Madness Poetry 2013

Shh...Mary Lee's busy writing. Her word is

CAIRN

Photo from Wikimedia Commons

and her poem's due tomorrow morning.

While she works, you can check out the #MMPoetry information at Ed DeCaria's blog, Think Kid, Think.

Poetry Friday -- Bracketology

Last Friday, we introduced the Battle of the Books to our 5th graders and showed them the tournament brackets that will be posted in the hallway.

Every 5th grader will enter a favorite book into the tournament by writing and presenting a summary of the book. This coming Friday, each of the four classes will vote the entries down to the 16 books that will enter the brackets. Competition will continue with head-to-head paragraphs about the books' main characters, the settings, key events in the stories, secondary characters, etc. The day before we leave for spring break, the entire grade level will vote for the overall winning book.

So tournament fever was in the air when we began Poetry Friday last week. One of my students made this bracket for his 16 favorite poems in David Elliott's In the Sea

The poem that wins the book for this student is

The Sea Turtle

Swims the seven seas
for thirty years,
then finds the beach
where she was born --
by magic, it appears.

How can she know to come upon
that far and sandy place?
Rare instruments of nature,
fair compass in a carapace.

© David Elliott, used by permission of the author



In his response to my request for permission to use this poem, David wrote, "...it's also my favorite poem in the book. One of the things I like about it is the juxtaposition of far and fair and how just the addition of one letter can change a word completely. I wish I could say that was a conscious decision on my part, but I'm not sure that it was. (Uh . . .can't remember.) Happy accidents can sometimes make a writer look much better than he is."

I got the "Bracketology" in the title of this post from Burkin and Yaris' post, "March Madness in the Classroom."

To try Bracketology in word study, check out this post at Thinking Stems.

Heidi has the roundup at my juicy little universe. Welcome back to Poetry Friday, Heidi!

POETRY MADNESS

April was a month of POETRY MADNESS in the Riverside Library.  We started out by looking at 64 poetry books from the library.  Rotating from one table to the next, students chose a poetry book they loved. The top 16 books made it to our Poetry Bracket.  

Then, each week, we looked at the challenges on the board--reading poems, sharing thoughts and voting on which book we liked best in each challenge. Each week, a few books moved to the next level of the bracket while others were knocked out.  Until we were down to just two books. The two books in our final challenge were LOOSE LEASHES by Ron Schmidt and Amy Schmidt and SCARUM FAIR.  LOOSE LEASHES came out the winner and the kids were thrilled. This has definitely become the new favorite poetry book in the library this year.

I definitely learned (again) that kids LOVE funny poems.  They like the others if we introduce them but left on their own, they are drawn to poems that are mostly fun.  I was amazed though by how many kids stuck by their less popular choices.  It as fun to see individual students find poetry books and poems that struck them for some reason--not understanding why everyone didn't see what they saw in the poem.

The process was a good one and the talk around poetry was different because of Poetry Madness. Every week, kids would come into the library, eager to see which books had won, which were left. There was informal talk about the books--they knew titles and poems.  

My favorite moment of the whole month of Poetry Madness happened on Friday when the last group of 2nd graders was examining the chart.  Many were cheering about Loose Leashes. Others were looking back at the books that didn't make it, talking about the ones they wished had gone farther in the bracket. One second grade boy said, "I don't know why, but I really wanted STEP GENTLY OUT to win." I said,"Oh, I loved that one too. Why did you like it?" He said, "I don't know. I guess when I read it, I felt peace."  Everyone nodded and agreed.  What an insightful comment. It was then that I realized that the small conversations around Poetry Madness had made a difference to lots of kids. 

In the midst of Poetry Madness, we also celebrated POEM IN YOUR POCKET DAY. Since we had spent so much time looking at 64 great poetry books, it was fun to see the variety of poems that kids chose to carry around that day.  It has been nice to see them talking about poems and poetry books so naturally and happily.

POETRY MADNESS BEGINS!

Ready for POETRY MADNESS to begin!

