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.

Scuttle

by Hugh MacLeod at Gapingvoid.com

My new word in Ed DeCaria's Madness! 2012 Poetry Writing Craziness Tournament (subtitled with the best and truest subtitle ever: "Kids' Poetry. Under Pressure.")

is

SCUTTLE.

And who am I "versing"?

(In kid lingo, "versing" means "competing against," but isn't it the perfect word to mean "competing against in a poetry tournament"???)

I am versing Julie Larios.

So, yes. I am dreaming big.
And I am working hard.

I think I'm pretty close to a final draft that I like and can be proud of.

We're Officially On Vacation

Except for updates on the Madness! 2012 Tournament, we are taking our Spring Break away from the blog.

Update: Voting is open on the first flight of the round two poems. Mine (CAVALIER) is here.

Cavalier

My second round word in the Madness 2012 poetry tournament is

CAVALIER.

Um...yeah.
Not as easy as whacked.
I got stuck for a REALLY long time.
But then, just like last time, all the words fell into place. I like it.

My poem has been submitted (without kid testing this time). Voting will begin sometime tomorrow.

Poetry Friday -- Whacked

Flickr Creative Commons Photo by Peasap

BIRTHDAY PARTY — CHECKLIST

by Mary Lee Hahn

Children — driven

Presents — given

Cake — gobbled

Apples — bobbled

Donkey tail — tacked

Piñata – whacked

Games — played

Mom’s nerves — frayed

I still can't believe I won my bracket in Round One of Madness! 2012 -- the Children's Poetry Writing Tournament over at Ed DeCaria's blog Think Kid, Think!

This poem surprised me. My prompt was "whacked." I have two pages of brainstorming and false starts in my notebook before the phrases "Donkey tail -- tacked" and "Piñata -- whacked" show up. Then my poem changed from a bad kid with a baseball bat to a birthday party. 

I didn't think about what a risk it would be to submit a poem with only 18 words. I guess the moral of that story is that word choice is just about everything in poetry. (Maybe in all writing?)

The poems in the second flight of round one are still open for voting. Go over and enjoy all the brand-new sparkly-fresh poems (and vote)! Then go to the Poetry Friday Roundup at Greg's blog, GottaBook.

A Wrinkle in Time on Kidblog

Yesterday I wrote about our annotation of A Wrinkle in Time. Today I thought I'd share some posts that one of my students has done on her blog. These posts were neither by invitation nor command -- they came entirely from the student's desire to respond to her reading. She is an ELL student who has been in this country and learning English for just over a year. I have only edited her writing in minor ways to help communicate her meaning.



It let me think….

Today after school I know it was going to rain or something. When I walk home, I think about the black thing that is over Earth. I think that is the black thing that the author she is talking about or have an idea to make on wrinkle in time! I think that when one time it rain and then the author of wrinkle in time think about it and make the story name: Wrinkle in Time! I want to ask her if that my idea is right or wrong, I will be really happy if I am right!

Dear Meg,

Thank you for being a nice character; some time I am just like you, I am not doing what I have to do, so I get into troubles. Every time I start a book, I always look for the books like A Wrinkle in Time! I think you guys are not only looking for your father, but you are learning that who you are and people don’t have to be the same, the best thing on Earth can be the worst thing on Earth, you know people are never be the same, but you will don’t have friends if you are not the same as others. I learn that you don’t have to be just like others, but it will be very good if others understand you, so you can be friend with them. I hope the 3 ladies live happily ever after being a star! Said hello to your family for me!!!

Dear Charles Wallace,

Thank you for being a good character, but the thing is that you can’t give in, and as your sister said that like and equal are two different things. After your sister uses the power of love to get you out, I think you learn that you can’t get in, your sister always loves you, and you have to love her back. I hope you are being a good brother to Sandy and Denny, and teach them what you learn!

PS: keep on doing the hard work!

Madness! 2012 -- Voting is LIVE!

Head on over to the Live Scoreboard on Ed DeCaria's blog Think Kid, Think! Almost all of the Round One, Flight One poems are up and ready for your votes. Yes, mine is there, but take a minute to enjoy ALL of the "Kids' Poetry. Under Pressure."

Annotating A Wrinkle in Time

You might remember me mentioning that I am reading aloud A Wrinkle in Time (well, actually Madeline L'Engle is, through the magic of audio books...) and that we participated in the 50 Years, 50 Days, 50 Blogs blog tour for the 50th anniversary of the publication of the book.

Inspired by Monica Edinger's blog posts about annotating Charlotte's Web with her fourth graders, and fueled with a "worst they can do is say no" attitude, I asked the promoter of the blog tour if it would be possible to get a class set of A Wrinkle in Time so that my class could try annotating the book as we listened to it.

