From the National Council of Teachers of English—TYCA National Poetry Month Celebration
From the website: A new poem will be added to this page each day of April to celebrate National Poetry Month. We hope you come back each day to enjoy the poems we post, all original works by community and two-year college English faculty. If you are a poet, we hope you will consider submitting your work for consideration. While we hope to publish at least four poems from each of the TYCA regions, we will be accepting submissions until further notice from all regions.
From the Indiana Humanities Council’s Think. Read. Talk.—National Poetry Month
From the Academy of American Poets—Poem-A-Day Archive for National Poetry Month
From the Poetry Foundation—What Can Poetry Do for Parents? by Elliott Vansilke
Excerpt from the article: Poetry offers other benefits for the beleaguered parent. A large part of parenting consists of mindless repetition—changing diapers again, cutting pancakes into triangles again, saying, “How do we ask for things nicely?” again. But poetry uses repetition to sound new depths of meaning and find nuance in sameness. Think of the way the repeating lines of a villanelle take on new shape and significance with each stanza or the way different echoes emerge from “And miles to go before I sleep” at the end of Frost’s “Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening.”
From the Poetry Foundation—Lunchbox Poems by Julie Danielson & Eisha Prather
From Squidoo—Best Websites for Kids Poems
From School Library Journal—Natalie Merchant, Ghost Ghost: Setting Poems to Music by Rocco Satino (4/19/2010)
From Teaching Authors—Patterns in Poetry! How I Wrote This Poem—A Poetry Writing Workout posted by April Halprin Wayland (4/23/2010)
Recently, I did an extensive post about how much I enjoy writing animal mask poems. Click here to read it.
You don’t have limit yourself only to “animal talk” when you write mask poems though. You can speak in the voices of many different things: a tree, a flower, the ocean, the sky, the sun, the moon, stars, a volcano, a river, a hurricane or tornado, elements of nature. Even inanimate objects like scissors, a pencil, an automobile, garbage truck, kite, or toaster make great subjects for mask poems.
Here’s Sole Music, a mask poem I wrote for Tricia’s Monday Poetry Stretch--Shoes at The Miss Rumphius Effect this week.
********************
Sole Music
We’re the well-worn soles of shoes
reading all the sidewalk news.
As we go along our way
we broadcast headlines of the day:
intermittent
dots of rain
wad of bubblegum
bright stain
of cherry popsicle
that bled
its sticky sweetness
cool and red
concrete cracked
by root of tree
telltale clue
of injured knee
ghost of ant
whose remnants lie
flattened from a passerby
OH NO!
PEW!
Our bugaboo!
We just stepped in doggy do!
********************
I thought I’d take some of my “things to do” poems that I had posted previously at Wild Rose Reader and rewrite them as mask poems for my Poetry Friday post this week.
Things to Do If You Are a Bell
Ride on a reindeer’s harness.
Tinkle in the icy air.
Jingle across the milk-white snow.
Sing with a silver tongue.
Rewritten as a mask poem:
I ride on a reindeer’s harness.
I tinkle in the icy air
And jingle across the milk-white snow.
Listen to me sing with a silver tongue.
********************
Things to Do If You Are a Pencil
Be sharp.
Wear a slick yellow suit
and a pink top hat.
Tap your toes on the tabletop,
listen for the right rhythm,
then dance a poem
across the page.
Rewritten as a mask poem:
I’m sharp!
I wear a slick yellow suit
and a pink top hat.
I tap my toes on the tabletop,
listen for the right rhythm,
and then dance a poem
across the page.
Jama of Jama Rattigan's Alphabet Soup is the winner of The Underwear Salesman and Other Jobs for Better or Verse, a collection of humorous verse written by J. Patrick Lewis and illustrated by Serge Bloch.

Congratulations, Jama! Email me your name and address and I'll send the poetry book off to you.
Win a Poetry Book!Every week during April, I’m giving away a children’s poetry book at
Wild Rose Reader. If you leave a comment at one of my poetry posts during the fourth week of NaPoMo (April 22-28), I’ll enter your name in the drawing to win a copy of
Every Second Something Happens: Poems for the Mind and Seasons—with poems selected by
Christine San Jose and
Bill Johnson and illustrations by
Melanie Hall. (Note: If you leave comments at two of my poetry posts, I'll enter your name twice...and so on.)
Book Giveaway ScheduleFourth Week of National Poetry Month: April 22-28 (Winner announced on April 29)Final Days of National Poetry Month: April 29-30 (Winner announced on May 1st)
My contribution for the 21st day of National Poetry Month is Showers, a poem from my unpublished collection Spring into Words: A Season in Acrostics.
Softly, raindrops come to call. Can you
Hear them gently tap-tapping
On the
Windowpane, on the roof with an
Even, steady beat…
Repeating the song that April loves to
Sing?