I am not a big basketball fan but do keep up a bit with MARCH MADNESS. I really have no choice as my husband is obsessed with it for several weeks each year. But I did pay attention when Tony Keefer started talking about the March "Book" Madness he was doing in his classroom. It sounded like such a great way to create amazing conversations and celebrations around books.  I made a mental note to myself to remember this idea next March. Then came March's #Titletalk on Poetry. It was a great discussion as all #Titletalks are and my head was spinning with all of the ideas. Somewhere in the conversation, someone mentioned that you could do a Poetry type March Madness in April for National Poetry Month. The answer to the part of my personality that hates to wait to implement a great idea!

So, this week, we begin POETRY MADNESS in the Riverside Library! It will be a month long event and I can't wait to see how it unfolds.

Before I got too far along in my planning, I needed to really think about my big goals. I am not one to do events just because they sound fun. I need to make sure the time spent adds up to something for my students.  And I don't often do the same thing with all classes in grades 1-5. Last year, we did the POETRY PICNIC in the library and kids are still talking about it.  It was a fun two weeks and gave kids lots of experiences with poetry but the interest in poetry didn't carry beyond the picnic.

Poetry seems to be hit or miss in the library. If a class is working with poetry, kids seem interested but I very seldom have kids check out poetry for their independent reading.  I realized that our kids know books, characters, and authors of lots of books but they do not really know poetry books and poets.  Kids stop me in the hall (several times an hour:-) but I realize they never talk to me about poetry.

So POETRY MADNESS is about changing this. One of the things I love about my job is the ability to invite whole school conversations. Because I see all students, I see siblings. I love when one sibling has heard about something in the library from their brother at home over dinner. I love to hear that conversations around books have made it to the dinner table.

One goal I have is to create a whole school conversation around poetry. Because this is a 4 week event/tournament, there is lots of time for this. I am hoping to have a few displays, include some tournament winners, etc. on our morning announcement TV show, etc.  Just quick things to get the entire school community talking about poetry.

I also want kids to begin to see poetry as something worthy of choosing for independent reading time. By getting their hands on 64 books, I am hoping they find books they want to go back to in the future. Because of this goal, I did not bring in any books from the public library, etc. Instead, I pulled them all from our library shelves.

And, I am hoping to have kids begin to know poems and poets in the ways they know characters and favorite authors.  Because we will be really thinking about 16 books, I will have the opportunity to share information, read poetry, visit poets' websites, etc.

So, we started this week with 64 books.  There was no real system for choosing the 64 books. I wanted books from our library and teachers had already checked several out.  I tried to find a variety of authors, forms, publication dates, etc. Each class rotated to 6 tables during their class time to browse the books. Then, every student in grades 1-5 had a chance to vote for 1 book they were hoping would be in the tournament.  It was such fun to listen to the conversations as they revisited old favorites and discovered new books.

After the first round of voting, we will have 16 books in the POETRY MADNESS tournament. I will place the books in a bracket based on votes (1st and 16th, 2nd and 15th, etc.). So, next week we'll have 8 votes to make. I'll introduce the 16 winners/8contests and kids will vote. I am hoping to have time to read a poem or two from each, share a bit about the book, etc. so kids have something to vote from. I know we will revisit some of these books a few more times so that gives me some flexibility.

The following rotation, we'll be down to 8 winners and 4 contests. And so on. I figure each week, we'll get to dig deeper into the books that are still in the running.  During these last weeks, I will build on opportunities as they occur based on the books chosen and the conversations.

My hope is that conversations around poetry will become part of our school community.  I hope that kids share some of this at home with families at the dinner table and that they begin to include more poetry in their conversations as readers.

Below is a list of the books that we have started with. Can't wait to see this play out!

