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National Poetry Month is long over, but I believe in poetry EVERY day and still have forms and interviews to share. So without further ado, another wonderful poet weighs in on form.
* * * * *
How do you begin a poem? Or, how does a poem begin for you — with an idea, a form, an image, or something else?
Bob: I usually (but not always) start with the form. And it helps to have a theme in mind. For example, my book
Santa Clauses consists of 25 haiku “written” by Santa. Haiku are about nature, so when I started writing, I thought about things in nature that are unique to the North Pole, and that might make an impression on Santa. Pretty soon, I was writing poems about the northern lights, reindeer and snow hares.
How do you choose the form of your poems?
Bob: Most of the time I’m inspired by other poems. For example, I just finished a manuscript of 20 poems that I’m calling “skinny sonnets”. The form is based on a 14-word sonnet written by a poet named Frank Sidgwick in 1921. His abbreviated sonnet is called The Aeronaut to His Lady, and once I read it, I knew I had to try one for myself. The same thing happened with my book
Lemonade, which was inspired by an anagram-like poem called rain by a poet named Andrew Russ.
Are there any forms you haven't tried but would like to? Why or why not?
Bob: There are many forms I haven’t tried. I tend to gravitate toward shorter forms like haiku, cinquains, clerihews and limericks. I find them easier to wrap my head around. Call me a minimalist. I also don’t have a lot of time to write poetry with my day job in advertising, so the shorter forms work well with my schedule. That’s not to say that short forms are easy, or that I don’t rewrite my short poems many, many times. I do love the fact that you can say so much, and be so clever, with so few words.
What tools (rhyming dictionary, book of forms, etc.) do you use in writing poetry (if any)?
Bob: I love my rhyming dictionary. It’s paperback and the edges are well-worn from all of my quick-flipping back and forth. I also have quite a collection of poetry books for inspiration, mostly adult poets. Some are anthologies, others are by individual poets. One book that I return to again and again is
Poem-Making: Ways to Begin Writing Poetry by Myra Cohn Livingston.
What would you like students or children to know about poetry?Bob: First, poetry is about playing with words. So if you like playing with words, or seeing how other people play with words, chances are you’ll like reading and writing poetry. Second, don’t expect to like—or even understand—every poem you read. Poems are like books, and poets are like authors: you’ll like some more than you like others. Third, reading poems is a great way to slow down and appreciate the little things in life. I like to read a handful of nature poems before I go to bed. It makes me feel good and helps relieve any stress I may be feeling.
Finally, one of your esteemed colleagues suggested I ask for a poem in a foreign verse form. Would you be willing to share a poem for this project?
Bob:
I reach for firefly’s
flicker, but all I catch is
a handful of dark.
Poem ©Bob Raczka, 2015. All rights reserved.
A million thanks to Bob for participating in my Jumping Into Form interview and for waiting ever so patiently for it to post.
On this last day of the month I thought I would wrap up this year's National Poetry Month project by highlighting books that focus on form and the writing of poetry.
When I was in high school I wrote free verse, largely that's all I really knew. While I recall writing the occasional haiku as a English assignment, I was never instructed on how to write poetry. Oh, how I wish I had been! Poetry can be so much fun to play and puzzle with. Trying to make your ideas and favorite words fit into a structured form can be a daunting task, but one that gives much satisfaction upon its completion.
Today I rely on a varied collection of books while writing poetry. In addition to the "adult" books on poetry reading and writing, I often turn to books for children and young adults to help me think about form and process. Here are some of the books I use with regularity.
Why, you may ask, do poems have rules? Why 17 syllables in a haiku? Why 14 lines in a sonnet? The answer is: rules make the writing of a poem more challenging, more exciting. Think of a game you enjoy, like baseball. Imagine how much less intriguing the game would be if there were no foul line or limit to the number of outs in an inning. The rules often ask, "Can you do a good job within these limits?" Knowing the rules makes poetry—like sports—more fun, for players and spectators alike.
What follows are 29 poetics forms. Each form is accompanied by some kind of visual clue in the top corner of the page. For example, the page for couplet shows two birds on a wire, epitaph shows a headstone, and ode shows a Grecian urn. Once the form has been identified, readers find a short informational description and poetic example. Here's what you'll find on the page for Riddle Poem.
The beginning of eternity
The end of time and space,
The beginning of every end,
The end of every place.
Anonymous
A riddle poem indirectly describes a person, place, thing, or idea. The reader must try to figure out the subject of the riddle. A riddle poem can be any length and usually has a rhyme scheme of abcb or aabb.
This volume not only contains many familiar forms, such as haiku, cinquain, acrostic and limerick, but also forms such as aubade, pantoum, villanelle, and double dactyl. At the end of the book readers will find a bit more background information on each of the 29 forms.
Getting From Here To There: Writing and Reading Poetry (1982, OP), written by Florence Grossman, is a book I pulled out of a discard pile years ago, but one that I still crack open. If you can find a copy, it would be worth your while to look it over. Here is how it begins.
Most people have never written poetry, yet most people, at one time or another. have had the vague sense of a poem lurking somewhere, something they had experienced that had to be told in a special way. This book is addressed to you if you have ever wanted to write a poem and did not know the place to begin, or if you have not trusted yourself because you thought you did not know the language of poetry.
... And rhyme? Most beginning writers are boxed in by rhyme because they're busy thinking about the word that will rhyme instead of allowing words and ideas to bounce off each other. For now, forget about rhyme. Focus on rhythm. When you begin to listen to yourself, the poem will find its own rhythm. It will find its own length. Once you get rolling, the poem will assume a life of its own. It will tell you what it has to say.
This is book is organized into the following chapters: (1) Lists; (2) Then; (3) Things; (4) Signs; (5) Image; (6) People; (7) Clothes, etc.; (8) Sound/Silence; (9) Persona; and (10) Dreams and Fantasies. What I love is that in the introduction to each chapter, Grossman gives readers a perspective and an insight into writing poetry that is often profound. Here is an example from the chapter "Things."
Paper clips, rubber bands, a book of matches, these small things that go about daily business of their lives—most people would never think of them as subjects of poetry. But as walls have ears and pillows have secrets, each of these things has its own story. It has been places and done things. For the poets it's a matter of tuning in, of holding the spool of thread until we have heard what it has to say. Look long enough at a pencil and the poem will begin.
In addition to these insights, each chapter contains numerous example poems, thought prompts, and writing suggestions. The text ends with a section entitled Some Notes on Self Editing. There are 10 bulleted items here that are pithy and helpful. Here are a few.
- What we are after here is honesty.
- We all have our own words, words that we've carried around with us for years, words that we've tried on and we're comfortable with. These are the words of "our voice" that tell the reader someone has written this poem. Be true to those words.
- Honest also means the exact word rather than the well-that-will-do word. Poetry is concise—no time to fool around with approximations. "The best words," says Wallace Stevens, "in their best order."
A Crow Doesn't Need A Shadow: A Guide to Writing Poetry From Nature (1994), written by Lorraine Ferra with illustrations by Diane Boardman, focuses on the "integration of our inner and outer landscapes. Through nature field trips, children and adults are invited to reflect on their personal place in the world." Sections of the book include: (1) Poetry Field Trips; (2) Building a Nature Wordscape; (3) Keeping a Nature Journal; (4) Other Explorations such as, finding a companion in nature, creating a landscape, colors in the natural world, dreaming up a place, nature in your hand, and more; (5) Anthology--a sampling of original poems by young authors; and (6) A Note To Educators (written by Mona Hirschi Daniels). The book begins this way.
Open the Door
An Invitation to Readers
Over three hundred years ago, the poet Matsuo Basho said, "To learn about a tree, go to a tree. Basho was considering more than the scientific facts you learn about trees. He was suggesting that the creatures of the natural world speak a language, one perhaps different from yours, but one you can understand if you listen with your imagination.
...Every chapter of this book, every poem, is a different door you can open to the natural world. Choose any of these doors, open it, and step quietly outside with your pencil, paper, and imagination.
In the section Creating a Landscape, Ferra shares a recipe poem by a twelve year old boy and guides readers through the process of writing their own. Here's an excerpt.
Look through a cookbook. As you read the directions for several different recipes, write down the verbs which tell you what to do with the ingredients. Make a list of about ten or twelve different verbs. Keep in mind that you probably won't use all the verbs you find. Be selective for your poem.
Some possible subjects might be a recipe for a cave, foggy morning, a bird refuge, a season or particular month, a moonlit field, a river, or a sunset. Once you decide on your subject, start listing some ingredients.
While there is no emphasis here on form, this is wonderful book for encouraging close observation, a skill so vital to the poet's craft.
Fly With Poetry: An ABC of Poetry (2000), written and illustrated by Avis Harley, uses the alphabet to organize 26 different poetic forms (two for the letter A and none for Y). Each page includes a poem written in the named form with information at the bottom of the page describing the form. Additional poetic forms are included in the end notes.
Leap Into Poetry: More ABCs of Poetry (2001), written and illustrated by Avis Harley, is a companion to FLY WITH POETRY that uses the alphabetic format to introduce a variety of poetic forms and techniques. Each letter introduces an arthropod in a poem that uses the stated form or technique. Facts about each animal are included in the end notes.
Write Your Own Poetry (2008), written by Laura Purdie Salas, is a book that provides a thorough introduction to the process and tools of writing poetry. There are chapters on poetic forms, language of poetry, imagery, point of view, meter and rhyme, and more. Jam-packed with sample poems, helpful tips and advice from poets, this is a comprehensive introduction to writing poetry.
Immersed in Verse: An Informative, Slightly Irreverent & Totally Tremendous Guide to Living the Poet's Life (2006), written by Allan Wolf and illustrated by Tuesday Morning, is a how-to guide on becoming a poet for middle grades and young adults. The book begins this way.
Have you noticed how rhythm makes you move? How heave bass vibrates the door panels of passing cars? Have you noticed the colors of a rainbow? How the stench of fireworks burns your eyes? How you cold winter hands sting under warm water? To be a poet is to notice.
...
Poems are all around us, waiting to be written. The world teems with words, images, ideas, sights, sounds, colors, anecdotes, notions, and emotions. Just as water is the stuff of life to a fish, the world is the stuff of life to be a poet. all you need to do is dive in.
The book is divided into several sections, each color-coded for ease of use.
Poetry & You offers readers a quick guided tour of poetry, nine habits of successful poets (such as get gonzo over words, write every day and play), a writing pledge and more you.
Your Poetry Toolbox explains the tools of the trade, such as poetic devices and the anatomy of a poem.
The Poet's Decisions delves deep into the process of writing, providing lessons on point of view, tense, form, playing with structure, revising and much more.
Always Something to Write About provides ideas for journaling and writing prompts. The last major section,
Ta Da!: Presenting Your Work is about reading, performing and publishing poetry. Liberally sprinkled throughout the text are examples and lots of poems from a range of poets.
One of my favorite sections is entitled
Your Best Revising Tools. Having just spent a significant amount of time revising a poem, I can tell you how much these ring true. Here they are in abbreviated form.
- Time - It's very difficult to read a poem objectively on the day you wrote it. It's best to let it age—a day, a week, a month.
- An Audition - With poetry, there's no room for words that aren't pulling their weight. Make those words work for you. Make them prove they belong where they are.
- A Sense of Fearless Tinkering - Don't be afraid to take apart what you've done. . . . Take your poem apart and put it back together. Don't worry about the extra parts still on the floor.
- Highlighting the Poem's Golden Moments - Use a yellow highlighter to designate your poem's top three golden moments (be they a single work, a partial phrase, or an entire line) that are vital to the poem's life. . . . Once you've highlighted the poem's golden moments, examine the remaining words with a critical eye.
- Vivacious Vocal Cords - Poetry is ultimately a spoken art. . . . but it's also a great revision tool. It helps flag a poem's awkward phrases, blips, bleeps, and blemishes.
The book ends with appendices of selected poems and poets, as well as publishing resources for young writers.
How to Write Poetry, written by Paul Janeczko, is a Scholastic Guide that organizes the poetry writing process in easy-to-follow steps. The chapters on starting to write, writing poems that rhyme, and writing free verse poems all offer a wealth of information, sample poems, and "try this" suggestions. Different poetic forms are introduced along with checklists to keep writer's focused on important features. Includes an extensive glossary.
Poetry from A to Z: A Guide for Young Writers, written by Paul Janeczko, is a collection of 72 poems arranged alphabetically by subject. Also included are 14 poetry-writing exercises that show how to write specific types of poems and advice from more than twenty poets on becoming a better writer.
Poetry Matters: Writing a Poem From the Inside Out, written by Ralph Fletcher, is a good guide to writing poetry from the heart. Chapters deal with imagery, rhythm, crafting poems, wordplay, and more. Major poetic forms are defined and there is a section on ways to share your work. Interviews with Kristine O'Connell George, Janet Wong, and J. Patrick Lewis are included. A number of poems written by Fletcher are included as examples in these chapters.
The Place My Words Are Looking For: What Poets Say About and Through Their Work, selected by Paul Janeczko, is a collection of poems, advice, anecdotes, and recollections of 39 poets. Following their poems, poets describe
their inspirations, memories, where they get their ideas, their writing processes, and how they go about translating their ideas in to poetic form. If you are looking for additional resources on poetry writing, try these sites.
April may be ending, but that doesn't mean the poetry goodness must stop. I hope you'll revisit some of the posts from this month as you incorporate more poetry reading and writing in your classroom.
Thanks to everyone who has stopped by this month. It has been a joy sharing poetry with you.
While Michael Rosen and I connected over a possible interview, we had a series of interesting conversations about this project and my interest in form. I was thrilled when he offered to write a piece on form, so I gladly accepted. That is what I am sharing today.
I had to resist the temptation to highlight the points that struck a chord as I read, but I realized they may not be the same points that stand out for you. This is an important piece and part of a larger conversation. I hope teachers, writers, and poetry lovers alike will take these wise words to heart.
The Problem with Poetic Forms? Not Thinking of Them as Solutions
—Michael J. Rosen
(You can learn more about Michael at his web site.)After 35 years of teaching kids poetry (this would be some series classes and many visiting author workshops), I can report that writing poetry is way too easy for kids. And way too hard. Rhyme is too easy; and too hard. So are syllabics such as haiku. Dare I say that poetic form—any one—is both too easy and too hard. And these troubles (and there are many) stem from a fundamental absence of the very opportunities that poetry is supposed to provide for a writer: the rewards of challenging work, the gratification of a new perspective or appreciation, the stumbling upon breakthroughs and surprises.
Consider these fragments that follow “corrective measures.” Consider them notes—to myself, to my colleagues, to young writers—that aim to reframe the way we offer forms of poetry to children.
* * *
Form is structure. It’s support. It’s solidity. It’s what words and lines and sentences and narrative and images and ideas are build upon or within. Form keeps writers (kids and adults) from just saying the first words that come to mind, from being okay with (done!) whatever sentiment, observation, word choice, etc., hits the page first. We all need a challenge to our thoughts. Indeed, the poet W. B. Yeats said that poetry was a writer arguing with himself.
We need to let poetic form be the ring in which young writers can wrestle with their thoughts.
* * *
Think of the role that gravity plays in dance. It’s what makes lightness remarkable. Just how thrilling would a lift be in ballet, say, if gravity weren’t an issue? If a dancer could float across the stage in a leap. Dance would be an entirely different art if weightlessness were a factor.
Poetic form is gravity. It’s what adds weight to our words. It’s what adds bravura, boldness, and originality to our ordinary expressions.
* * *
Even if a poetic form—sonnet, tanka, ballad, limerick—possesses, by some definitions, a standard pattern or a required structure, it can’t be an ice-cube tray into which words are merely poured, frozen, and dumped out. That form has to be an ice sculpture in which the writing reveals something remarkable.
If we simply describe the structure of a form and agree that anything that “fits” it, is, indeed, a successful use of the form, that’s like saying that reading the progression of letters in a series of words is the same as comprehending what that sentence means.