Sorry that I'm posting so late today. At this time, my list of "things to do" has gotten very long.
Here's another poem from my unpublished poetry collection entitled
Excerpts from the Fairy Tale Files. In the poem, an exasperated princess speaks to the "still a frog" prince while they're eating dinner.
The Princess Speaks to the Frog Prince in Condescending Languageby Elaine Magliaro
Amphibian, you’re slimy, green…
The most repulsive thing I’ve seen. Oh, woe is me! Is this my fate—
To have you hop around my plate…
The golden plate I got from Papa?
You’re leaving footprints in my supper!
And while the minstrel sings a ballad,
You flop your webbed feet through my salad.
I know you fetched my golden ball,
But you should follow protocol
And dine out in the kitchen where
The servants do. You’ll fit in there.
You’re sooooo disgusting, little frog.
I think I’ll feed YOU to my dog.
I wrote the following poem a couple of weeks ago—inspired by a long period of rainy days. It just kept raining and raining and raining…and sometimes pouring. It seemed as if the rain would never stop. In my poem, I tried to capture the thoughts of a child who feels his/her world has been inundated with rain.
It’s Raining
It’s raining…
Raining all around.
It’s raining puddles
On the ground.
It’s raining
On my booted feet.
It’s raining
Rivers in the street.
It’s raining cats.
It’s raining dogs.
It’s raining ponds
For polliwogs.
It’s raining
Drop by drop by drop…
A billion trillion—
It won’t stop!
It’s raining buckets
From the sky.
Don’t think the earth
Will EVER dry.
You can see that I repeated the words “It’s raining” many times in my poem. I’m sure you can figure out why—to emphasize the point that it’s raining…a lot!
You will see that Mary Ann Hoberman repeated the word “snow” many times in the following poem:
SNOW
Snow
Snow
Lots of snow
Everywhere we look and everywhere we go
Snow on the sandbox
Snow on the slide
Snow on the bicycle
Left outside
Snow on the steps
And snow on my feet
Snow on the sidewalk
Snow on the sidewalk
Snow on the sidewalk
Down the street.
Here’s a poem I posted previously at Wild Rose Reader. I use the same sentence as the first line of every stanza of my poem I Am Lion. Repetition doesn’t serve the same purpose in this poem as it did in the previous two poems.
Do you think I Am Lion would have been a better poem if I hadn't used repetition? Let’s see.
I AM LION
I am lion.
See my mane?
I am king
And here I reign
On the Serengeti Plain.
I am lion.
See my paws
With their sharp
And pointy claws?
See my teeth and mighty jaws?
I am lion.
Hear my roar?
I’m a cat
Of legend…lore.
I’m a fearsome predator!
I am lion.
Who are you?
You’re my prey!
How do you do?
You look plump…and juicy, too.
I am lion,
Royal beast.
Sorry that you’re
Now deceased.
You were one delicious feast!
Let’s eliminate the first line in four of the stanzas and see how the poem reads.
I am lion.
See my mane?
I am king
And here I reign
On the Serengeti Plain.
See my paws
With their sharp
And pointy claws?
See my teeth and mighty jaws?
Hear my roar?
I’m a cat
Of legend…lore.
I’m a fearsome predator!
Who are you?
You’re my prey!
How do

One of the rewards of a finding a great rhyme is that you don't have to be good at reading aloud to make it sing.
Think about the last time you read Shel Silverstein or Jack Prelutsky. Chances are you didn't need to gear up to read the lines. The poems did a lot of the work for you.
Linked and spaced in a clever way, the words seemed to add their own inflection and enthusiasm to your voice as you read.
In celebration of National Poetry Month this April, I've spotlighted four new books of poems that are sure to put a hop and a skip into your reading voice.
In fact, some of the poems are so fun to say aloud, you might just hear them repeated back by the listener in your lap or snuggled up beside you.
To help round out your library, I've followed the four reviews with a list of six more books of poems that rise above the stacks.
The mask poem below, Chick Chatter, made its debut at Jama Rattigan’s blog Alphabet Soup. It was the first poem she posted in her Poetry Potluck Series celebrating National Poetry Month 2010.
Click here to read her post peck peck, peep peep, yum yum: here's elaine magliaro!
As I wrote in an earlier Wild Rose Reader post, I really love writing animal mask poems. I enjoy pretending to be a lion or a grizzly bear or a blue whale or a snake or a snail or a monarch caterpillar—any kind of creature—and taking on their personalities...in poems.
In Chick Chatter, I tried to imagine what an unhatched chick might be thinking and saying to itself as it was trying to break out of its shell.
CHICK CHATTER
I’m pecking, pecking
On this dome.
I’m cramped inside
My little home.
Can’t spread my wings,
Can’t run…or walk.
Can’t see the sun.
Can barely talk!
Oh, I’ve been pecking
Since last night.
This shell is really
Really tight!
I just can’t stand it
Anymore!
Oh where? Oh, where
Is my front door?!