African Acrostics by Avis Harley
Animal Poems by Valerie Worth
Amazing Faces by Lee Bennet Hopkins
Antarctic Antics by Judy Sierra
The Arrow Finds its Mark by Georgia Heard
The Basket Counts by Arnold Adoff
Beast Feast by Douglas Florian
Behold the Bold Umbrellaphant by Jack Prelutsky
Beyond Old McDonald by Charley Hoce
Bill Martin Jr. Big Book of Poetry by Bill Martin Jr. and Eric Carle
Blackberry Ink
Bookspeak by Laura Purdis Salas
Busy in the Garden by George Shannon
Butterfly Eyes by Joyce Sidman
Button Up! By Alice Schertle
Chicken Scratches by George Shannon
City I Love by Lee Bennett Hopkins
The Cuckoo's Haiku by Michael J. Rosen
Dark Emperor by Joyce Sidman
Dear Hot Dog by Mordical Gerstein
Dinothesaurus by Douglas Florian
Dogku by Andrew Clements
Dogs Rule! By Daniel Kirk
Doodle Dandies by J. Patrick Lewis
Emily Stew by Thomas Rockwell
Emma Dilemma by Kristine O'Connell George
Every Day ís a Dog's Day by Marilyn Singer
Every Thing On It by Shel Silverstein
Falling Down the Page by Georgia Heard
Fold Me a Poem by Kristine O'Connell George
Forgive Me, I Went to Do It by Gail Carson Levine
Frankenstein Makes a Sandwich by Adam Rex
Good Books, Good Times! By Lee Bennett Hopkins
Good Rhymes, Good Times by Lee Bennett Hopkins
Good Sports by Jack Prelutsky
Guyku by BobRaczka
Happy Birthday! by Lee Bennett Hopkins
Here's a Little Poem by Jane Yolen
Hey World, Here I Am by Jean Little
Hip Hop Speaks to Children by Nikki Giovanni
Laugh-eteria by Douglas Florian
Loose Leashes by Amy Schmidt
Lunch Money by Carol Diggory Shields
Mathematickles! By Betsy Franco
More Pocket Poems by Bobbi Katz
My Dog May Be a Genius by Jack Prelutsky
On the Farm by David Elliott
Outside Your Window by Nicola Davies
Red Sings From the Treetops by Joyce Sidman
Scarum Fair by Jessica Swaim
School Supplies by Lee Bennett Hopkins
Something Big Has Been Here by Jack Prelutsky
Splish Splash by Joan Bransfield Graham
Spot the Plot by J. Patrick Lewis
Step Gently Out by Helen Frost
Take Two! A Celebration of Twins by J. Patrick Lewis and Jane Yolen
Tap Dancing on the Roof by Linda Sue Park
This is Just to Say by Joyce Sidman
Truckery Rhymes by Jon Scieszka
A Whiff of Pine, a Hint of Skunk by Deborah Ruddell
The Wonder Book by Amy Krouse Rosenthal
A World of Wonders by J. Patrick Lewis
A Writing Kind of Day by Ralph Fletcher
You Read to Me, I'll Read to You: Scary Stories by Mary Ann Hoberman

Collaboration - a teaching poem, a learning poem

COLLABORATION

Teaching is collaboration,

Not an act in isolation.

Empty vessels don't exist,

Learners' efforts must persist.

Nothing's easy the first time,

But "Oh! I get it!" feels sublime.

Both of us must take a turn.

Two must try for one to learn.

© Mary Lee Hahn, 2012

Poem #1, National Poetry Month 2012

My student N. was so taken by the way the Madness! 2012 poetry tournament worked that she started asking me for words to use as prompts for her own poems. (Franki tells me the same is true of her middle schooler.)

I gave N. a couple of words, but then realized that she needed a self-sustaining strategy for giving HERSELF a challenge. So I told her about Amy LV's Dictionary Hike, and together we went to the dictionary to get ourselves some words. She got TIRE, and I got COLLABORATION. And so begins National Poetry Month 2012!

Cathy, at Merely Day By Day, is joining me in a poem a day this month.

*     *     *     *     *     *

An addendum. Seems to fit with the poem in a Calvin and Hobbes sort of way...

Poetry Friday -- STIGMA

SAFFRON HARVEST

by Mary Lee Hahn

The blooming field
is a purple sea.

Closer
you see rows.

Bent over, I focus
on each crocus.

For 50 millennia,
the three-part stigma –

threads of yellow,
golden glow,

–has been harvested by hand,
bloom by bloom, plant by plant.

Priceless
spice.

Earlier in the week, I wrote a little about the process of writing this poem. How I got from STIGMA, my word in Ed DeCaria's Madness! 2012 poetry contest, to a SAFFRON HARVEST.