* * *
Instead, poetic forms uncover possibilities. They don’t take “what we know” and simply add rhymes or break up lines. They take “what we don’t know,” and inch us, revision by revision, toward knowing. They take impressions and memories and general topics and things we’re curious about, and put them under pressure so that all the words begin interacting—banging into one another, ricocheting off the “walls” of the form—and, thereby, create heat and light. Yes, too often, we never give kids a chance to feel that illumination, that charge of power!
* * *
Another trouble: Ideas. In my book, we shouldn’t expect that what a kid writes about is going to be…wow! brilliant! truly inspired! utterly remarkable! And we shouldn’t set them up with that expectation. (That’s why the library isn’t filled with the work of kids, right?) So what’s our job as teachers? To help them master the forms? Oh, sure, to some degree. But more importantly, it’s to create exhilarating experiences, to afford enormous and unexpected pleasures, to make the writing of poetry a practice that nourishes and enlivens. A kid who loves the act…will continue it. Will get better at it. Will eventually master forms. And, eventually, will write poems of substance and significance. The great 20th century poet W. H. Auden believed that “hanging around with words,” was more crucial for a young person’s development as a writer than having something to say.
Give kids a chance to feel the rewards that come from concentration and struggle, the fulfillment that comes from puzzling, repeated attempts, and invention. See if you can’t remove the pleasure (that’s mostly just “relief”) from that initial coming up with something. And remove it from the “relief” of quickly turning in something, with its coincident pleasure of getting to go on to whatever’s next.
Sustain the pleasure of right now…for as long as possible.
* * *
For a reader or listener, rhyme can lift a poem into music, insinuate lines into memory, and afford the intrinsic pleasure of repetition. But for the writer, the role of rhyme is to challenge and, therein, elevate the language of the poem. Rhyme’s role is to be unrelenting, so that the writer must search for that just right word, adjust the line breaks or description or content or phrasing, in order satisfy the rhyme scheme…in a pleasing way.
Rhymes confer an aural emphasis on certain words—typically, end words, which are already cued up in that important terminal position. Ideally, rhyming words are important ones…that produce more than just a repetition of a syllable or vowel sound. And to that end: It’s key to remember that the first word in a rhymed pair doesn’t rhyme. It sets up the second word, so that I T R I N G S O U T…and, most often, we let kids work in a way that allows them to force a match to the first word in a rhyming pair with an unimportant second word. So the second word merely sounds—and sounds lame or illogical—rather than reveals something as it echoes.
So changing the whole way of composing rhymes is vital. Pry loose words that offer hackneyed or obtuse rhymes. Use a rhyming dictionary. Generate a pool of possible rhymes. Use a thesaurus to try a different word that might generate a whole new set of options.
* * *
Likewise, counting syllables, as in haiku or tanka or other forms, creates a similar trouble: That process should involve uncertainty, not certainty. It’s so easy to let kids feel the contentment of being quick and being done…rather than the genuine contentment with the work itself. Counting syllables should happen LAST. It, too should be part of the argument with the content itself. It should create tension. (Ah! Think of a line of poetry as a string on a violin or guitar. In order to resonate, that line has to be taut, not simply stretched out.) Syllabics causes compression and expansion that should initiate a new flow of words, options, and subject matter. The way kids are typically given the form, they stuff words into a syllabic form like tepid leftovers into a Styrofoam clamshell (that is typically left at the restaurant or in the car or in the back of the fridge…forgotten because, well, it really wasn’t that good in the first place!). [You must block that metaphor, and yet that goofy overextension does hint at why students lack motivation to revise or illustrate or read aloud something they drum up so easily and execute so hastily.]
* * *
One other trouble. When it comes to poetry, we don’t give kids enough time to dive in, come up for air, dive in again. And then we typically give them one chance. Try this form. Great! Now, let’s move onto some other form. And even writing poetry of any sort is typically confined to one unit or just a once-in-a-while treat (or torture). And this survey approach—one form after another—doesn’t let any familiarity or efficiency or experimentation kick in. So it’s like doing a preliminary sketch, and then adding the finishing touches and the frame…even before the perspective, the composition, the details, or the colors have been thought through.
Think of anything you’ve learned to do well—casting a fly-fishing rod, crimping the edges of a perfect pie crust, floating up into a yoga head stand. If you only had one chance to try these “forms,” your success is going to be limited. As will be the pleasure in the…frustrating? slapdash? improving?...accomplishment. How do we improve except by repetition?
Let me leave you with this: Practice doesn’t only make perfect. Along the way, practice makes for possibilities, including the possibility of enjoying the craft enough to…one day…master it.
* * *
Thank you, thank you, a million thank you's to Michael J. Rosen for providing us with such rich food for thought on form.
While Michael Rosen and I connected over a possible interview, we had a series of interesting conversations about this project and my interest in form. I was thrilled when he offered to write a piece on form, so I gladly accepted. That is what I am sharing today.
I had to resist the temptation to highlight the points that struck a chord as I read, but I realized they may not be the same points that stand out for you. This is an important piece and part of a larger conversation. I hope teachers, writers, and poetry lovers alike will take these wise words to heart.
The Problem with Poetic Forms? Not Thinking of Them as Solutions
—Michael J. Rosen
(You can learn more about Michael at his web site.)After 35 years of teaching kids poetry (this would be some series classes and many visiting author workshops), I can report that writing poetry is way too easy for kids. And way too hard. Rhyme is too easy; and too hard. So are syllabics such as haiku. Dare I say that poetic form—any one—is both too easy and too hard. And these troubles (and there are many) stem from a fundamental absence of the very opportunities that poetry is supposed to provide for a writer: the rewards of challenging work, the gratification of a new perspective or appreciation, the stumbling upon breakthroughs and surprises.
Consider these fragments that follow “corrective measures.” Consider them notes—to myself, to my colleagues, to young writers—that aim to reframe the way we offer forms of poetry to children.
* * *
Form is structure. It’s support. It’s solidity. It’s what words and lines and sentences and narrative and images and ideas are build upon or within. Form keeps writers (kids and adults) from just saying the first words that come to mind, from being okay with (done!) whatever sentiment, observation, word choice, etc., hits the page first. We all need a challenge to our thoughts. Indeed, the poet W. B. Yeats said that poetry was a writer arguing with himself.
We need to let poetic form be the ring in which young writers can wrestle with their thoughts.
* * *
Think of the role that gravity plays in dance. It’s what makes lightness remarkable. Just how thrilling would a lift be in ballet, say, if gravity weren’t an issue? If a dancer could float across the stage in a leap. Dance would be an entirely different art if weightlessness were a factor.
Poetic form is gravity. It’s what adds weight to our words. It’s what adds bravura, boldness, and originality to our ordinary expressions.
* * *
Even if a poetic form—sonnet, tanka, ballad, limerick—possesses, by some definitions, a standard pattern or a required structure, it can’t be an ice-cube tray into which words are merely poured, frozen, and dumped out. That form has to be an ice sculpture in which the writing reveals something remarkable.
If we simply describe the structure of a form and agree that anything that “fits” it, is, indeed, a successful use of the form, that’s like saying that reading the progression of letters in a series of words is the same as comprehending what that sentence means.
* * *
Instead, poetic forms uncover possibilities. They don’t take “what we know” and simply add rhymes or break up lines. They take “what we don’t know,” and inch us, revision by revision, toward knowing. They take impressions and memories and general topics and things we’re curious about, and put them under pressure so that all the words begin interacting—banging into one another, ricocheting off the “walls” of the form—and, thereby, create heat and light. Yes, too often, we never give kids a chance to feel that illumination, that charge of power!
* * *
Another trouble: Ideas. In my book, we shouldn’t expect that what a kid writes about is going to be…wow! brilliant! truly inspired! utterly remarkable! And we shouldn’t set them up with that expectation. (That’s why the library isn’t filled with the work of kids, right?) So what’s our job as teachers? To help them master the forms? Oh, sure, to some degree. But more importantly, it’s to create exhilarating experiences, to afford enormous and unexpected pleasures, to make the writing of poetry a practice that nourishes and enlivens. A kid who loves the act…will continue it. Will get better at it. Will eventually master forms. And, eventually, will write poems of substance and significance. The great 20th century poet W. H. Auden believed that “hanging around with words,” was more crucial for a young person’s development as a writer than having something to say.
Give kids a chance to feel the rewards that come from concentration and struggle, the fulfillment that comes from puzzling, repeated attempts, and invention. See if you can’t remove the pleasure (that’s mostly just “relief”) from that initial coming up with something. And remove it from the “relief” of quickly turning in something, with its coincident pleasure of getting to go on to whatever’s next.
Sustain the pleasure of right now…for as long as possible.
* * *
For a reader or listener, rhyme can lift a poem into music, insinuate lines into memory, and afford the intrinsic pleasure of repetition. But for the writer, the role of rhyme is to challenge and, therein, elevate the language of the poem. Rhyme’s role is to be unrelenting, so that the writer must search for that just right word, adjust the line breaks or description or content or phrasing, in order satisfy the rhyme scheme…in a pleasing way.
Rhymes confer an aural emphasis on certain words—typically, end words, which are already cued up in that important terminal position. Ideally, rhyming words are important ones…that produce more than just a repetition of a syllable or vowel sound. And to that end: It’s key to remember that the first word in a rhymed pair doesn’t rhyme. It sets up the second word, so that I T R I N G S O U T…and, most often, we let kids work in a way that allows them to force a match to the first word in a rhyming pair with an unimportant second word. So the second word merely sounds—and sounds lame or illogical—rather than reveals something as it echoes.
So changing the whole way of composing rhymes is vital. Pry loose words that offer hackneyed or obtuse rhymes. Use a rhyming dictionary. Generate a pool of possible rhymes. Use a thesaurus to try a different word that might generate a whole new set of options.
* * *
Likewise, counting syllables, as in haiku or tanka or other forms, creates a similar trouble: That process should involve uncertainty, not certainty. It’s so easy to let kids feel the contentment of being quick and being done…rather than the genuine contentment with the work itself. Counting syllables should happen LAST. It, too should be part of the argument with the content itself. It should create tension. (Ah! Think of a line of poetry as a string on a violin or guitar. In order to resonate, that line has to be taut, not simply stretched out.) Syllabics causes compression and expansion that should initiate a new flow of words, options, and subject matter. The way kids are typically given the form, they stuff words into a syllabic form like tepid leftovers into a Styrofoam clamshell (that is typically left at the restaurant or in the car or in the back of the fridge…forgotten because, well, it really wasn’t that good in the first place!). [You must block that metaphor, and yet that goofy overextension does hint at why students lack motivation to revise or illustrate or read aloud something they drum up so easily and execute so hastily.]
* * *
One other trouble. When it comes to poetry, we don’t give kids enough time to dive in, come up for air, dive in again. And then we typically give them one chance. Try this form. Great! Now, let’s move onto some other form. And even writing poetry of any sort is typically confined to one unit or just a once-in-a-while treat (or torture). And this survey approach—one form after another—doesn’t let any familiarity or efficiency or experimentation kick in. So it’s like doing a preliminary sketch, and then adding the finishing touches and the frame…even before the perspective, the composition, the details, or the colors have been thought through.
Think of anything you’ve learned to do well—casting a fly-fishing rod, crimping the edges of a perfect pie crust, floating up into a yoga head stand. If you only had one chance to try these “forms,” your success is going to be limited. As will be the pleasure in the…frustrating? slapdash? improving?...accomplishment. How do we improve except by repetition?
Let me leave you with this: Practice doesn’t only make perfect. Along the way, practice makes for possibilities, including the possibility of enjoying the craft enough to…one day…master it.
* * *
Thank you, thank you, a million thank you's to Michael J. Rosen for providing us with such rich food for thought on form.
In preparation for sharing forms this month, I wrote to a number of poets and asked if they would respond to a short list of questions on poetry, writing, and form. I'm thrilled every time one responds positively and find they have all been extremely generous with their time.
Today I'm sharing the thoughts of Kristine O'Connell George, author of numerous books of poetry for children including
Emma Dilemma: Big Sister Poems (2011),
Fold Me a Poem (2005),
Hummingbird Nest: A Journal of Poems (2004),
Swimming Upstream: Middle School Poems (2002),
Little Dog and Duncan (2002),
Toasting Marshmallows: Camping Poems (2001),
Little Dog Poems (1999), and
Old Elm Speaks: Tree Poems (1998). Her first book of poetry,
The Great Frog Race and Other Poems (1997), was awarded the Lee Bennett Hopkins Promising Poet Award from the International Reading Association.
How does a poem begin for you — with an idea, a form, an image, or something else?
Kristine: All of the above. Poems—and fledgling ideas—flit into my mental inbox in many different ways. Although it’s sometimes difficult to pinpoint why or how a particular idea will snag my attention, it’s most often because I have a personal connection with the topic. Perhaps it’s something I’ve seen, heard, experienced, or even dreamed.
Many of my poems (and rhymed picture books) were sparked by observation: The crows hassling a young hawk in our cedrus deodora tree; wind rustling aspen leaves; a puppy curling up in a splash of sunlight.
Book! (Clarion Books) was the result of spending time with a toddler who was beyond delighted when she suddenly realized she could ‘operate’ the pages of a board book all by herself. The poems in
Little Dog and Duncan (Clarion Books) were based on my observations of two rascally dogs while serving as hostess of doggie sleepovers.
While working on this interview, I decided to see to take a walk to see how many ‘poem ideas’ I could discover. Here’s a photo of one of them:
What’s interesting to me are not only the paw prints of a long-gone dog in old, cracked concrete, but also the position of the prints. I imagine a child—seeing that tempting swatch of wet cement—held the dog’s two front feet in one hand and pressed down firmly.
Sound also inspires poems: “Owl” in
Old Elm Speaks: Tree Poems (Clarion Books) was the result of hearing an owl calling late at night from our native oak tree. At 2 a.m.—with the lines of the poem were still circling in my head—I got up and wrote a draft. Sound also inspired “River Messages” and “Chipmunk” from
Toasting Marshmallows: Camping Poems. In both cases I tried to choose language that echoed the sound of a mountain river and a chipmunk’s chatter.
The poems in both
Swimming Upstream: Middle School Poems (Clarion Books) and Emma Dilemma: Big Sister Poems (Clarion Books) were inspired by personal experiences. [Listen to poems from Swimming Upstream: Middle School Poems and other titles at
Kristine O'Connell George: Poetry Aloud.] Camping and fishing trips in Colorado and family expeditions exploring ghost towns served as rich resource material for
Toasting Marshmallows: Camping Poems.
Dreams, and those muzzly moments of half-consciousness when one is drifting off to sleep or just waking up, are another wellspring of ideas and images for poems. A dream about flying in a windstorm—using a jacket as a sail—resulted in my first published poem, ‘Skating in the Wind.’ [Here is a young boy reading the poem at
Homemade Mama.] (While I often hope to discover good ideas in the notebook I keep by my bedside along with my handy-dandy flashlight pen, I rarely can decipher my scrawl.)
How do you choose the form of your poems?
Kristine: If I’m lucky, the poem will give me hints. Perhaps it’s tidy and polite and best tucked into cozy couplets. Maybe it’s a ‘free-range’ poem that longs to stretch its free verse legs into boundless white space. (Most of the poems in
Emma Dilemma: Big Sister Poems (Clarion Books) and
Swimming Upstream: Middle School Poems (Clarion Books) are primarily free verse. In both cases, I ‘heard’ my narrator’s voices in my head as conversational.)
Sometimes I deliberately choose a ‘non-form’ that hints at a more formal structure. An example of this would be
Little Dog Poems and
Little Dog and Duncan (Clarion Books). Because the ideas for the poems captured discrete moments in the lives of two dogs, they could easily have been haikus. However, after much deliberation, I chose to create ‘looser’ poems (someone described them as haiku-ish) in the hopes that they might serve as easily-mastered templates for very young writers. (Based on the bushels of ‘Little Pet’ poems I have had the pleasure of reading, I think it worked out.)
Last, when I encounter a stubborn poem, I will rewrite (endlessly) in as many forms as possible until a form shouts: Me! Pick me! During school visits, I often share all (All!) of the revisions I wrote for ‘Polliwogs’ from
The Great Frog Race (Clarion Books). Students are astonished (and horrified) as I have them count the number of revisions. Forty seven!