I once toyed with the idea of writing a collection of poems about the letters of the alphabet. That poetry project fell by the wayside—after I wrote quatrains for the letters A and Z. I had forgotten all about the project until I went looking through my “miscellaneous poems” folder this morning. I have a number of other projects moldering away in literary limbo.
Have any of you ever abandoned a writing project in its infancy—or at any other stage of development?
Without any fanfare, I present A and Z:
A’s in charge and doing fine…
Gets the alphabet in line,
Shouts marching orders, takes the lead.
“Attention, Letters, let’s proceed.”
Z’s the one that’s always last,
Waits till A through Y have passed.
Then from the end zone out it zooms.
“Well, that’s all, folks!” Z loudly booms.

I worked on a number of different versions of the following poem last week. One version has five more stanzas. I decided I liked the four-stanza version best.
Brand New Day
by Elaine Magliaro
The sun arose. The stars all fled.
A sleepy moon slipped off to bed.
The dark sky paled to baby blue
As nighttime disappeared from view.
Then dawn put on her yellow gown
And danced a jig all over town.
Loud roosters crowed, mourning doves cooed:
“It’s a brand new day. Our world’s renewed.”

Poetry Videos
Click
here to see videos of five children's poets (
Mary Ann Hoberman,
Ashley Bryan,
Janet Wong,
Nikki Grimes, and
Eve Bunting) talking about poetry.
Click
here to see the
Spring Flower & Poetry Video I posted earlier today.

Last week, in my
“great list poem” post, I extended an invitation to blog readers to write and submit their own list poems to
Wild Rose Reader.
Amy Ludwig VanDerwater submitted
Word Blanket—a lovely poem that I think poets and other writers will truly appreciate. Amy is a published poet and writes for her own blog,
Poem Farm. Two of Amy's poems are included in
Lee Bennett Hopkins’s exceptional new anthology
Sharing the Seasons, which was beautifully illustrated by
David Diaz.
Word Blanket by Amy Ludwig VanDerwater
I cover myself with a blanket of words.
Miracle
Lullaby
Storm
I quilted each consonant into this cloth.
Each vowel is keeping me warm.
Butterfly
Evergreen
Whispering
Hope
Words to remember
Read
Write.
I’m pulling my word blanket up to my chin.
I’m sleeping with words.
Good night.
**********
Martha Calderaro wrote me to me to tell me that she had attempted to write a list poem BUT ended up with a concrete poem instead. She based her poem on pond adventures her daughter and her friends had over the weekend. Martha said: “It started as a list poem, then just went in another direction. So it goes sometimes.”
I took some pictures of the tulip plant that one of my my nieces gave me for Easter. When I examined the flower in the photograph I posted below, I thought the petals looked a little like tongues. That's what gave me the idea for my tulip poem.
TULIP
It poked its pink head up
looking for spring,
stood watching while clouds passed by,
waited till warm yellow rays
showered down...
then lapped up sunlight
with its silky tongues.

I thought I'd stay with the flower theme--
and the color
yellow. I've already posted poems about
daffodils,
the daisy, and
forsythias. Yesterday, when I went outside with my camera to take photographs of flowers that might provide me with inspiration for writing poems, I found one lonely dandelion growing near my Rose of Sharon bush. Here's one of the pictures I took of it:
And here is an early draft of the poem I wrote about that dandelion:
DANDELION
A feathered sun
growing in a sky of green,
its spiky corona radiating gold—
one bright star
lighting up our lawn

There is so much “poetry goodness” going on in the kidlitosphere this month! I can’t keep up with all of the wonderful poetry postings. I’m not as organized as many of the other bloggers. I didn’t make any grand plans for April. I’m just kind of "poetry-ing" it by the seat of my pants this year.
I
have been working on original poems to post here during
National Poetry Month. Some of the poems I post may not be in their final draft stage. I’ve already written and posted a poem about
daffodils and a
daisy acrostic this April. Today, I thought I’d stay with a flower theme. Here’s an early draft of a poem about forsythias.

Forsythias
by Elaine Magliaro
One morning
they unexpectedly
burst into bloom
and sprouted gold.
April used her Midas touch
and turned a gray day
into a surprise celebration
for spring.
********************
One of my favorite blogs is Andromeda Jazmon’s
A Wrung Sponge. Andi takes beautiful photographs and writes lovely haiku. She will be posting a "haiga" (haiku and photo) there every day in April.
In April of 2007, Andi was kind enough to give me permission to post some of her photographs at
Wild Rose Reader. Her pictures had inspired me to write several haiku. Click
here to see that haiku post.
I love daisies. They seem unpretentious flowers to me. I also love how the name for the daisy comes from the term "day's eye." That is what gave me the idea for the following acrostic.Day’s eye, wide
Awake, standing
In a meadow
Staring at the sky—its bright
Yellow face turned toward the sun.
Photograph by Ian Britton
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Thanks again for the roundups! This will help me go back and read some posts I missed during the month!