She (and Macmillan) said yes. When the books came, I had my copy from my 6th grade Scholastic book order on hand. I had already told them that A Wrinkle in Time had been a landmark book for me as a reader. Now they looked at my scuffed copy as they held their shiny new copies. I told them that I had kept that book for almost 40 years, and that they, too, might keep the book in their hands for 40 or more years. Someday when they were all grown up, they might tell their children (or even their students) about the difference that book had made in their lives. Ten year-olds can't usually imagine 40 years into the future, but I think a few of them had a glimmer of it for just a second there.

What kinds of things have we been noticing as we annotate and discuss the book?

• Words. Rich, rich vocabulary. And often words that relate to our word study focus, coming to life right there in the book!
• Connections. A geranium blooming on the windowsill of mother's lab -- just like the one in our classroom!
• Places in the story where Madeline L'Engle changed the mood of the story, or made us ask questions, or where we wrote, "Uh oh..."
• Symbolism -- dark is evil, light is good; evil is cold, good is warm.
• Who else has fought against the "shadow" on our planet? Martin Luther King, Jr., Rosa Parks, Harriet Tubman, Ruby Bridges, Abe Lincoln, all the people who stop wars...
• Madeline L'Engle's use of similes, metaphors and idioms.
• The importance of freedom and individualism, family and friendship, love and trust.

Yesterday we watched the Wonderopolis episode on time travel. It was fun to wonder if time travel will be possible in their lifetimes, or if they might someday be part of a team of scientists who bring us closer to that reality.

We're not quite finished with the book. We have about 20 pages left, and I think I'm going to ask them to finish the book and annotate the last few chapters on their own over spring break. Then, when we come back together week after next, we can have the kind of discussion that Monica's classes have.

We're not quite finished with the book...I'm thinking about that phrase...and I'm realizing that my students will NEVER be quite finished with this book. Some of them, anyway. This will be a book that keeps sounding and resounding in their lives as they grow up with it, grow into it, grow away from it, and hopefully come back to it. This is a book that has potential to leave a never-ending ripple in their thinking and in their reading lives. It doesn't seem like enough to simply say Thank You to Macmillan for providing these books for my class. What I'm really thanking them for is helping me to change the lives of 24 children.

Whacked

The first round words have been sent out and 64 Poets (and "poets") around the interwebs are busily crafting poems for Ed DeCaria's Madness! 2012 (Kids' Poetry. Under Pressure.)

Go to Ed's webpage. Explore the rules, the pairings, the Poets (and "poets") -- all found in the "Madness! 2012" dropdown you can find underneath the word THINK.

My first round word is WHACKED. My poem is written, kid-tested, and submitted. Sometime tomorrow morning, the voting will open. Go check out all the first round pairs. Vote for the best poem in each pair, then half of us will get a new prompt and start writing all over again...and again and again, for your amusement AND ours, until all of the tournament brackets are filled and the winning Poet (or "poet") is proclaimed.

Our Childhood Selves

My parents were visiting last weekend.  My dad was talking to my 12-year old and started reciting a crazy fish poem he says all of the time. But this time, it triggered a memory of another fish poem he used to recite to me when I was little. A favorite.  We kept reciting the first lines over and over until we couldn't remember anymore. I googled it and found a finger play version that reminded us of the parts we couldn't remember. LOVE this poem/song.  I have to say, hearing my dad recite it took me back to being three. Actually to the apartment we lived in.  I was so happy listening to his voice recite the fishy poem that I hadn't heard in years:

My darling little goldfish
Hasn't any toes
He swims around without a sound
And bumps his funny nose (the site says hungry nose but my family says funny:-)
He can't come out to play with me
Nor I get in to him.
Although I say, "Come out and play."
He says, "Come in and swim."

My 21 year daughter loved the book LUNCH by Denise Fleming.  She loved when I read it because of the way I did the mouse's sniffing noise.  (I must say, I am pretty good at it:-)  Anyway, even now, when that book or something related comes up, Alexa looks at me with that 4 year-old face and says, "Do the sniffing noise."  She reverts back to her 4 year-old self, just like I reverted back to my 3 year-old self with my dad last week.

When I talked to my 12 year old about this, she immediately said she remembered when she was little, Alexa used to sing The Eensy-Weensy Spider to her, but messed up on purpose.  She giggled like her 4 year-old self as she was telling me and suggested we Skype Alexa so she could do it for her again--it was not the same if I did it.

I love the ways these memories bring us back to our childhood selves.