What surprising things have you learned by accepting the challenge of fitting meaning into a structured form? What are the benefits of accepting these disciplined restrictions?
Kristine: In our poetry writing classes, Myra Cohn Livingston often had us rewrite poems in a variety of forms (and voices). This invaluable training forced me to think deeply about my topic and not merely skim the surface. As a result, I often write poems in strict metered and rhymed forms and then ‘deconstruct’ as I play with ideas, layout, and readability. What often remains is the sense of a form and, rather than rigid rhymed lines, there are internal/slant rhymes.
Sometimes, while writing in a structured, rhymed form, I discover that while it’s fun to read aloud, I’ve added so much padding that it distracts from and dilutes the main idea. Increasingly, I lean toward ‘less is more’ and often distill or condense longer poems into short, tight poems such as haikus. The four haiku about a flashlight in
Toasting Marshmallows: Camping Poems (Clarion Books) are an example of my ‘get on and off the page quickly’ approach
What tools (rhyming dictionary, book of forms, etc.) do you use in writing poetry (if any)? Kristine: All! I have yards of how-to poetry books of all flavors. While I do read and study these books, I don’t often refer to them when I am working on a poem. I may, however, dip into a rhyming dictionary if I am really, really stuck.
What would you like students or children to know about poetry?
Kristine: I keep thinking about Kate DiCamillo’s reply to a young reading asking why there are words in a book: "Words are a special way for me to tell you a story and I don’t have to be there. It’s like magic.” [A Conversation with Kate DiCamillo facilitated by Lisa Von Drasek of the Kerlan Collection can be v
iewed on YouTube.]
I think poetry is magic as well. It is nearly unimaginable to me how words—mere marks on paper—have this surprising power to make an intimate connection with a reader across centuries, continents, or cultures. I hope—at least once in a lifetime—that every student might experience that elusive, breath-catching moment when they realize that another human feels as they do. One of my favorite memories is of a 4th grader curled up in the corner of the library reading one of Myra Cohn Livingston’s collections. I’ve forgotten which collection it was, but not what the student told me as she hugged the book: “This lady is just like me.” I have also not forgotten what a very shy 3rd grader whispered to me after an assembly: “I feel like you wrote your poems just for me.” These experiences that connect us are what I’d like students to know about poetry. I’d also like students to know that—through poetry—they can send their own unique voices out in to the world.
Finally, one of your esteemed colleagues suggested I ask for a poem in a foreign verse form. Would you be willing to share a poem for this project?
Joan: Happily! Will you be naming said esteemed colleague? ;)
When asked to contribute a poem for Jan Greenberg’s
Heart to Heart: New Poems Inspired by Twentieth Century American Art, I chose a pantoum to try to capture the repetition and sense of an echo in Kiki Smith’s ‘These Eyes.’ Here is the poem along with some interesting responses from students at
PoetryRed5-7.
Poem ©Kristine O'Connell George. All rights reserved.
A million thanks to Kristine for participating in my Jumping Into Form project this month.
What is a
concrete poem? On his web site
John Grandits says that "Concrete poems are poems that use fonts, and shape, and texture, and color, and sometimes motion."
Shadow Poetry distinguishes among concrete, shape and visual poetry in this way.
Shape and Concrete Poetry go hand-in-hand; however, Concrete or Visual Poetry don’t have to take on the particular shape of the poem’s subject, but rather the wording in the poem can enhance the effect of the words.
There are many terrific examples of concrete poetry in books for kids. I would like to share a few here. Keep in mind that concrete poetry is about the marriage of words and form. Therefore,
you need to SEE them to truly appreciate them. That means this post will have lots of links to sites where you can see the art in these poems.
Poetry Basics: Concrete Poetry (2009), written by Valerie Bodden, is an analysis of the concrete poetry form, beginning with its origins and history while providing a range of examples through the present day. Here are some of the things Bodden says about this form.
The goal of the type of poetry known as concrete is to have the shape or appearance of a poem reflect what the words express (p.3).
While most traditional poems are meant to be read, concrete poems are meant to be seen. Looking at a concrete poem can be almost like looking at a painting. In fact, if you try to read a concrete poem out loud, much of its meaning may be lost (p.12).
The book ends with a section entitled "Think Like a Poet," which provides steps and encouragement for readers to write their own concrete poems. Also included are a list of books for further reading, a glossary, and bibliography.
A Poke in the I: A Collection of Concrete Poems (2005), selected by Paul Janeczko and illustrated by Chris Raschka, includes a wide range of poems that are cleverly shaped and written.
Eskimo Pie and
Popsicle are both poems in the shape of ice cream.
Swan and Shadow looks exactly like its title and is a lovely piece of work. You can
view an inside spread from the book and
download an activity page from the Candlewick web site. You can also get a
brief preview from Google Books. Notice that the table of contents is in the form of a table!
A Curious Collection of Cats (2009) and its follow-up,
A Dazzling Display of Dogs (2011), both written by Betsy Franco and illustrated by Michael Wertz, are collections that explore the peculiarities and absurdities of cats and dogs in wildly energetic ways. First, just look at those covers! If the use of animals in forming the letters of the titles doesn't immediately suck you in, then hopefully a few of these interior shots will. Michael Wertz has generously posted images from the books on his web site. Take a look at
Kids page to view them.
Two books written by Joan Bransfield Graham,
Splish Splash (2001) illustrated by Steve Scott, and
Flicker Flash (2003) illustrated by Nancy Davis, are collections of concrete poems about the physical world. SPLISH SPLASH is a collection of 21 poems about water in a myriad of forms, including crocodile tears, ice cube, popsicle, snow, hail, dew and more. FLICKER FLASH is a collection of 23 poems that explores natural and man-made light sources, including the sun, birthday candles, an incubator bulb, lightning, a firefly, and more. At Google Books you can see examples from both
Splish Splash and
Flicker Flash.
Here are two examples from
Flicker Flash. Keep in mind that these are shape poems, so they may not reproduce particularly well here.
Flashlight
F
L
A
S
H
LIGHT
click
one flick
I am the SUN,
I chase the shadows
one by one, growing scary,
jagged, tall - with brilliant beams
I ' L L M E L T t h e m A L L !
Sun"From
93,000,000
miles away I bring
you this dynamite, ring-
a-ding day. I'll shout in
your window and bounce
near your head to solar
power you out of
your bed."
Poems ©Joan Bransfield Graham. All rights reserved.Doodle Dandies, (2007) written by J. Patrick Lewis and illustrated by Lisa Desimini, uses wordplay and surprising "movement" to make the topics come alive. The 19 poems in this book cover a variety of subjects, including giraffe, weeping willow, skyscraper, baseball, basketball, the oyster family, and more.
Synchronized Swim Team uses the legs of upside-down swimmers to make its point, while
Creep and Slither appears in the shape of a snake, until midpoint when the bulging word bull frog announces what's been eaten. You can
view some poems/images from the book at Lisa Desimini's web site.
Meow Ruff: A Story in Concrete Poetry, written by Joyce Sidman and illustrated by Michelle Berg, is the story of a dog and cat trapped under a picnic table in a rainstorm. Since much of the verse forms the images on the page, readers will enjoy searching for the buried verses while reading the story. You can find a reader's guide at Joyce Sidman's site for
Meow Ruff.
Lemonade: and Other Poems Squeezed from a Single Word (2011), by Bob Raczka and illustrated by Nancy Doniger, might not be considered concrete poetry by some, but to really see the genius of what he's done you must LOOK closely! As the jacket flap says, "Play with your words! Part anagram, part rebus, part riddle—this brand new poetic form turns word puzzles into poetry. Using only the letters from a single word, each of the poems in this collection capture a scence from daily life and present a puzzle to solve." Check out the
Macmillan Books' photostream to view a number of images from the book.
Technically, It's Not My Fault (2004) and
Blue Lipstick (2007), both written and designed by John Grandits, are two collections designed for older readers. The first book is written from the point of view of a young boy named Robert. The poems reveal Robert's concerns with all things adolescent. He is at turns smart then immature. Poems topics include his older sister, the school bus (dubbed TyrannosaurBus Rex), ordering pizza for dinner, mowing the lawn and more. The second book is written from the point of view of Robert's older sister, Jessie. Her concerns are those of a typical teen, but Jessie is anything but typical. She is funny, sarcastic, and totally her own person. Poem topics include a bad hair day, a pep rally, volleyball practice, Advanced English, her mother's birthday and more. Both books use graphic design in unusual and surprising ways. You can see a few of the poems from
Technically and
Lipstick on Grandits' web site. You can see a few more images using Google Book Preview for both
Technically AND
Lipstick.
Concrete poems are fun to write and challenge children to think in different ways about the objects and events they see in their world. For additional ideas on writing concrete poetry, here are some resources you may find useful.
Before you go, here's one more piece that may interest you. Take a look at this Getty Museum video on How to Make a Visual Poem.
That's it for today. Join me back here tomorrow for an interview with Kristine O'Connell George.
In preparation for sharing forms this month, I wrote to a number of poets and asked if they would respond to a short list of questions on poetry, writing, and form. I'm thrilled every time one responds positively and find they have all been extremely generous with their time.
Today I'm sharing the thoughts of Joan Bransfield Graham, author of the books
Splish Splash (2001),
Flicker Flash (2003), and
The Poem That Will Not End (2014). In addition to these books, Joan's poetry for children has been published in numerous anthologies, textbooks, and children's magazines.
How do you begin a poem? OR How does a poem begin for you — with an idea, a form, an image, or something else?
Joan: There are so many ways that poems tempt me to write them. Sometimes it starts with "a rhythm, a rhythm and a rhyme" and, then just like Ryan O'Brian, I'm off and writing. After we went on a family camping trip to Yosemite and hiked up Vernal Falls on the Cold Shower Trail, I wrote a "Waterfall" poem. When I thought about how it might look on the page, I decided to experiment with shaping it like a waterfall. Whole stanzas solidified into "Ice Cubes," I froze words into a "Popsicle," and took a "Shower" in words . . .
Splish Splash evolved. Having an ongoing interest in photography, I often think of poems as wide-angle (the big picture) or telephoto (zoom in for the details) poems. With poetry, as with my camera, I can capture a moment in time, an emotion, a new perspective. I like to play with the shape of language and the language of shape. Also, if you rub words together, how can you not ignite a spark?
How do you choose the form of your poems?
Joan: Perhaps the poems choose their own forms, the one that fits best. It helps to try out various forms for the same idea to see which is the most effective. Musicians jazz our world with soul, rock, classical. Artists amaze with oil paints, watercolor, collage. Poets surprise our senses and shake us awake with delicious forms and voices to best express what they want to say. It is exciting to have so many options. It's fun to experiment until it clicks, and you know you've found the perfect fit. Former U.S. Poet Laureate Stanley Kunitz said, "A common fallacy is to think that a poem begins with a meaning which then gets dressed up in words. On the contrary, a poem is language surprised in the act of changing into meaning."
Are there any forms you haven't tried but would like to? Why or why not?
Joan: I'm always eager to try something new. I have information in my files about the Arabic ghazal and might have to give that a try. An example is Patricia Smith's "Hip-Hop Ghazal." I just got home from the gym where I stretched my way through yoga with peaceful music in the background and then danced through a loud Zumba class with hip-hop, Middle Eastern, and salsa rhythms. A woman said to me, "My brain is ready, but my body's not." I don't think she actually spoke in iambic pentameter, but that's how I remembered it. Music and dance can have repetitive movements and moves, and I am thinking maybe I need to write a Zumba/exercise/dance villanelle.
I'm quite fond of the villanelle. Here's "Fever," compliments of Ryan O'Brain, from
THE POEM THAT WILL NOT END. When I wrote this, I had visions of
Amadeus at his creative crescendo and could hear Peggy Lee singing and snapping her fingers. I've color-coded the repeating lines. When I'm working on a villanelle, I fill in the repeating lines I've chosen and then work backwards, forward, around—it's an intriguing challenge. I'm planning to use this for a choral reading sometime with one side of the room reading the red lines and the other side reading the blue lines. I have written those lines on large strips of oaktag. Then students can see and feel this form before they encounter Dylan Thomas' "Do Not Go Gentle Into That Good Night" and Elizabeth Bishop's "One Art." I dedicate this to all poets, artists, actors, and musicians who have a fever to create.
FEVER
I cannot stop this fever in my brain,
I feel compelled to write, and write, and write.
Day in, day out, the words just fall like rain.
Is there some way that I can plug the drain—
To rescue me, to save me from this plight?
I cannot stop this fever in my brain.
I’ve stepped on board a rhythm kind of train,
That’s traveling, zooming at the speed of light.
Day in, day out, the words just fall like rain.
What made this happen no one can explain,
I toss and turn and twist each sleepless night.
I cannot stop this fever in my brain.
What’s that? You say that I should not complain?
I’m tired and hungry, but you might be right.
Day in, day out, the words just fall like rain.
Now, I just wrote this villanelle refrain.
Hey . . . maybe I should NOT put up a fight.
I cannot stop this fever in my brain.
Day in, day out, the words just fall like rain.
Poem ©Joan Bransfield Graham. All rights reserved.
What tools (rhyming dictionary, book of forms, etc.) do you use in writing poetry (if any)?
What would you like students or children to know about poetry?
Joan: My I'd like them to know that poetry is fun, useful, and a great adventure. Each poem is an act of discovery; you can learn more about yourself and more about the world around you; it helps us widen our vision and our hearts. Poetry is a bridge that connects us and allows us to step into another's experiences, ideas, life. We are all connected, and nowhere is that connection stronger than in poetry. C. S. Lewis said "We read to know we are not alone." When someone responds to what we have written, then we are singing a duet.
Finally, one of your esteemed colleagues suggested I ask for a poem in a foreign verse form. Would you be willing to share a poem for this project?
Joan: Edward Hirsch reports that "pattern poems have been found in Greek, Latin, Hebrew, Chinese, Sanskrit, ancient Persian, and in most modern European languages." Today we often use the term "concrete" (the opposite of "abstract")—having a definite form. The Pattern Poem shows a visual relationship between form and meaning. And so I offer two versions of my poem "Birthday Candles" from Flicker Flash—one in English and then the same poem in a
foreign language—Japanese. What an amazing job they did! The Japanese version of
Flicker Flash came out in 2013 from Fukuinkan Shoten, Japanese text ©Chie Fujita. I am astonished they were able to translate the poems and maintain the shapes so successfully.
To refer back to question #1, when I was attempting to write this poem, I put candles on a cake, lit them, and sat alone at the dining room table in the dark. I thought about all the celebrations we had experienced around that table . . . and the glowing faces, which made all those occasions so special.
A million thanks to Joan for participating in my Jumping Into Form project this month.
In preparation for sharing forms this month, I wrote to a number of poets and asked if they would respond to a short list of questions on poetry, writing, and form. I'm thrilled every time one responds positively and find they have all been extremely generous with their time.
How does a poem begin for you--with an idea, a form, an image, or something else?
Joyce: For me, a poem begins with a need to express something I have noticed or felt about the world. But often I cannot start writing until I hear a line, or capture a voice, or experiment with a format. Once I have some structural direction, the need and the emotion and the language begin to come together in a kind of dance.
How do you choose the form of your poems?
Joyce: Hmmm . . . depends on subject matter, maybe? More playful poems might demand rhyme (although not always). I think it is a mysterious process. Sometimes I choose the wrong form, and have to start over again when nothing is working. I'll try another structure, which will give me a different tone.
What surprising things have you learned by accepting the challenge of fitting meaning into a structured form? What are the benefits of accepting these disciplined restrictions?
Joyce: Structure can lead you in unexpected ways. The poem sometimes becomes something it did not start out to be—which can be thrilling but also confusing. You have to constantly monitor meaning vs. impact. I weigh each word, asking myself: Does this add to the meaning, or is it merely a concession to the form? A formal structure can fail miserably, but if it works, it can be a knockout! Helen Frost is a master at this: her poems convey emotion and meaning, but often have some sort of fascinating structure to them as well, that adds a double punch.