My poem didn't quite get enough votes to move me on in the contest, but I do not feel like I LOST in any way, shape or form. In fact, here are a few of the ways I have WON with this contest:

• I am a better writer.
• I am a better writing teacher.
• R. went and got a thesaurus to look up a better word for DRY in one of her poems.
• N. asked for a word so that she could try writing a poem the way I had. She is learning so much about the writing process as I share my process with her -- that it pays to collect definitions, synonyms, rhymes and pages of ideas before you actually start the poem.
• On Wednesday, my Environmental Club "lesson" was on parts of plants and parts of flowers...specifically, STIGMAS. Then we went outside in the warm sun and the brisk breeze and we putzed around in the land lab, peeking into every bloom we could find, looking for the stigmas.
• This from my Mom: "I think more about words since your poetry contest...I wanted to share this beautiful sentence from the book I am reading now--a mystery set in Wyoming, starring a fish and game officer. "A single stringy white cloud seemed to have snagged on the top of the peak like a plastic bag caught on a tree branch." "
• And last, but not least, all of the SUPPORT and kind words from bloggers around the Kidlitosphere, from folks back in my hometown, from friends far and wide, from the teachers and kids at school. 

Happy Poetry Friday! Heidi's rounding us up at my juicy little universe. (Happy Spring Break, Heidi!)

National Poetry Month starts this weekend. I'm sure today's roundup will highlight many of them.

Starting on Sunday, I'll be posting an original, fresh out of the notebook poem-a-day here, in amongst our regular programming. These will be DAILY poems, not polished drafts that I've worked on for five hours. I don't have a particular theme for my poems, like Heidi does, or a particular way I'll be getting my ideas, like Amy LV does. I think I'm going to try playing around with some longer forms (I was inspired by Susan Taylor Brown's pantoum and Amy LV's triolet and Kat's sonnet). Maybe I'll combine my Project 365 photography with poems. We'll just have to wait and see!

From STIGMA to SAFFRON

by Hugh MacLeod at Gaping Void

I subscribe to a free daily dose of these cartoons by Hugh MacLeod. (Sign up here.) It's creepy but wonderful how often they "talk" to me by giving me just the message I need to hear at the moment they land in my inbox.

I used one in a post a week ago, when I was shaking my head at getting the word SCUTTLE in Ed DeCaria's Madness! 2012 Poetry Writing Tournament, and at the crazy improbability that I could even hope to win against the amazing children's poet Julie Larios.

Well, win I did, and the word I got on Sunday night, for a competition against Greg Pincus, master of wit, rhyme and puns is...

STIGMA

I spent 6 straight hours Monday night after school working on a poem that uses the word stigma in it. 

The way I looked at it, I had two options: a poem about social disgrace, or a poem about one of the reproductive parts of a plant.

I was totally stuck because I was trying to write a poem about the word. I needed to write a poem that just used that word in passing. That's when I decided to write a poem about saffron.

What do I know about saffron and saffron harvesting? I have a bottle of it in my spice cupboard. I've cooked with it maybe once or twice in my life. Thank goodness for the internet. I Googled "Saffron Harvest," and through the pictures, video, and websites, I created a virtual experience for myself, and boiled it down into a poem I could be proud of.

As agonizing and frustrating as it was to work for SIX hours on this poem, the moment when I realized I was on the right track was an amazing and addictive kind of high. Because of this contest, I am learning that I really do LOVE to write poetry.

I am not that good at writing funny poems, or poems with a regular rhythm and spot-on rhymes. But I am finding out, through this contest, that I am good at near-rhyme, flow, titles, and nailing down endings.

Voting is still live throughout today for the "Elite Eight" poems in the Madness! 2012 Poetry Contest. My poem is here.  It lost by a couple of votes, but I'm still feeling lika a big winner.

Thank you Ed DeCaria at Think Kid, Think for a fun game.

Forgive Me, I Meant to Do It: False Apology Poems by Gail Caron Levine

I fell in love with Gail Carson Levine years ago when I read PRINCESS SONORA AND THE LONG SLEEP. The humor she brought to her retelling of one of my favorite stories--The Princess and the Pea--was brilliant. And I went on to read the rest of her Princess Tales.  So, I have been looking forward to Gail Carson Levine's new poetry book called FORGIVE ME, I MEANT TO DO IT. I really had no idea what to expect from this book, but knew that I'd want a copy. I picked my copy up at Cover to Cover last week and read it when I got home.