What tools (rhyming dictionary, book of forms, etc.) do you use in writing poetry (if any)?
Joyce: I always have my thesaurus and rhyming dictionary at hand, plus several literary manuals I picked up in college and still use. Also, my bookshelves are full of lots and lots of excellent poetry books, which I use for reference and inspiration.
What would you like students or children to know about poetry?Joyce: That it is as much fun to write as it is to read. That everyone has poems inside them: interesting thoughts, secret observations, unexpected emotions. And there are many, many ways to write poems.
Here are some ideas--try them out!
Finally, one of your esteemed colleagues suggested I ask for a poem in a foreign verse form. Would you be willing to share a poem for this project?
Joyce: Tricia, here is a pantoum that has not yet been published, though I use it as a model poem on my website. A pantoum is one of my favorite poem forms, because it repeats lines, shedding new light on them.
Poets.org has a great
explanation of the pantoum form. My favorite quote from this explanation is: "An incantation is created by a pantoum’s interlocking pattern of rhyme and repetition; as lines reverberate between stanzas, they fill the poem with echoes."
Spring is the TimeSpring is the time for eggs:
soft air and sprigs of green.
Bright lemon sun,
wet nights singing.
Soft air and sprigs of green,
snug nests and puddles.
Wet nights singing,
feathery days.
Snug nests and puddles—
new life, new hope.
Feathery days,
yellow as yolk.
New life, new hope!
Bright lemon sun,
yellow as yolk.
Spring is the time for eggs.
Poem ©Joyce Sidman, 2009. All rights reserved.
A million thanks to Joyce for participating in my Jumping Into Form project this month.
Poems of apology ... well, we must begin with the poem that started it all.
This Is Just To Say
by William Carlos Williams
I have eaten
the plums
that were in
the icebox
and which
you were probably
saving
for breakfast
Forgive me
they were delicious
so sweet
and so cold
Poem ©William Carlos Williams. All rights reserved.
There are some who call this "the dreaded plum poem." I happen to like "This is Just to Say". Was the speaker truly remorseful? It's hard to say. Would I have forgiven the writer? Eventually, but I would have been really aggravated to find and read that note. I can just imagine it today, scribbled on a Post-It note stuck to the refrigerator.
The books that follow contain poems in the style of Williams, and are written as apologies.
- Table of Contents
- Introduction written by Anthony K., a "student" in Mrs. Merz's class
- This Is Just to Say, by William Carlos Williams
- Part 1: Apologies
- Part 2: Responses
This book is a direct result of Sidman's work as a writer-in-residence at schools, where she uses the poem as a model. There is a wealth of material here, with seventeen apology and seventeen response poems. Here's a sample pair of poems.
The Black Spot
(written by Alyssa for her sister Carrie)
That black spot on your palm.
It never goes away.
So long ago
I can hardly remember,
I stabbed you with a pencil.
Part of the lead, there,
still inside you.
And inside me, too,
something small and black.
Hidden away.
I don't know what to call it,
the nugget of darkness,
that made me stab you.
It never goes away.
Both marks, still there.
Small black
reminders.
Roses Are Red(written by Carrie in response to Alyssa)
Roses are red,
violets are blue.
I’m still really
pissed off at you.
Poems ©Joyce Sidman. All rights reserved.
The topics and emotions related in these poems are those that any child today might deal with. There are apologies for making fun of the dress a teacher is wearing, breaking a mother's precious glass deer, not winning a spelling bee, hitting a friend too hard with a dodge ball, and more. Some of the poems reveal the writer to be truly remorseful, while others are only slightly apologetic.
To learn more you should check out the particularly useful
reader's guide at Sidman's web site. You may also want to take a moment to
watch and listen to her read from the book.
Forgive me.
This next book
is anything
but remorseful.
Since it borrows
Williams' form,
I had to include it.
Please read on
and chastise me
later.
Forgive Me, I Meant To Do It: False Apology Poems, written by Gail Carson Levine and illustrated by Matthew Cordell, is a collection of poems connected with nursery rhyme or fairy tale themes and characters that borrow Williams' form but include apologies that are conditional or utterly insincere. Some of these poems are dark, but they're all entertaining and some are downright funny. Here's one of my favorites.
This Is Just to Say
I have shortened
my nose
with your saw
because
honestly
telling lies
is so much fun
Forgive me
I don't care
about becoming
a real boy
(Pinocchio)
Poem ©Gail Carson Levine. All rights reserved.
If you are interested in writing poems of apology with your students, check out some of these resources.
That's it for poems of apology. Join me this weekend for interviews with Joyce Sidman and Joan Bransfield Graham.
Parody is the imitation of a particular writer, artist or a genre, that is exaggerated deliberately to produce a comic effect.
Parody is the imitation of the style of another work, writer or genre, which relies on deliberate exaggeration to achieve comic or satirical effect. It is usually necessary to be familiar with the original in order to appreciate the parody, though some parodies have become better known than the poems they imitate.
I've heard folks complain about parody, suggesting that this form is responsible for "dumbing-down" poems. I find this argument irritating. To write a successful parody, the author must have extensive knowledge of the original work. I believe that kids can find their way into poetry when they are hooked by a parody. Parody poems can help students make connections so that when they encounter a poet or classic poem later on, they will have some knowledge and background information to enhance their reading of it.
Science Verse (2004), written by Jon Scieszka and illustrated by Lane Smith, is a collection of science poems that parody poems by Joyce Kilmer, Lewis Carroll, Ann Taylor, Robert Frost and others, as well as nursery rhymes and childhood songs. It begins:
On Wednesday in science class, Mr. Newton says, "You know, if you listen closely enough, you can hear the poetry of science in everything."
I listen closely. On Thursday, I start hearing the poetry. In fact, I start hearing everything as a science poem.
Mr. Newton has zapped me with a curse of SCIENCE VERSE.
Poems parodied include "Trees" by Joyce Kilmer, "The Star" by Ann and Jane Taylor, "The Raven" by Edgar Allan Poe, "Jabberwocky" by Lewis Carroll, "Casey at the Bat" by Ernest Lawrence Thayer, "The Song of Hiawatha" by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, "Paul Revere’s Ride" by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, "A Visit From St. Nicholars" by Clement C. Moore, and "Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening" by Robert Frost. Here's an excerpt.
Lovelyby Jon ScieszkaI think that I ain't never seen
A poem ugly as a spleen.
A poem that could mke you shiver,
Like 3.5 . . . pounds of liver.
A poem to make you lose your lunch,
Tie your intestines in a bunch.
A poem all gray, wet, and swollen,
Like a stomach or a colon.
Something like your kidney, lung,
Pancreas, bladder, even tongue.
Why you turning green, good buddy?
It's just human body study.
Poem ©Jon Scieszka. All rights reserved.
The book ends with our young hero waking from a dream, cured of his Science Verse.
Classic Poetry for Dogs: Why Do I Chase Thee (2014), written by Jessica Swaim and illustrated by Chet Phillips, is a collection of parodies of classic poems told by a group of cultured hounds like William Shakespaw, Elizabeth Basset Browning, Edgar Allan Pug, and many others. You'll find poems like "Shall I Compare Thee to a Steak Fillet?," "Why Do I Chase Thee?," "The Maven," "Song of Me," "Sizing Up Shoes on a Soulful Evening," and many others. Each new section begins with an introduction to the hound-author.
Here is what Swaim writes about Emily Doginson.
Emily Doginson, a skittish saluki mix, loved to spy on passersby from the front window of her family's luxurious digs in Scramherst, Massachusetts. When visitors rang the doorbell, shy Emily retreated to her crate, refusing to emerge except for choice bits of chopped liver. Paper-trained from an early age, she wrote copious letters to the world, most of which were returned for insufficient postage. Ultimately, she selected her own society, then shut the doggy door.
And here is one of Emily's poems.
Skunk is the Thing With Stink BombsSkunk is the thing with stink bombs
That leads a merry chase,
Then turns around and flicks its tail
And squirts me in the face.
Bath is the thing with soapsuds
And water cold as ice.
I wonder as I'm shivering,
Why was I hoodwinked twice?
Text and poem ©Jessica Swaim. All rights reserved. Edgar Allan Poe's Pie: Math Puzzlers In Classic Poems (2012), written by J. Patrick Lewis and illustrated by Michael Slack is a collection of cleverly disguised math problems in the form of parodies of classic poems. Can you guess the classic that inspired this poem?
Once upon a midnight rotten,
Cold, and rainy, I'd forgotten
All about the apple pie
Still cooling from the hour before.
I ignored the frightful stranger
Knocking, knocking . . . I, sleepwalking,
Pitter-pattered toward the pantry,
Took a knife from the kitchen drawer,
And screamed aloud, "How many cuts
Give me ten pieces?" through the door,
The stranger bellowed, "Never four!"
Go ahead, draw a circle and give it a try! The answer can be found upside-down on the opposing page. (Look it up or figure it out because I'm not telling!) Mathematically you could use four cuts, however, the pieces would not be equal in size.
Here's one more to whet your appetite. Yes, it contains fractions, but be brave!
Edward Lear's Elephant with Hot Dog
Inspired by "There Was An Old Man With a Beard" by Edward Lear
When an elephant sat down to order
A half of a third of a quarter
Of an eighty-foot bun
And a frankfurter, son
Was it longer than three feet, or shorter?
Poems ©J. Patrick Lewis. All rights reserved.
Since I'm highlighting J. Patrick Lewis at the end here, let me follow up with a few more poems. Pat was kind enough to share some parody poems he is working on for a new collection. The original is presented first, then Pat's parody.
Happy Thought The world is so full of a number of things,
I’m sure we should all be as happy as kings.
Robert Louis Stevenson___________
Sleepy ThoughtThe world is so full of a number of dreams,
I’m sure all our pillows should burst at the seams.
J. Patrick Lewis“Hope” is the thing with feathers
That perches in the soul
And sings the tune without the words
And never stops at all.
Emily Dickinson____________
Grief is the thing with tissues
For mopping up the tears,
So that when you’re in bed at night,
They won’t fill up your ears.
J. Patrick Lewis
Poems ©J. Patrick Lewis, 2015. All rights reserved.
If you are interested in learning more about parody poems, here are a few resources.
That's it for parody. I'll see you back here tomorrow for poems of apology.
An apostrophe is a poem which directly addresses a person or thing that is generally absent, hence the more common name of poem of address. There are many days when I want to talk to someone who isn't here, to ask questions, to wonder. Poems of address require poets not to write about something, but to imagine what they would say if they could speak to the person, place, or thing being addresses.
The word apostrophe comes from the Greek for "turning back." Apostrophe has been a part of storytelling since Greek drama. Because there is a clear speaker and change of addressee, apostrophe is often found in plays. However, it also occurs in prose and poetry. Here are some beginning lines from classic poems that use this form.
Edgar Allen Poe - To Science
Science! true daughter of Old Time thou art!
Who alterest all things with thy peering eyes.
Why preyest thou thus upon the poet's heart,
Vulture, whose wings are dull realities?
Percy Bysshe Shelley - Ode to the West WindO Wild West Wind, thou breath of Autumn's being
Thou from whose unseen presence the leaves dead
Are driven like ghosts from an enchanter fleeing,
John Pierpont - The Fugitive Slave’s Apostrophe to the North StarStar of the North! though night winds drift
The fleecy drapery of the sky
Between thy lamp and me, I lift,
Yea, lift with hope, my sleepless eye
To the blue heights wherein thou dwellest,
And of a land of freedom tellest.
William Shakespeare - Julius Caesar, Act 3, Scene 1O, pardon me, thou bleeding piece of earth,
That I am meek and gentle with these butchers!
Thou art the ruins of the noblest man
That ever lived in the tide of times.
You can learn more about apostrophe at
literary devices. This apostrophe is not the same as the punctuation mark. For more on that, read this poem.
Apostrophe to the Apostropheby Eric NelsonSmall floater, you stay above the fray,
a wink at nothing's nod, a raised brow
watching p's and q's, a selfless mote
between I and m, a little horn of plenty
spilling plurals, disdaining the bottom line.
Read the
poem in its entirety.
Hey You!: Poems to Skyscrapers, Mosquitoes, and Other Fun Things (2007), selected by Paul B. Janeczko and illustrated by Robert Rayesky, is an anthology entirely filled with poems of address. Here is how it begins in the section entitled
Imagination on the Loose.
Have you ever spoken to your sneakers? Or talked to your mailbox? Sounds wacky, doesn't it? Well, this book is filled with poems that were written to things. What kinds of things? How about poems to a fork or an octopus? They're in here. So are poems to mosquitoes and a skyscraper. There's even a poem in this book to the Vietnam Veterans Memorial.
Why would anyone write a poem to a thing? Because it's fun! And it can also be a challenge. You need to really observe the thing and discover what you might say to it. Then, of course, you'll need to find the right words to make it come alive.
Here are two examples.
To An Astronautby Beverly McLoughlandWhen you're in space
So far away
With darkness all around,
And you see the little Earth
Beyone,
Do you miss its windy sound?
Do you feel alone
With endless space
The neighbor at your door?
Do you miss the Earth
So far away?
Do you love it even more?
Poem ©Beverly McLoughland. All rights reserved.
Straight Talkby Nikki GrimesLook, Bee
Fair is fair.
I don't burst into
Your honeycomb
Willy-nilly
Or interrupt you
While you feed on
Rose and Lily
So leave me alone, drone
Show yourself the door
And don't come
Buzzing round here
Anymore
Poem ©Nikki Grimes. All rights reserved.You'll find poems of address sprinkled throughout many a poetry collection. Here are a few I particularly like.
Dear Hot Dog (2011), written and illustrated by Mordicai Gerstein, is a collection of poems that show the joy of childhood over the course of a day. The poems follow three friends from the time they wake up until the time they go to bed. Many of the poems are written as poems of address. Here is an example.
LightWhere do you go
when it's dark?
Back into lightbulbs
when I turn them off?
Do you hide in closets,
under the covers,
or in refrigerators?
Why can't I
fill a bag with you?
Where do you
go at night?
You have to be
somewhere!
Maybe tonight
I won't sleep.
I'll just stay up,
searching
the darkness,
till I find
you.
Poem ©Moridcai Gerstein. All rights reserved.Eric Carle's Animals Animals (1989), is a collection of poems by various authors, illustrated by Eric Carle. From classics to modern poems, there are a number of poems of address here. Here are two classics.
The Octopusby Ogden Nash
Tell me, O Octopus, I begs,
Is those things arms or is they legs?
I marvel at thee, Octopus:
If I were thou, I'd call me Us.
Bee! I'm Expecting Youby Emily DickinsonBee! I'm expecting you!
Was saying Yesterday
To Somebody you know
That you were due—
The Frogs got Home last Week—
And settled, and at work—
Birds, mostly back—
The Clover warm and thick—
You'll get my Letter by
The seventeenth: Reply,
Or better, be with me—
Yours, Fly.
Now that you've read a few examples for inspiration, here are some useful resources for reading and writing poems of address.
That's it for poems of address. I hope you'll join me here tomorrow for another form.
Mask or persona poems are poems in which the subject of the poem is the speaker. In creating the poem the writer takes on a "mask" or personality and speaks in the voice of an animal, element of nature, or inanimate object.
In her book
Dogs & Dragons, Trees & Dreams: A Collection of Poems (1980), Karla Kuskin shares a number of mask poems. The preface to this section of the collection reads:
The following five poems do not have titles. As you read each poem you will figure out what it is describing. Each one tells how it would feel to be something other than yourself.
I've read a lot of definitions and descriptions of mask poems. I think I like this one best for kids. Here's one of the poems she shared.
If you,
Like me,
Were made of fur
And sun warmed you,
Like me,
You'd purr.
Poem ©Karla Kuskin. All rights reserved.
In a form or mode of poetry called the persona poem or "mask poem," the poet takes on the voice of someone else--puts on a mask. In these poems, the poet takes over the persona of someone other than himself or herself and speaks in the first person. In the 1800s Robert Browning and Alfred Lord Tennyson wrote persona poems, among other forms. These poets and their contemporaries usually took on the voice of a historical or mythological character. This is also done in modern persona poems, but nowadays, poets also speak as if they were such things as an object, a place, an animal, an abstract idea, or a fantasy character.
There are many, many good books of poetry written entirely as mask poems. Mask poems can also be found in numerous children's poetry collections. Here are just a few of my favorites.
Dirty Laundry Pile: Poems in Different Voices (2001), selected by Paul Janeczko and illustrated by Melissa Sweet, is a collection of poems in the voices of a broom, kites, gloves, crayons, and more.
In the introduction Paul writes:I collected the poems in this book because I love reading poems written in the voice of an object or an animal, as if that thing or creature were speaking to me. In these persona or mask poems, as they are called, the poets let their imaginations fly and feel what it might be like to be a mosquito, a crayon, a kite, a turtle. It's something like wearing a Halloween costume or playing a part in a school play. Great fun, don't you think? As you read these poems, if you find yourself wondering what it would feel like to be a caterpillar, a soccer ball, or a honeybee, grab a pencil and let your imagination fly in a poem. Let that new voice sing!
In this book you'll find poems like "The Vacuum Cleaner's Revenge," "Scarecrow's Dream," and "Prayer of a Snowflake." This book is a terrific mentor text for using with kids learning to write mask poems. Here is an example.
Shell
by Deborah Chandra
Come, press my mouth against your ear,
I hold a message just for you.
Deep inside my throat is where
It curls, waiting for you to hear.
Put there by the sea itself,
Who whispered something you should know
In shadowy sounds wound round my shell,
And with my hidden tongue, I'll tell.
Poem ©Deborah Chandra. All rights reserved.in the swim (2001), poems and paintings by Douglas Florian, is a collection of humorous poems about underwater creatures. Many of the poems in this volume are written in the voice of the animal. Here's one of my favorites.
The Starfishby Douglas FlorianAlthough it seems
That I'm all arms,
Some other organs
Give me charm.
I have a mouth
With which to feed.
A tiny stomach
Is all I need.
And though it's true
I have no brain,
I'm still a
star--
I can't complain.
Poem ©Douglas Florian. All rights reserved.
This title is but one in a long line of books on animals, all of which contain mask poems. Additional titles to look for include
beast feast (1998),
on the wing (2000),
insectlopedia (2002),
mammalabilia (2004),
lizards, frogs, and polliwogs (2005), and more.
Two titles by Marilyn Singer,
Turtle in July (1989, OP), illustrated by Jerry Pinkney, and
Fireflies at Midnight (2003), illustrated by Ken Robbins, are both collections of mask poems.
Turtle in July is a collection of poems that pairs animals with the months of the year. It also includes four seasonal poems focused on the bullhead (a type of catfish).
Fireflies at Midnight is a collection of poems about animals at different hours of the day on a summer day.
Here's a favorite poem from each book.
Canada Goose(from Turtle in July)Did I tell you?
I should tell you
Going home
We're going home
Are you coming?
Yes, you're coming
Going home
We're going home
How the sun will warm each feather
How the wind will make us fly
Follow me -- I'll be your leader
As we flap across the sky
Are you ready?
I am ready
Going home
We're going home
Is it time now?
It is time now
October's happened
And we're going home
Crayfish(from Fireflies at Midnight)I, crayfish,
no day fish
no way fish
at all
Nosy otter, watch its jaws
Careless wader, watch my claws
Spend each morning
lying soundless
under stones
Spend each evening
shredding stems
picking bones
Poems ©Marilyn Singer. All rights reserved. Volcano! Wakes Up, written by Lisa Westberg Peters and illustrated by Steve Jenkins, is a collection of mask poems that describe a day in the life of an imaginary Hawaiian volcano. Ferns, lava flow crickets, a small black road, and the volcano itself all speak in these poems. Here's how it opens.
Volcano
I'm the baby.
I'm much smaller than my
big sister volcanoes. I'm a little sleepy
now, but when I wake up, watch out! I throw
nasty tantrums. It always works--I get the most attention!
Here's what the ferns have to say when they realize the volcano is awake.
Ferns
Fire-maker's awake!
She's about to
make
this caldera
a lake of fire and
lava. Ah, the
party
must be over.
Put away all the
streamers.
Say
good-bye,
honeycreepers.
But wait . . . it's
not
hot yet. It's
not even warm
yet. What a
lucky
delay on this
beautiful day. Hey,
everybody, let's
party!
Poems ©Lisa Westberg Peters. All rights reserved.
Button Up!: Wrinkled Rhymes, written by Alice Schertle and illustrated by Petra Mathers, is a collection of 15 mask poems in which the author speaks in the voices of shoes, galoshes, undies, a bicycle helmet, and more. Here's an excerpt.
Bertie's Shoelacesby Alice Schertle Good old Bertie,
he lets us hang around.
It doesn't bother Bertie
when we drag along the ground.
We're not up tight
as our Bertie Buddy knows.
We're hang loose laces and
we
don't do bows!
Poem ©Alice Schertle. All rights reserved.
Now that you've seen some great examples, here are some helpful resources for reading and writing mask poems with your students.
That's it for the mask/persona poem. I hope you'll join me back here tomorrow for another form.
The reverso is actually two poems in one. Read it down (in the normal fashion) and it has one meaning. Read it again from the bottom up, this time with changes only in punctuation and capitalization, and you have a different poem. Generally these poems are written as a pair so that the inversion (reversal, hence revserso) is easy to see and appreciate.
Invented by Marilyn Singer, her author's note gives readers some insight into the form and her process. Here's what she says.
We read most poems down the page. But what if we read them up? That's the question I asked myself when I created the reverso. When you read a reverso down, it is one poem. When you read it up, with changes allowed only in punctuation and capitalization it is a different poem.
The first reverso I wrote was inspired by my cat, August:
A cat without a chair: incomplete |
| Incomplete: a chair without a cat. |
Mirror Mirror: A Book of Reverso Poems (2010), written by Marilyn Singer and illustrated by Josee Masse, is a collection of fairy tale inspired poems written in the reverso form. This means that each poem is presented twice, once read in the traditional manner (down), and once read from the bottom up (though presented in a traditional top to bottom form). Confused? Don't be. Presented together, readers get two perspectives on a story, told with the same words but meaning different things. Here is an example.
In the HoodIn my hood,
skipping through the wood,
carrying a basket,
picking berries to eat—
juicy and sweet
what a treat!
But a girl
mustn’t dawdle.
After all, Grandma’s waiting.
After all, Grandma’s waiting
mustn’t dawdle...
But a girl!
What a treat—
juicy and sweet
picking berries to eat,
carrying a basket,
skipping through the wood
in my ’hood.
I can't imagine how difficult it is to write a poem in this fashion. The fact that it makes perfect sense in both directions and tells two sides of the same story is quite remarkable. Here's one more, the poem that gives the book its title.
Mirror MirrorLet me help you get some rest.
Mother knows best.
Listen to
me,
Snow White.
Sleepy, Dopey, Happy,
you've been working day and night.
You look worn out.
A long nap?
A blanket?
An apple to eat?
What would you like?
Time to get off your feet.
Time to get off your feet.
What would you like?
An apple to eat?
A blanket?
A long nap?
You look worn out.
You've been working day and night
Sleepy, dopey, happy
Snow White,
listen to me.
Mother knows best.
Let me help you get some rest.
You can
read and listen to some examples at Marilyn Singer's site. You may also want to check out the
educator's guide for the book.
Follow Follow: A Book of Reverso Poems (2013), written by Marilyn Singer and illustrated by Josee Masse, is the sequel (dare I say follow up?!) to Singer's first book of reverso poems. Fairy tale poems in this new collection tell opposite sides of the stories from Thumbelina, The Emperor’s New Clothes, The Princess and the Pea, The Little Mermaid, The Golden Goose, Puss in Boots, and others.
Ready, Steady, Go!That ridiculous loser!
I am not
a slowpoke.
Though I may be
the smallest bit distracted,
I can’t be
beat.
I’ve got rabbit feet to
take me to the finish line.
Take me to the finish line!
I’ve got rabbit feet to
beat.
I can’t be
the smallest bit distracted.
Though I may be
a slowpoke,
I am not
that ridiculous loser.
You can
read and listen to some examples at Marilyn Singer's site.
All poems ©Marilyn Singer. All rights reserved.
Incorporating fairy tale poetry in the classroom is a great way to spark interest in poetry itself. The topic is familiar and lends itself to examination from multiple perspectives. That's one of the reasons that these books work so darned well. The unexpected second perspective is often surprising and funny.
Whether your state uses Common Core or some other set of standards, the study of fairy tales and fables is an important part of English/Language Arts curriculum. Teachers have become pros at integrating fairy tales from other cultures and "fractured" fairy tales. It is high time for poetry to take its rightful place as part of this study.
For some ideas on integrating fairy tale poetry into the curriculum, check out these resources.
If you're feeling brave, perhaps you'll even try writing some simple reverso poems with your students!
In preparation for sharing forms this month, I wrote to a number of poets and asked if they would respond to a short list of questions on poetry, writing, and form. I'm thrilled every time one responds positively and find they have all been extremely generous with their time.
Today I'm sharing the thoughts of Marilyn Singer, author of more than 80 books in a range of genres, including non-fiction, fairy tales, picture books, mysteries, poetry, and more. Recent poetry titles include
Rutherford B., Who Was He?: Poems About Our Presidents (2013),
Follow Follow: A Book of Reversos (2013),
A Strange Place to Call Home (2012),
The Superheroes Employment Agency (2012),
A Stick is an Excellent Thing: Poems Celebrating Outdoor Play (2012),
A Full Moon Is Rising (2011),
Mirror Mirror: A Book of Reversible Poems (2010), and
First Food Fight This Fall and Other School Poems (2008).
How does a poem begin for you — with an idea, a form, an image, or something else?
Marilyn: For me, a poem can begin with any of those things. Sometimes, it’s an image. I saw the full moon between skyscrapers near Times Square, NYC, where the Broadway theatres are, and it led to the image of the moon as an actor waiting in the wings to make an entrance. That in turn led to the poem “Broadway Moon” in
A Full Moon Is Rising (Lee & Low). Other times, it’s an idea that sparks a poem. I was thinking about the nature of fire and these lines came into my head: “Fire has contradiction/at its heart/from that wintry blue part/to its jagged golden crown.” They became the opening of the poem “Contradiction” from
Central Heating (Knopf). For my reverso poems, the process of writing obviously begins with form. A reverso is a poem in two parts. The second part reverses the lines from the first part, with changes only in punctuation and capitalization, and it has to say something different from the first part.
Mirrror Mirror and
Follow Follow, both published by Dial, are my books of reversos based on fairy tales, and I have a third book of reversos,
Echo Echo, based on Greek myths, coming out next spring. When I decide to create a reverso, I have to find a narrative that will fit that form. I look for two sides to a story, and then I find lines that can be flipped, which requires a lot of participles, questions/declarations, etc. I usually write poems by hand on paper, but I have to write the reversos on a computer in order to shift around lines more easily and see what makes sense.
How do you choose the form of your poems?
Marilyn: Other than the reversos, which are a deliberate choice, I’m not really sure how I choose the form of my poems. I don’t think that there’s one thing at work which determines my choice. Sometimes a line begs to be repeated, for example, “A stick is an excellent thing,” from the title poem from
A Stick Is an Excellent Thing (Clarion). That call for repetition suggested that I use the line in a triolet, one of my favorite forms. But often, my choice is more like: I’m going to write about spadefoot toads for my book about animals in dangerous habitats,
A Strange Place to Call Home (Chronicle), and I’ve researched them, and, they’re in the desert, which is dry and sparse, and the poem’s about nature, and how about a haiku: “They can deal solo/with dryness, but give them rain,/and then: toads explode.”
Are there any forms you haven't tried but would like to? Why or why not?
Marilyn: There are lots of forms I’ve seen on lists and don’t know anything about. Tetractys? Tyburn? Dorsimbra? Maybe I’ll get to some of them—and maybe I won’t. I tried my hand at some villanelles and enjoyed them, though they were quite difficult. I’ve never written a sestina, and I don’t know if I ever will. It seems a bit daunting. In general, I’m drawn to forms that are more concise—triolets, cinquains, haikus, as well as free verse—forms that say a lot in a little. But, who knows, maybe I’ll wake up some morning with the burning need to write epic verse (though probably not!).
What tools (rhyming dictionary, book of forms, etc.) do you use in writing poetry (if any)?
Marilyn: I use all of the above—a rhyming dictionary (mostly online), a thesaurus, and reference sites to forms—as well as spell check. ;-)
What would you like students or children to know about poetry?
Marilyn: When I was very young, my parents read poetry to me. It made me fall in love with words and what they can convey. It also made me believe that there is not just one view of the world. Poetry is about surprise—seeing a cat, a stone, a trip to the ocean, an annoying neighbor, racial politics, climate change, bird migration, something conceptual or concrete in a unique way. And the poet’s efforts to do that allow the reader or listener to share that view, and perhaps use his or her own mind and senses to look at things differently.
Also, poetry can be a fun game. Writing my reversos, in particular, has been the ultimate word game. And I think, for readers, figuring out what the poems say and how they say it (and then maybe trying to write reversos themselves) is also a good game.
Finally, one of your esteemed colleagues suggested I ask for a poem in a foreign verse form. Would you be willing to share a poem for this project?
Marilyn: Here’s the title poem from Follow Follow. It’s based on the Pied Piper tale. Who is speaking in each part of the poem?
FOLLOW, FOLLOW
Hundreds of rats,
my dear citizens of Hamelin,
shall never return!
All the children
once again play merrily in the streets.
On this festive day
I will
tell the council to relay what I say:
“Many thanks
for your
trouble.
There will be
no pay.
It is time, Piper, to go away.”
It is time, Piper, to go away?
No pay?
There will be
trouble
for your
"many thanks."
Tell the council to relay what I say:
I will,
on this festive day,
once again play merrily in the streets.
All the children
shall never return.
My dear citizens of Hamelin—
hundreds of rats.
Poems ©Marilyn Singer. All rights reserved.
A million thanks to Marilyn for participating in my Jumping Into Form project this month.
In preparation for sharing forms this month, I wrote to a number of poets and asked if they would respond to a short list of questions on poetry, writing, and form. I'm thrilled every time one responds positively and find they have all been extremely generous with their time.
How do you begin a poem?
Avis: It varies. It can be a visual image, a musical thought, a physical sensation, or perhaps just a single word. But before I start writing, I like to immerse myself in someone else’s poetry. Sometimes an idea might come from this reading, but mostly I return to my earlier inspiration. A word grows into a phrase that grows into a line, and slowly, over time and many, many rewrites, a poem might emerge.
How do you choose the form of your poems?
Avis:
It’s crafty business, poetry writing,
But poetic forms are so inviting!
Should it be free verse? Rap? Haiku?
Intravista? Sonnet? Clerihew?
Limerick? Villanelle? Elegy?
A Couplet? Acrostic? A parody?
A myriad of forms from which to choose,
but the content decides which one to use.
What tools do you use in writing poetry?Avis: I enjoy playing with rhyme, and have three different rhyming dictionaries. My
Penguin Rhyming Dictionary is a well-thumbed paperback. Another book is
A Rhyming Dictionary and Poets’ Handbook by Burges Johnson, where the words are grouped into one-syllable rhymes, two-syllable rhymes, three-syllable rhymes, and so on – a double-dactyl-delight. I also like
Walker’s Rhyming Dictionary. It is a reverse-order dictionary and a handy source for eye-rhymes, where endings are the same in spelling but not in sound. I love eye-rhymes, and wrote a whole book of them, but recognize this obscurity is hard to sell. But they were fun to write, and here’s one of them:
TOUGH
Dandelions plough
straight through
cement. Although
just a golden hiccough
shining in its tiny trough,
for Dandelion, that is enough.
I also use the thesaurus, plus a Webster’s and an Oxford dictionary. Canadians sometimes have different pronunciations and spellings to the Americans for certain words. The ‘u’ in words such as honour, savour, humour, etc., disappears when my poems go over the border, bringing back childhood memories of a big red X on a spelling test if the ‘u’ were ever omitted.