This book was one that made me laugh out loud. Each poem in the book is connected in some way to a fairy tale or nursery rhyme we know.  The poems are apologies from characters, etc. about their actions. But they are false apologies which makes them even more fun. I kept finding poems I wanted to share with my family. (My husband was thrilled as I continued to read samples aloud while cracking myself up--he was trying to watch March Madness...)  One of my favorites was an apology poem from Pinocchio.

I think kids will have a ball with this one. Older kids will make the connections needed to understand the humor.  For some, this may inspire them to read some of Gail Carson Levine's other fairy tales--her retellings and her original tales.

The author's bio on Amazon states that Gail Carson Levine shares a birthday with William Carlos Williams.  How fun, then, for her to write a book inspired by his famous poem!  The author does invite readers to try their own apology poems--she does so with her usual wit:-)

So much to love about this author and this new book!

Poetry Friday Roundup is Here!

WHAT TO DO IF YOU ARE A REDBUD IN SPRING
by Mary Lee Hahn

Burst
first.

Amaze
with the cavalier way
you explode whole constellations of purple stars
from your smooth grey bark.

Add glory
to the understory.

This is my 2nd round poem from the Madness! 2012 kids' poetry writing tournament, along with the redbud in our backyard that saved me from writing a poem about dandelions. A tip of my poet's hat to Elaine Magliaro, champion of the List Poem form. You're still a great teacher!

Voting for the First Flight of the Regional Semifinals has closed! Regional Semifinals, Flight One

Voting for the Second Flight of the Regional Semifinals remains open through today!
Regional Semifinals, Flight Two

Add your Poetry Friday links in the comments. I'll start rounding them up as soon as you start sending them in!

Jone is looking for recipients for her students' Poetry Postcard project in April. Go to Check it Out and sign up! It's fun!

Robyn has cherry blossoms -- and A.E. Houseman -- on her mind at Read, Write, Howl.

Julie shares all three of the poems she's written for the Madness! 2012 poetry tournament over at The Drift Record. We "shook hands" via email before we got our words and agreed that no matter which poem won, we would have fun. Julie is an amazing (Capital-P) Poet and I am honored to have played a round with her!

April continues the Teaching Authors tribute that this blogging group has been giving in honor of team member Jo Ann Macken.

Charles shares his collection of poetry books for adults at Bald Ego.

Linda is combining Slice of Life and Poetry Friday today at Write Time with a poem she's written for her DARLING granddaughter, who just turned two.

Here are Diane's posts for this week:
At Random Noodling I have Donald Hall's "O Cheese."
Kids of the Homefront Army continues with "Selective Service."
Kurious Kitty has Richard Wilbur's "The Writer." And, Kurious K's Kwotes' P.F. quote is by Rita Dove from the introduction to the The Penguin Anthology of 20th Century American Poetry.
At The Write Sisters we have a delightful poem called "Shadow Dance" by Ivy O. Eastwick.

Tara, at A Teaching Life, is also combining her Slice of Life with Poetry Friday. Like Robyn, she has cherry blossoms on her mind, but she brings us some Billy Collins to enjoy while the petals flutter down.

The bloggers at Gathering Books are celebrating Women's History month. Myra brings us a poem and a song that have her thinking about women's voices and women's silences.

Linda at TeacherDance is writing a series of poems of goodbye. Her poems say goodbye to different stages of growing up, and are written for her grandchildren. Linda is also a Slice of Lifer.

Violet shares an original "grandma" poem titled "To Liam when he asks, What's green?" It's at Violet Nesdoly / Poems.

Oh, YAY! David Elliot has a new book of poems, this time about the sea. Mary Ann, at Great Kid Books, gives it (and Holly Meade's illustrations) a glowing review.

At The Opposite of Indifference, Tabatha is linking poems with favorite book characters. She starts things off with poems that Hagrid, Calvin, and Hobbes each might have chosen. My fourth graders are her first guest contributors. They chose poems for the main characters from A Wrinkle in Time. Watch for more in this series, and if you want, you can play along, too!

Greg serves up a strong cup-o-Joe at GottaBook -- one of his poems from the Madness! 2012 poetry tournament. He is "versing" Susan Taylor Brown in the regional semifinals. Their poems will be live and ready for your votes at the tournament site, Ed DeCaria's Think Kid, Think, later today.