But most of the time we both agree,
except when saying ‘zed’ or ‘zee.’
For forms, I often refer to The Harper Handbook to Literature, edited by Northrop Frye, et al. Lewis Turco’s
The Book of Forms: A Handbook of Poetics is a wonderful resource. A book I encouraged my teacher/librarian students to read when I was teaching a poetry course at the University of B.C. is called
The Teachers and Writers Handbook of Poetic Forms, edited by Ron Padgett. It’s full of useful information and reader-friendly definitions. I am somewhat addicted to collecting books of form, if only to discover new and obscure kinds of poems I’d like to try.
What would you like students or children to know about poetry? Avis: It doesn’t always have to rhyme or be funny. Poetry is the most inspiring and beautiful arrangement of words language can offer. Poetry is a producer of the ‘ah-ha’ moment. Robert Frost said “Poetry begins in delight and ends in wisdom.” I would like children and students to discover this delight and wisdom by reading lots and lots of good poems – all kinds. Poetry is meant to be enjoyed; too many ‘simile-safaris’ can kill poetry. I would like them to know the wonder of language, and to try writing their own poems, and learn through this experience that poetry writing is not easy, but so rewarding. It is a lifelong friend.
Are there any forms you haven't tried but would like to? Why or why not?
Avis: Yes, there are a lot of forms I have not yet tried! I have experimented with many different ones in two ABC poetry books I’ve written, and do have my favourites – especially haiku, triolet, sonnet, limerick, and acrostic. I’ve always been intrigued with puzzles and word games: crosswords, scrabble, anagrams, acrostics, words-within-words, rebuses, and any type of word fun that could be a springboard for a poetic form. I like to create poems with messages inside, and enjoy inventing my own forms.
Finally, one of your esteemed colleagues suggested I ask for a poem in a foreign verse form. Would you be willing to share a poem for this project?
Avis: "Foreign" can mean unfamiliar, and my choice of verse form will be unfamiliar, as it is an original poetic form I have created. I’ve called it the intravista, where words within words, arranged downward, make a poem within a poem. Here is an intravista about our old cat, Sockeye:
THE CONTENTED CAT
A t
hermal cushion arrives on my lap,
s
purred on by the thought
of a bl
issful nap. She neatly
w
ashes paws and chin – then lets
her heart
warming purr begin.
So ple
asant that murmur of purr and meow,
t
here’s enough contentment
to un
furrow my brow.
Her purr is as warm as her fur. By hiding a word within another word, the intr
avista continually surprises me. Coming up with an unusual word to envelop another one always seems to spark an unexpected idea, and it’s fun to have an inner voice give you two poems for the price of one. As April is the month of blossoms, and also Poetry Month, I’d like to close with this poem:
IN THE KEY OF BEE
Blossom wea
ther!
The sun-d
appled
s
treet is alive
with humming. L
isten
to these trees bliss
fully thrumming
in the s
oft key
of honey
bees!
The apple tree is full of bee! Poems ©Avis Harley. All rights reserved.
A million thanks to Avis for participating in my Jumping Into Form project this month.
An
acrostic poem is one in which the first, last or some other letters, when read in a line moving downward, spell out a word or phrase. Acrostic poems date back to ancient times. They are found in the Bible and Roman ruins. Chaucer wrote them in the Middle Ages. Christopher Marlowe, William Blake, Edgar Allan Poe, Lewis Carroll and others have written in this form.
Here's a bit of background on the form from Avis Harley's book,
African Acrostics.
The acrostic is a playful poetic form that people have enjoyed writing and reading since ancient times. The name comes from akros, the Greek word meaning outermost, or end, and stichos, meaning row, or a line of verse. Although the form has many variations, the most popular is the traditional acrostic, in which the first letters of the lines, when read downward, spell a word or words.
... Acrostics offer the writer an intriguing framework for a poem, and single acrostics are not difficult to create. Think of a word, phrase, or even a whole sentence that catches your imagination. Then write it vertically. You can use one words per line, or many words—rhymed or unrhymed. A predetermined letter can sometimes spark an unexpected idea, and it's great fun to hide a word or message for your readers
Astonish yourself— s
Create a poem that
Reads
On its
Side.
Think of the fun when
It lets the letters help you
Choose.
Text and Poem ©Avis Harley. All rights reserved.
On my regular travels through classrooms I have noticed that students are often asked to write acrostic poems. Sometimes I see their names or the topic they are studying as the spine of their poems. Too often these acrostic studies are merely lists of descriptive words or phrases. Poetry they are not. I think good acrostic poems are hard to write. To inspire students in their acrostic writing you need strong mentor texts they can use as models. The books that follow provide outstanding examples of acrostics that work.
African Acrostics: A Word in Edgeways (2012), written by Avis Harley with photographs by Deborah Noyes, is a collection of 18 acrostic poems, each accompanied by a gorgeous photograph of the animal described. Poems cover the crocodile, rhino, kudu, lion, hornbill, elephant, stork, zebra, giraffe, buffalo, ostrich, African wildcat, lioness, bonobo, impala, hippo, bat-eared fox, and leopard. The book opens with a poem about the form.
ACROSTIC (uh-Kros-tik)Welcome, all poets--both new
Or well versed. Non-rhymers or
Rhymers! Come,
Dive in headfirst!
Inviting all writers--
Now you're just the right age.
Explore the acrostic that rides
Down the page.
Get a word you
Enjoy and would like to define.
Write it down vertically
And fill in each line.
Your name is a very good way to begin.
Surprise yourself. Find that poem within!
Now that you've been introduced to the notion of a "word in edgeways," I doubt you'll ever look at an acrostic in the same way. In fact, Harley pushes the boundaries of the form and does more than write simple acrostics. Let's skip to the endnotes for a moment where readers will find descriptions and examples of the many forms found in this collection, such as the double acrostic, multiple acrostic, cross acrostic, and more. Here's an example of a double acrostic.
Eye to EyeEar-sails flap in a breez
e.
Leather limbs in rhyth
mEvenly swaying in ste
pPlod slowly over Afric
a.
Huge as a dinosaur, ye
tA tender soul from suc
hNoble mammoth alumn
i.
There is wonder abuz
z,
Staring into eyes so wis
e.
Poems ©Avis Harley. All rights reserved. The poems in this book are deftly created. The words spelled out vertically range from single words (herald, lying, poppet, outstanding) to phrases (wild stripes, cloud friends, fatherly advice, beauty in the beast). The double acrostics, quintuple acrostic (yes, that's FIVE words), and concrete acrostic deserve some special attention. The patterns that exist within them never get in the way of the poem itself, and finding them is a bit of a surprise.
Spring: An Alphabet Acrostic (1999), written by Steven Schnur and illustrated by Leslie Evans, is a collection of 26 acrostics from April to zenith. The poems each serve as a complete thought about the subject and are crafted exquisitely with what seem to be just the right words. Here are a few examples.
After days of
Pouring
Rain, the last
Ice and snow finally
Leave the earth.
Egrets, ducks and
Geese nest in the marsh
Grass, waiting for their
Shells to hatch.
Nestled under the
Eaves, a
Song-filled ark of
Twigs and grass.
Poems ©Steven Schnur. All rights reserved.
You will also find poems for the words buds, calf, dawn, frog, grass, hopscotch, infant, jungle, kites, ladder, May, outside, parade, quintuplets, raft, seeds, twilight, umpire, Venus, wheat, Xing, and young.
There are four books in this series, each one with carefully crafted acrostics. You can view some of the illustrations in the series and read a few more poems on
Leslie Evans' web site.
Silver Seeds, written by Paul Paolilli and Dan Brewer with paintings by Steve Johnson and Lou Fancher, is a collection of 15 nature poems using the acrostic form. The verses are ordered to follow a young boy and girl through the day, beginning with dawn and ending with night. In between they encounter sun, shadow, hills, trees, leaves (though the word is leaf), a bee, butterfly, hummingbird, clouds, fog, rain, the moon, and stars. Here is the poem that gives the book its title and one on clouds.
Silver seeds
Tossed in the air
And planted in the sky,
Reaching out of the darkness
Sprouting wonder.
Creamy scoops of ice cream
Lying
Out
Under a
Dreamy blue
Sky.
Poems ©Paul Paolilli and Dan Brewer. All rights reserved.The poems in each of these collections are economical and evocative. The metaphors are carefully selected and spot-on.
You will notice that each of the poems shared are fine examples of the form, far removed from the school-assigned poems to write an acrostic using your first name, or some vocabulary word being studied. Now that you've had a chance to think a bit about this form, here are some resources you may find helpful.
That's it for acrostic poems. Come back this weekend for two new interviews with children's poets.
Oh sonnet ...
How do I love thee? Let me count the ways.
I love thee to the depth and breadth and height
My soul can reach, when feeling out of sight
For the ends of being and ideal grace.
I love thee to the level of every day’s
Most quiet need, by sun and candle-light.
Do you recognize the lines above? They come from
Sonnets from the Portuguese (this is 43) by Elizabeth Barrett Browning.
The
sonnet is a fourteen-line lyric poem that originated in Italy and slowly made its way across Europe and to England. Sonnets were first written as love poems. The type of sonnet, Petrarchan (Italian) or Shakespearean (English) generally determines the structure and rhyme scheme. Before we get into the "rules" and specifics, let's start with a some words about the sonnet.
In That Book of Dad's I Borrowedchapter two was about the sonnet.
Man, those made me want to go back to
haiku. Like a burger with everything on it,
sonnets are packed with roses and dew,
summer days, tender breaths, rocks and rills
(whatever rills are), and tons of wimpy guys
who apparently thought it was a thrill
to sit around with some sheep and sigh
about everything. I'm not that lame.
I'm just a former baseball whiz who'd like
to do what I used to do. Again.
Even if it means getting called out on strikes.
Sorry, Will, the sonnet's not for me.
Baseball's my love—not some thou or thee.
It Took Foreverto write that, and it isn't very good.
I finished, though, because I might be
skinny and sick but I'm not a quitter.
Man, sonnets are hard: counting
syllables in every line, trolling
for rhymes.
But it's really cool how everything fits
into fourteen little lines.
It's kind of like packing a lunch box,
getting in way more good stuff
than I thought I could.
Poems ©Ron Koertge. All rights reserved.These two poems are from
Shakespeare Bats Cleanup by Ron Koertge. Kevin Boland (known to his baseball-playing buddies as Shakespeare) is sidelined by mono and must spend time at home resting and recuperating. What's a boy to do when he's told he's sick and can't play the sport he loves? His father, who is a writer, hands him a marble composition notebook and says, "You're gonna have a lot of time on your/hands. Maybe you'll feel like writing/something down." Soon after this Kevin takes a book about poetry from the den and secrets it away to his room.
It feels weird smuggling something about
poetry up to my room like it's the new
Penthouse.
As Kevin recovers from mono he writes about the death of his mother, girls, baseball, the past, and the struggles of a typical teenager. The poems take a variety of forms, including sonnet, couplet, free verse, elegy, pastoral, pantoum, and more. One of the things I love about this book is Kevin's perspective on writing and poetic forms, particularly the sonnet.
So how is a sonnet structured? First, most are composed of 14 lines and written in iambic pentameter. Iambic pentameter is the meter pattern of syllables. An iamb is a foot (two syllables in this case) that are unstressed/stressed in pattern. Since the prefix pent- means five, iambic pentameter is a line consisting of 5 iambs. It is stressed in this fashion:
da DUM | da DUM | da DUM | da DUM | da DUM
Italian Sonnet- The Italian sonnet is divided into an octave (8 lines), followed by a sestet (6 lines).
- The rhyme pattern for the octave is a-b-b-a, a-b-b-a. For the sestet the pattern can be c-d-e-c-d-e OR c-d-c-c-d-c.
- The transition from octave to sestet usually contains a turn.
English Sonnet- The English sonnet is composed of three quatrains and a final couplet.
- The rhyme pattern is a-b-a-b-c-d-c-d-e-f-e-f-g-g
- The turn in this version comes with the final couplet.
A Wreath for Emmett Till (2005), written by Marilyn Nelson and illustrated by Philippe Lardy, is a
heroic crown of sonnets, or a sequence of 15 sonnets that are interlinked like a normal crown of sonnets, except in the heroic crown the last sonnet is made entirely from the first lines of the previous 14 sonnets. One of the things that makes this heroic crown such an achievement is the the last sonnet is also an
acrostic poem, in which the first letters of each line spell out the phrase “RIP Emmett L. Till.”
The poems in this crown are not easy to read. They are unsettling, shocking, and sad, but this is an important event in the history of our nation that needs to be told again and again. The book ends with a short biography of Emmett Till, extensive notes on the 15 sonnets, and an artist's note. The tempera illustrations by Philippe Lardy quietly reflect the themes and moods of the sonnets.
One of the sonnets in this crown is written from the perspective of the tree witnessing the lynching, and echoes some of the sentiments expressed in Paul Laurence Dunbar's poem
The Haunted Oak.
Pierced by the screams of a shortened childhood,
my heartwood has been scarred for fifty years
by what I heard, with hundreds of green ears.
That jackal laughter. Two hundred years I stood
listening to small struggles to find food,
to the songs of creature life, which disappears
and comes again, to the music of the spheres.
Two hundred years of deaths I understood.
Then slaughter axed one quiet summer night,
shivering the deep silence of the stars.
A running boy, five men in close pursuit.
One dark, five pale faces in the moonlight.
Noise, silence, back-slaps. One match, five cigars.
Emmett
Till's name still catches in the throat.
Poem ©Marilyn Nelson. All rights reserved.
You can listen to an
interview with Marilyn Nelson on NPR and hear her read the entire poem. If you are interested in using this book in he classroom, you can download a
teacher's guide from Houghton Mifflin.
The Emily Sonnets: The Life of Emily Dickinson (2012), written by Jane Yolen and illustrated by Gary Kelley, is a sequence of sonnets that together tell the story of Dickinson's life. Written in the voices of Dickinson, her dog, sister, and others, each poem lovingly points back to the words used in Dickinson's own works. Back matter includes detailed information about the context of the poems and includes interesting and endearing anecdotes to accompany each sonnet.
Here are Yolen's words from the Author's note about the collection.
In this book of sonnets about Emily's life, I have given each poem a title and an indication as to the speaker, whether Emily herself, her sister Lavinia (Vinnie), her niece Martha (Mattie), her mentor/friend Thomas Wenworth Higginson, an unknown critic, or me (JY). I have tried to tell the truth of her life, but as Emily said: "Tell all the Truth but tell it slant—/Success in Circuit lies ..."
The Brick House (Emily Speaks)
No house in town was built of brick
Except the one that bore me.
The roof was slant, the walls quite thick.
My mother did not adore me.
My father's smiles were rare and swift,
A grimace more than joy.
I was the second child, a gift;
The first one was a boy.
We two, like sailors in a storm,
Clung desperate to each other,
Trying to stay safe and warm,
Small sister to big brother;
He strove so hard my life to save
From drowning in that icy wave.
Poem ©Jane Yolen. All rights reserved.
It's rare to find sonnets in poetry for children, so I have one more title to recommend.
Shakespeare's Seasons (2012), created by Miriam Weiner and illustrated by Shannon Whitt, is an introduction to Shakespeare that combines snippets of his verse (mostly sonnets) accompanied by illustrations that span the seasons of the year. Back matter includes a short note about Shakespeare and his work. Here is an excerpt.
The way people speak to each other has changed a bit since Shakespeare's time. This is why some of the words in this book—words from his sonnets and plays—may sound funny to you. But listen carefully and you can enjoy the music of his words, and the pictures they create in your mind.
The book opens with the season of summer and these lines.
Shall I compare thee to a summer's day?
Thou art more lovely and more temperate:
Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May,
And summer's lease hath all too short a date.
Sonnet 18, 1-4Most excerpts shared are four lines or less, though the longest quote is eight lines. Shakespeare's words, paired with Whitt's lovely images, make the language and ideas easily accessible for children. If you haven't seen this title, take a quick look at the images from the book at
Shannon Whitt's web site.
If you are ready to tackle reading and/or writing the sonnet with your students, here are some helpful resources.
That's it for the sonnet. I'll be back tomorrow with another form.
At the most basic level, found poems are poems composed from words and phrases found in another text. Here is a more comprehensive description from the folks at Poets.org.
Found poems take existing texts and refashion them, reorder them, and present them as poems. The literary equivalent of a collage, found poetry is often made from newspaper articles, street signs, graffiti, speeches, letters, or even other poems.
A pure found poem consists exclusively of outside texts: the words of the poem remain as they were found, with few additions or omissions. Decisions of form, such as where to break a line, are left to the poet.
“Happy poets who write found poetry go pawing through popular culture like sculptors on trash heaps. They hold and wave aloft usable artifacts and fragments: jingles and ad copy, menus and broadcasts — all objet trouvés, the literary equivalents of Warhol’s Campbell’s soup cans and Duchamp’s bicycle. By entering a found text as a poem, the poet doubles its context. The original meaning remains intact, but now it swings between two poles. The poet adds, or at any rate increases, the element of delight. This is an urban, youthful, ironic, cruising kind of poetry. It serves up whole texts, or interrupted fragments of texts.” — Annie Dillard
Put another way, found poetry is the literary version of a collage. Poets select a source text or texts — anything from traditional texts like books, magazines and newspapers to more nontraditional sources like product packaging, junk mail or court transcripts — then excerpt words and phrases from the text(s) to create a new piece.
What I love about the Found Poetry site is that they
describe different types of found poetry and where possible, provide examples. You can learn about erasure, free-form excerpting and remixing, cento, and cut-up. They also provide a quick but very helpful introduction to issues of fair use.
In an NCTE article on
found and headline poems I found this most useful and inspiring language for thinking about found poetry.
Plenty of strong and beautiful poems are made from plain language. You sometimes hear such language in conversation, when people are talking their best. Listen. Sometimes you yourself say wonderful things. Admit it. You can find moving, rich language in books, on walls, even in junk mail. (From such sources you’ll probably find better poems, or better beginnings for poems, than from dictionaries and other word books.)
So, poems hide in things you and others say and write. They lie buried in places where language isn’t so self-conscious as “real poetry” often is.
So found poetry is inspired by every little thing, you just need to keep your eyes, ears, and heart open to the possibilities.
The
Arrow Finds Its Mark: A Book of Found Poems (2012), edited by Georgia Heard and illustrated by Antoine Guillope, is a collection of 40 found poems. The guidelines for creating the poems found in the book are outlined in the Introduction and are excerpted here.
- Poets were asked to find text that already exists in a form other than poetry and present that text as a poem.
- Poets could find poems from any source (other than poetry).
- Poets were encouraged not to change, add, or rearrange words but, as in any creative endeavor, they stretched these guidelines and were allowed to make minor changes in order for the poem to flow more smoothly or make better sense. They could also change punctuation, tense, plurals, and capitalization.
- Poets created their own titles that often gave the poems depth and added another layer of meaning.
- Poets could combine the found poem with an other form.
So, the intrepid poets in this volume set out to find poems in the texts of everyday life. Here are a few of the poems they came up with.
Found by Janet Wong
on a box of OxiClean detergent
Pep Talk
Keep cool.
See a brighter solution.
Maintain freshness.
Boost your power!
Poem ©Janet Wong. All rights reserved.
Found by Amy Ludwig VanDerwater
in Drawing On Both Sides of the Brain
by Betty Edwards
Artist's Advice
Draw everything and anything.
Nothing is unbeautiful:
a few square inches of weeds
a broken glass
a landscape
a human being.
Observe your style.
Guard it.
Put pencil to paper every day.
Poem ©Amy Ludwig VanDerwater. All rights reserved.
Finally, I want to share one more found poem. This is a poem of a different sort. Please visit the
Newspaper Blackout site to learn more about Austin Kleon and his work.
Poem ©Autsin Kleon. All rights reserved.
If you would like to try writing found poems with your students, here are some helpful resources.
Now that you are inspired, go out and find yourself a poem! NPM is half over, but I still have more to explore with you. I'll hope you'll come back tomorrow for another form.
The list poem was used by the Greeks and in many books of the Bible. But two of the most popular American poems, Walt Whitman’s “Song of Myself” and Allen Ginsberg’s “Howl,” are list poems. So what is a list poem?
Basically, a list poem (also known as a catalog poem) is a poem that lists things, whether names, places, actions, thoughts, images, etc. It’s a very flexible and fun form to work with.
Whitman is one of my favorite list poem writers. Here's one that particularly stands out for me.
I Hear America Singingby Walt WhitmanI hear America singing, the varied carols I hear,
Those of mechanics, each one singing his as it should be blithe and strong,
The carpenter singing his as he measures his plank or beam,
The mason singing his as he makes ready for work, or leaves off work,
The boatman singing what belongs to him in his boat, the deckhand singing on the steamboat deck,
The shoemaker singing as he sits on his bench, the hatter singing as he stands,
The wood-cutter’s song, the ploughboy’s on his way in the morning, or at noon intermission or at sundown,
The delicious singing of the mother, or of the young wife at work, or of the girl sewing or washing,
Each singing what belongs to him or her and to none else,
The day what belongs to the day—at night the party of young fellows, robust, friendly,
Singing with open mouths their strong melodious songs.
What is it about list poems that makes them so accessible? Perhaps it's because the list is so ubiquitous in our lives. Everyone makes lists, so finding them in poetry is not unexpected and makes them seem familiar.
The list poem or catalog poem consists of a list or inventory of things. Poets started writing list poems thousands of years ago. They appear in lists of family lineage in the Bible and in the lists of heroes in the Trojan War in Homer's Iliad.
Characteristics Of A List Poem
- A list poem can be a list or inventory of items, people, places, or ideas.
- It often involves repetition.
- It can include rhyme or not.
- The list poem is usually not a random list. It is well thought out.
- The last entry in the list is usually a strong, funny, or important item or event.
List poems abound in poetry collections and are sometimes found in narrative prose. Here's an example from the book
Kartography (2004), written by Kamila Shamsie.
This litany of Karachi winter characteristics could easily be turned into a list poem, though I read it as a prose poem as written.
Out for a walk in New York City I see: yellow cabs speeding down Broadway; people lounging in overstuffed chairs at a coffee shop. I hear: cars honking; a dog barking in the distance. As I walk along I make a list in my head of what I observe just like Walt Whitman did over one hundred years ago in his famous list poems Song of Myself. The list or catalog poem is one of the oldest and most accessible of poetic forms.
... Poets meticulously craft their words to create list poems. Falling Down the Page highlights the wide variety of the list poem form, from a simple list of words with a twist at the beginning or end to more complicated and detailed descriptive lists.
Here are two poems from this collection.
Are We There Yet?
by Heidi Roemer
Ocean maps,
Weather maps,
Maps that chart the stars.
Road maps,
Train maps
Show us where we are.
Builder's maps,
Landscape maps,
Maps drawn in the sand.
Fold-up maps,
Rolled-up maps.
A globe held in my hand.
Tattered maps,
Treasure maps-
What secrets are they holding?
I like maps.
I read maps.
They get me where I'm going.
Poem ©Heidi Roemer. All rights reserved.
Recipe For Writing An Autumn Poem
by Georgia Heard
One teaspoon wild geese.
One tablespoon red kite.
One cup wind song.
One pint trembling leaves.
One quart darkening sky.
One gallon north wind.
Poem ©Georgia Heard. All rights reserved.
This is a wonderful book, full of surprises. It opens vertically and is visually very interesting. (It was designed by
John Grandits, so this should come as no surprise to anyone who's seen his concrete poetry books!) This is not only a great choice for read aloud, but also a terrific mentor text for students learning to write list poems.
I want to close with this list poem by George Ella Lyon.
Where I'm FromBy George Ella LyonI am from clothespins,
from Clorox and carbon-tetrachloride.
I am from the dirt under the back porch.
(Black, glistening,
it tasted like beets.)
I am from the forsythia bush
the Dutch elm
whose long-gone limbs I remember
as if they were my own.
Read the
poem in its entirety. You can hear it read on George Ella Lyon's web site or listen to it in the video below.
There are a number of resources available for teachers wanting to use this poem as a model for list poem writing.If you are ready to work on writing list poems with your students, here are some resources you may find helpful.
I hope you have found this introduction to list poems helpful. I'll see you back here tomorrow for another form.
An ekphrastic poem is a vivid description of a scene or, more commonly, a work of art.
Poets.org defines ekphrasis in this way.
"ekphrasis"�a vivid description of a thing. Ekphrasis during the Greek period included descriptions of such battle implements, as well as fine clothing, household items of superior craftsmanship (urns, cups, baskets), and exceptionally splendid buildings.
. . .
ekphrastic poems are now understood to focus only on works of art—usually paintings, photographs, or statues. And modern ekphrastic poems have generally shrugged off antiquity's obsession with elaborate description, and instead have tried to interpret, inhabit, confront, and speak to their subjects.
The creation of original poetry and prose in response to works of visual art, known as Ekphrastic writing, is a writing exercise originating in ancient Greece where schoolboys were assigned composition exercises about painting and architecture. Familiar examples are poems such as John Keats’ “Ode on a Grecian Urn” (1819) or W. H. Auden’s “Musée des Beaux Arts” (1938).
Heart to Heart: New Poems Inspired by Twentieth Century American Art (2001), edited by Jan Greenberg, is a collection of poems inspired by and written to selected works of art by Alexander Calder, Jackson Pollack, Grandma Moses, Jacob Lawrence, Andy Warhol, Roy Lichtenstein, Georgia O'Keeffe and others. Pieces include paintings, photographs, sculptures and more. An illustration from Faith Ringgold’s
Tar Beach is even included. This book was a
2002 Printz honor book.
In the Introduction Greenberg writes:
In college I discovered there was a long tradition of poets writing on art, going back to ancient Greece. I read Homer's description of Achille's shield and John Keats' Ode on a Grecian Urn. The list grew. Now in my books on American art, I find that including poetry enriches the text, adds an element of surprise. For what the poet sees in art and puts into words can transform an image, "giving us a sense," says the poet Bobbi Katz, "of entering a magical place," and extending what is often an immediate response into something more lasting and reflective.
These connections between reader and viewer, writer and artist, resulted in this anthology, celebrating the power of art to inspire language.
... Whether the word are playful, challenging, tender, mocking, humorous, sad, or sensual, each work of art, seen through the eyes of a poet, helps us look at the world around us with fresh insight.
The book is divided into several sections, labeled Stories, Voices, Impressions, and Expressions. Some of the poems in the book tell stories, while others speak from the artwork itself as the voice of the object or a person depicted within. Some describe the elements of the artwork, while others still explore the nature of art and the artist.
In the section on Expressions is a pantoum by Bobbi Katz. It was written for an untitled Rothko work created in 1960. Here is how it begins.
Lessons from a Painting by Rothko
How would you paint a poem?
Prepare the canvas carefully
With tiers of misty rectangles
Stacked secrets waiting to be told.
Prepare the canvas carefully
With shallow pools of color
Stacked secrets waiting to be told
Messages from some unknown place
In the section on Impressions is a poem by Jane Yolen. Here is an excerpt. Can you guess which well-known painting it accompanies? (The title has been excluded for obvious reasons!)
Do not dwell on the fork,
the brooch at the throat,
the gothic angel wing
of window pointing toward
a well-tended heaven.
See how well you did by
looking for the answer here.
The ekphrastic poems in this book are moving and lovely. In addition to those mentioned above, you'll find pieces by Kristine O'Connell George, X. J. Kennedy, J. Patrick Lewis, Naomi Shihab Nye, Carole Boston Weatherford, Janet Wong, Ron Koertge, and many others. Back matter includes biographical notes on both the poets and artists.
Side By Side: New Poems Inspired By Art From Around the World (2008), edited by Jan Greenberg, is a collection of poems inspired by and written to selected works of art from around the world. Most of the poems in this work were written or translated specifically for this collection. The artwork represents a mix of "ancient, traditional, modern, and contemporary art." Like her first work, Greenberg has divided this book into the sections Stories, Voices, Impressions, and Expressions. They are described this way.
In Stories, the poet looks at an artwork and imagines a story. In Voices, the poet enters the canvas and speaks in the voice of the subject depicted there. In Expressions, the poet is interested in the transaction that takes places between the viewer and the art object. In Impressions, the poet identifies the subject of the artwork and describes what he or she sees in the elements of the composition, such as line, shape, texture, and color.
In the Introduction, Greenberg says this about ekphrastic poetry.
And ekphrastic poetry has fascinated poets for centuries. The poet takes the time to sit and stare at an artwork, to think about what he or she sees and to write it down. It forces the viewer not only into more than taking in the image but also into finding words to express what he or she feels. Art may challenge our minds, but it also touches our souls.
The poems in this collection are often presented in two languages. For example, you will find a poem written for Pablo Picasso's Dish of Pears, written in Spanish and translated into English, one for Reha Yalnizcik's Two Leaves in Snow, written in English and translated into Turkish, one for Wafaa Jdeed's Forest, written in Arabic and translated into English, and many others. One of my favorite poems was written in Japanese and translated into English.
Dawn by Ei-Kyu
On Dawn
Translated from the Japanese by Sawako Nakayasu
Original poem written by Naoko Mishimoto
wind lulls, cornflower
eyelids close
asleep at night
a faint blue
spiral dream with
birds & insects
birds & insects
I love this volume because it introduced me to many works of art and writers I have never seen or read before. The back matter includes biographies of the poets, translators, and artists.
Paint Me a Poem: Poems Inspired by Masterpieces of Art (2005), written by Justine Rowden, is a collection of 13 poems inspired by paintings on display in the National Gallery in Washington. It is written for young children, so the poems here often capture a child's imaginings in relation to the art. You can view examples of the art and poems at
the author's site.
J. Patrick Lewis was kind enough to send me some poems he is working on for a collection of ekphrastic poems. Here are two examples.
The Sleeping Gypsy by Henri Rousseau
The Sleeping GypsySurprised by Moon, but at his ease,
The imperturbable lion sees
A water jar, a mandolin,
The wooden woman in her skin.
He does not put on brute display
His fascination for the prey
That other nights on other dunes
Ruthlessly reddens other moons.
He must be fed but must be full;
No doubt his appetite is dull
From ravaging the wicked part
Of his corrupted lionheart.
Whatever reasons there may be
For this pastoral scenery,
Midnight capitulates to dawn.
The lion lingers, and moves on.
Sunday Afternoon by Fernando Botero
Sunday AfternoonIs it a picnic? Is it a lark?
Mother and Father swelling the park
with baby blue babies,
baby fat babies,
one bound for outer space,
one on the Ark.
Adolescently wavy,
the Admiral lookout’s
becoming a navy
all to himself,
while Father’s daydreaming
of roast beef rare,
or else the apostrophe
of Mother’s hair.
Poems ©J. Patrick Lewis, 2015. All rights reserved.
Finally, I want to point you in the direction of Irene Latham's Poem-a-Day Project for National Poetry Month 2015. Entitled
ARTSPEAK!, Irene is writing a series of ekphrastic poems for a a wide range of images found in the online collections of the
National Gallery of Art. Her project focuses on "dialogue, conversations,
what does the piece say?"
If you are ready to begin writing ekphrastic poems with your students, here are some helpful resources.
I hope you've enjoyed this brief introduction to ekphrastic poetry.
In preparation for sharing forms this month, I wrote to a number of poets and asked if they would respond to a short list of questions on poetry, writing, and form. I'm thrilled every time one responds positively and find they have all been extremely generous with their time.
How does a poem begin for you — with an idea, a form, an image, or something else?
Pat: None of the above. A poem for me almost always emerges from a word, one word. “In the beginning was . . .” and so forth. And sooner or later, voila! another word appears. My latest collection began with the word “blue.” I decided to write a series of ekphrastic poems to classical paintings, all of which have a predominance of the color blue in them. If the ms. ever sees the light of
day, that will be its title—BLUE.
How do you choose the form of your poems?