Heidi praises the process of "the curious and wonderful phenomenon that this March Madness has become" (the poetry tournament, that is) and shares a priceless poem composed by one of her kinders. Her blog's name -- my juicy little universe -- seems particularly apt today.

At Growing Wild, Liz has an original poem that will appeal to all cat lovers!

Jama has some drool-inducing strawberry shortcake for you today...if you have enough time to read that far! Be prepared for a laugh today at Jama's Alphabet Soup.

Renee shares an entomological love poem ("The Moth and the Flame") by the "pre-published" poet Cathy Mealey. Stop in at No Water River and enjoy the poem, the interview, and be sure you click through to see how Cathy met the rhyme challenge Renee offered up!

Carol's Corner is blooming with daffodils today! She's got a Ralph Fletcher poem for us, from a book with a title I adore: ORDINARY THINGS: POEMS FROM A WALK IN EARLY SPRING.

Welcome to Poetry Friday first-timer Natalie, who blogs at Wading Through Words. She discovered this fabulous community by participating in the poetry tournament at Think Kid, Think! She's got an original poem for us today, to make a monumental occasion in their household. The photo makes a great punchline!

Speaking of the poetry tournament, at Mainley Write, Donna shares an amazing grouse story that lies just behind her winning first round poem for the tournament, "Fox and Grouse."

Joy has a dream poem and a writing exercise for us at Poetry for Kids Joy.

Happy belated World Poetry Day (March 21)! Sally, at Paper Tigers, shares a site that features the seven winners of a poetry-writing contest inspired by the ancient poet Eratosthenes.

Pentimento shares a starting-over-in-Spring poem by Steven Kestenbaum.

Sherry, at Semicolon, has a great quote about form in poetry and Tennyson's "Ulysses."

Amy LV has written a poem that came from a seed planted in her writer's notebook TWELVE years ago! She also shares some happy publication news today at The Poem Farm.

Books 4 Learning reviews MIRROR, MIRROR by Marilyn Singer: "Mirror Mirror is a celebration of the vigor and potential of language." So true!

Karen Edmisten shares a different sort of starting-over-in-Spring poem by Gary Young. Compare/contrast with the one Pentimento shared (above). Turn and talk to your neighbor.

Sing along to "Gold," by Fergus O'Farrell with Little Willow over at Bildungsroman. This song can be heard in the film ONCE and the new stage adaptation of ONCE, which is now on Broadway. Little Willow shares links, in case you need some help with the tune!

At Wild Rose Reader, Elaine has an original acrostic using the word bud, and proud-grandma pictures of her family's little bud!

Laura (Author Amok) writes: "To celebrate spring, I have a gardening poem by Susan Hendrickson and an invitation to participate in my 2012 National Poetry Month Project, 30 Habits of Highly Effective Poets (odd or practical, you choose)."

Spring is bringing rain and a Sara Teasdale poem to Dori at Dori Reads.

Lori Ann Grover has two links for us today: "Little Bobby Snooks" at readertotz, and "Periscope" at On Point.

At Musings, Joyce reviews Paul Janeczko's REQUIEM: POEMS OF THE TEREZIN GHETTO. She's right -- it's not a fun book, but it's definitely an important book.

Betsy, at Teaching Young Writers, has a sidewalk chalk haiku for us today!

Thank you, Ruth (at There is no such thing as a God-forsaken Town) for the Billy Collins TED Talk! I missed that one and now I will not have to go any further than your blog to watch it!

15 Words or Less are accumulating at Laura Purdie Salas' Writing the World for Kids.

100 Scope Notes is gathering book spine poems again this year for Poetry Month. Start pulling books of your shelf and get your camera ready!

A slam-dunk review of Hoop Kings by Charles R. Smith can be found at All About the Books with Janet Squires.

Kelly Fineman, at Writing and Ruminating, is the interviewee, instead of the interviewer now! Congrats!!

Cathy has the perfect poem for the beginning of spring break, comparing the perceptions of eighth graders to first graders as they face a week away from school. You can find Cathy's poem on Slice of Life blog, Merely Day By Day.