Pat: In poetry, as in architecture, form follows function. In short, it depends on what one intends to write about. Limericks, obviously, are wholly inappropriate for the more serious themes, like civil rights, national monuments, or outstanding women. Likewise, you are unlikely to find sonnets as texts for the very young. I do have a fondness for villanelles, not in spite of but because they are so damnably hard to do well. Elizabeth Bishop took fifteen years to write “
One Art,” and it shows. Why write if the challenge isn’t there?
Are there any forms you haven't tried but would like to? Why or why not?
Pat: I’m endlessly working my way through Robin Skelton’s indispensable
The Shapes of Our Singing: A Comprehensive Guide to Verse Forms and Metres from Around the World. For any poet eager to experiment, there is a surprise on every page.
I would not write a diamante, which is undeserving of the name “verse form.” Unfortunately, teachers often use diamantes with students, who are then led to believe that writing poems is about the search for adjectives. Since writing poetry is difficult, it could never be about hunting for adjectives, which is easy. Poetry is the search for strong personified verbs.
What tools (rhyming dictionary, book of forms, etc.) do you use in writing poetry (if any)?
Pat: What tools doesn’t one use? Another necessary title that is bolted to my desk is Lewis Turco’s
The Book of Forms (revised and expanded edition). Writing poetry without it is like crocheting without needles. I continually turn to Stephen Fry’s
The Ode Less Traveled for its wisdom, humor, and suggested exercises. Rhyming dictionaries, yes, of course. The Random House Unabridged is on my dictionary stand, and within arm’s reach is Mr. Roget, silent partner in all my endeavors.
I shamelessly admit that I steal forms (as T.S. Eliot advised) from many a volume sharing space on my bookshelf by some now nearly forgotten poets— Samuel Hoffenstein, Harry Graham, the Carryls, père and fils, W.S. Gilbert, Arthur Guiterman, Ms. Anonymous, and of course, the unforgettable Lear and Carroll.
What would you like students or children to know about poetry?Pat: I would like them to know that, at the age of seven, they should pay no attention to grownups who call them “poets.” They are not poets but practitioners. A seven-year-old who climbs up on a piano stool and bangs on the keys is not a pianist.
Second, and again to paraphrase Eliot, rhyming is not one of your holiday games. If children decide that rhyming is what they want to do, let them begin doing it—at the age of 30 or so. For now, just encourage them to write.
Finally, one of your esteemed colleagues suggested I ask for a poem in a foreign verse form. Would you be willing to share a poem for this project?
Pat: The is a Deibide Baise Fri Toin, an Irish verse form. The rhyme scheme is AABB; the syllable count, 3/7/7/1
North Star
Night’s begun.
When I can see just that one
unimaginable star
far
out in space
winking at the human race,
I feel positively sky-
high.
Poem ©J. Patrick Lewis, 2015. All rights reserved.
A million thanks to Pat for participating in my Jumping Into Form project this month.
In preparation for sharing forms this month, I wrote to a number of poets and asked if they would respond to a short list of questions on poetry, writing, and form. I'm thrilled every time one responds positively and find they have all be extremely generous with their time.
Helen: Each poem is different, of course, but typically I begin with an image or an emotion. Images are usually quite specific, emotions not so much so; I’m exploring what emotion the image is leading me into, or what images will help bring the emotion into a sharper focus.
How do you choose the form of your poems?
Helen: For an individual poem, I often experiment until I find a form (or freedom) that adds strength to the poem and helps it find it’s way. For a book-length form, the process is similar, but takes longer, as I’m developing the story, getting to know the characters, and finding the form simultaneously.
Are there any forms you haven't tried but would like to? Why or why not?
Helen: I think I’ve tried most of the forms I know about, some not successfully enough to result in a publishable poem. I enjoy inventing new forms, or expanding single-poem forms into something that will work for a whole book. In an earlier version of the novel-in-poems that eventually became
HIDDEN, I worked for months trying to find a form that would be structured like a DNA molecule. Eventually, I realized that I had already done that without being self-conscious about it: the form I invented for
THE BRAID is very much like the double helix of DNA (though without the twist).
What tools (rhyming dictionary, book of forms, etc.) do you use in writing poetry (if any)?
Helen: I have all those tools—rhyming dictionaries (one for adults, one for children), several different books of forms (again, some written with young writers in mind, others for adult poets). I used them a lot when I was learning my craft and now I use them as references to remind me of the specifics of a form, or to suggest a rhyme I might not have considered.
What would you like students or children to know about poetry?Helen: A question that interests me more might be “How would you like students or children to know about poetry?” I’d like them to dive in with their ears and eyes and hearts open wide and experience poetry before they analyze it too much.
Here’s a question I was asked by a first grader in Ed Spicer’s class about the poem in my new book,
SWEEP UP THE SUN (a collaboration with photographer Rick Lieder): How did you make the poem sound like the bird is actually sweeping up the sun?
I answered: First let me say that this is a beautiful question, because it shows that you are reading and listening carefully, and then thinking about the words. The answer is in the poem itself: think of the sky as language, and then think of the birds’ wings as poetry, a special kind of language that pays attention to sound and images (pictures in our minds). When I write a poem, I don’t start out by knowing what I want to say, just as a bird might lift off from a branch without knowing exactly where it is going. But I trust language, as a bird trusts itself to the sky, so I can “ride the wind” (the thoughts that come to me) “and explore” (to find out what I want to say and how to say it). Writing a poem is energetic, and the sun we sweep up together in this poem (as writer and reader) is like an infinite source of light and warmth.
Finally, one of your esteemed colleagues suggested I ask for a poem in a foreign verse form. Would you be willing to share a poem for this project?
Helen: Here’s a villanelle, a form that originated as French, though many of the best-known villanelles are written in English. The poem is set in rural Alaska, more than 30 years ago.
Mud, Sticks, Food
Somewhere a house is empty of these lives,
the mother beaver dead, the pups not born.
Our hands caress the loss. Our thought contrives
to name the brown and violet parts, as if, in naming, it revives
the heart, makes loops and curves and folds less torn.
Somewhere a house is empty of these lives.
We lift the liquid cradles, cut them loose with knives.
Water breaks on fur, feet, tail. Watching, we forget to mourn.
Our hands caress the loss. Our thought contrives
their birth. We wrap the pups in plastic, hang them high in leaves
of willows by the river, to protect their perfect form.
Somewhere a house is empty of these lives.
We clean the inside of the mother's skin. All we do deprives
her house of mud, sticks, food -- leaves her mate forlorn.
Our hands caress the loss. Our thought contrives
to find an exit. The living beaver slaps his tail and dives.
We are enclosed in widening rings of scorn.
Somewhere a house is empty of these lives.
Our hands caress the loss our thought contrives.
Poem ©Helen Frost, from Skin of a Fish, Bones of a Bird, Ampersand Press, 1993. All rights reserved.
A million thanks to Helen for participating in my Jumping Into Form project this month.
Limericks are humorous nonsense poems that were made popular in English by
Edward Lear. Limericks not only have rhyme, but rhythm. The last words of the first, second, and fifth lines all rhyme, and the last words of the third and fourth lines rhyme. This means the rhyme scheme is AABBA. The rhythm of a limerick comes from a distinct pattern. Lines 1, 2, and 5 generally have seven to ten syllables, while lines 3 and 4 have only five to seven syllables. Here is an example from Lear's book.
If you can't read the text, here's the limerick in the 5-line form usually seen today.
There was an Old Man with a beard,
Who said, 'It is just as I feared!
Two Owls and a Hen,
Four Larks and a Wren,
Have all built their nests in my beard!'
Here are a few books for children that nicely exhibit this form.
The Hopeful Trout and Other Limericks (1989), written by John Ciardi and illustrated by Susan Meddaugh, is a collection of 41 limericks published a few years after Ciardi's death. Divided into five sections under the headings of (I) Sometimes Even Parents Win; (II) It Came From Outer Space; (III) He Was Brave, But Not For Long; (IV) Iron Men and Wooden Ships; and (V) Heights Made Him Dizzy, readers will find humor and wit in these short poems. Here is an example.
Goodbye Please
I once kew a word I forget
That means "I am sorry we met
And I wish you the same."
It sounds like your name
But I haven't remembered that yet.
Poem ©John Ciardi. All rights reserved.
Grimericks (2008), written by Susan Pearson and illustrated by Gris Grimly, is a collection of limericks on all manner of monsters appear in this fun volume of poems. It begins with this poem. Dear Reader, please lend me your ear.
If ghosts, ghouls, and goblins you fear,
don't open this book.
No--don't even look!
There are spooky things hiding in here.
You'll find incompetent and unlucky witches, mummies, skeletons, banshees, and more. Grimly's illustrations are full of (appropriately!) grim humor. Here's one of my favorites.
Augustus, a ghoul who played chess,
felt his game was a howling success.
If a player could beat him,
then Gus would just eat him,
"Too bad," he said. "One player less."
Poems ©Susan Pearson, 2008. All rights reserved.
At
Google Books you can preview some of the images and poems.
If you want to try reading and writing some limericks in your classroom, here are some helpful resources.
I hope you've enjoyed this brief introduction to the limerick. On Saturday and Sunday I will be sharing interviews with children's poets. On Monday I'll return with a look at ekphrastic poetry.
I've enjoyed exploring haiku with you the last few days. Today I want to share a few more haiku titles (though there are many more), along with some final thoughts on the form and ideas for teaching haiku.
One Leaf Rides the Wind (2005), written by Celeste Davidson Mannis and illustrated by Susan Kathleen Hartung, is a nice combination of a counting book and a haiku poetry. It is set in a Japanese garden where a young girl counts the things she sees, like bonsai, koi, and lotus flowers. The left side of each spread contains an illustration of the objects being counted. On the right side of each spread is the printed numeral, a haiku describing the objects, and a footnote introducing readers to various aspects of traditional Japanese culture. Here are the poems for 8 and 9.
What do flowers dream?
Adrift on eight pond pillows,
Pink-cheeked blossoms rest.
Hoping for some crumbs,
they nibble at my fingers.
Nine glittering koi.
Poems ©Celeste Davidson Mannis. All rights reserved. Hi, Koo!: A Year of Seasons (2014), written and illustrated by Jon J. Muth, is a quiet look at seasons that also includes a hidden alphabetic journey (A for autumn, B for broom, C for coat, and so on). In 26 poems, Muth's panda named Koo helps readers see the beauty and simplicity of the world and daily life. From the outset, Muth does a terrific job capturing the essence of haiku. Here is an excerpt from the author's note.
Over time, haiku has evolved, so that many modern poets no longer adhere so rigidly to this structure. I have not restricted myself to the five-seven-five syllable pattern that many of us grew up learning haiku must be.
For me, haiku is like an instant captured in words—using sensory images. At its best, a haiku embodies a moment of emotion that reminds us that our own human nature is not separate from all of nature.
Here are the opening and closing haiku. Readers may notice that the alphabet words in each poem are capitalized.
Autumn,
are you dreaming
of new clothes?
becoming so quiet
Zero sound
only breath
Poems ©Jon Muth, 2014. All rights reserved.The Year Comes Round: Haiku Through the Seasons (2012), written by Sid Farrar and illustrated by Ilse Plume, is a small collection of 12 haiku that take readers through the months from January to December. Back matter includes a note about haiku, information on the cycle of life, and more on each season. The last page includes one final haiku. Farrar has done a fine job selecting natural elements that exemplify the seasons. Here is my favorite poem. Can you guess which month this is?
Like tiny fallen
stars, fireflies quietly blink
their secrets at dusk
And this is the poem that ends the book.
Earth circles the sun
spinning a tapestry of
days, months, seasons—life.
Poems ©Sid Farrar, 2012. All rights reserved.
Black Swan/White Crow (1995), written by J. Patrick Lewis and illustrated by Christopher Manson, is a collection of 13 haiku with themes from nature and the outdoors, accompanied by woodcut illustrations. The words and images are spare and beautiful, fully complementing each other. Here are two of my favorite haiku.
Frantic sandpiper--
high tides erasing
her footnotes
Snowdrifts to his knees,
a scarecrow left with nothing
up his sleeve.
Poems ©J. Patrick Lewis. All rights reserved. Other haiku books I love but which are sadly out of print include
Least Things: Poems about Small Natures (Yolen),
Stone Bench In An Empty Park (Janeczko),
Cricket Never Does (Livingston), and
Don't Step on the Sky: A Handful of Haiku (Chaikin).
We've looked at a lot of haiku over the last few days. If you are ready to try reading and writing it with your students, here are some resources that may interest you.
- Master Basho's Spirit is a series of lessons that introduces haiku. Written for primary students, it outlines a thoughtful process for sharing this form with students.
- The resource Haiku-Poetry of the Samurai Warrior provides a few lessons and reproducibles for studying haiku.
- Try this four-week writing workshop (for upper elementary students) entitled Planning, Writing, and Animating a Haiku.
- ReadWriteThink has a few lesson plans on haiku and poetic forms that include useful printables..
- The lesson Using the Haiku Eye is for older students and is based primarily on reading The Narrow Road to Oku (also known as The Narrow Road to the Far North) by Matsuo Basho. It does have some terrific examples and a nice project idea.
- The Art of Writing Haiku for Kids is an article by Betsy Snyder, the author of HAIKU YOU and HAIKU BABY. She offers seven helpful tips for writing haiku for children. These can easily be adapted for the classroom.
I hope you've learned something new in this exploration of haiku. Tomorrow the limerick is in the spotlight.
When I was planning this project I realized I had more haiku books than I knew what to do with. Therefore, I decided to include a thematic post highlighting this form. Today I turn my attention to haiku that focus on animals.
Let's start today with three books by Michael J. Rosen.
The Hound Dog's Haiku: and Other Poems for Dog Lovers (2011), written by Michael J. Rosen and illustrated by Mary Azarian, introduces readers to 20 breeds of dog from bluetick coonhound to dachshund. Back matter includes information about the breeds.
Here are two of my favorites from this collection.
Labrador Retriever the first duck splash-lands speck in the iced pond's lone eye soon . . . the chase restarts
Bloodhound staccato sniffing fills your ribs' parentheses you keep scent's secret
The Maine Coon's Haiku: And Other Poems for Cat Lovers (2015), written by Michael J. Rosen and illustrated by Lee Anthony White, is a collection of 20 poems on a variety of cat breeds. Broken into alternating sections of "Inside" and "Outside," the cats are introduced with five breeds in each of the four sections. Back matter includes descriptions of each breed of cat. Here are two of my favorites.
Maine Coon crouched before the couch,
suddenly, cat has all night
for just one sound: mouse
Siamese a toppled lamp shade
moon moth must be here somewhere
batted from the dark
The Cuckoo's Haiku: and Other Birding Poems (2009), written by Michael J. Rosen and illustrated by Stan Fellows, is a collection organized by season, beginning with spring. The spare form works well in these poems, highlighting each of the 24 bird species in delightful ways. The illustrations are elegant and nicely complement the text. Each double-page spread reads like a birder's journal, with notes scribbled on the pages. Here are two of my favorite poems. (Please note that the poems in the book are not titled. I have highlighted them this way only as a means of organization.)
Spring - Eastern Bluebird
on a staff of wires
blue notes inked from April skies
truly, spring's first song
Summer - Northern Mockingbird
the one-man bird band:
diva, choir, and orchestra
unbroken record
Poems ©Michael Rosen. All rights reserved.
The back matter for the book contains a section entitled Notes for Bird Watchers and Haiku Lovers.
If Not For the Cat (2004), written by Jack Prelutsky and illustrated by Ted Rand, is a collection of 17 haiku that encourage readers to see animals in new ways. Without sharing the illustrations these can be read as "Who am I?" poems. Can you guess which animals are described in these two poems?
If not for the cat,
And the scarcity of cheese,
I could be content.
How foolish I am.
Why am I drawn to the flame
Which extinguishes?
Poems ©Jack Prelutsky. All rights reserved.You can see examples of the artwork and view additional poems in this preview.
I hope you've enjoyed another day of haiku. Tomorrow I will wrap up this form with some additional books and resources for teaching students about haiku.
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