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Many years ago, I wrote a mask poem about a grizzly bear—which I have posted at Wild Rose Reader on more than one occasion. Here it is:
I’m grizzly bear. I’m fierce and fat…
I rule the land. This forest’s mine!
The End
Earlier this year, I used Grizzly Bear as a springboard for writing a poem told in the voice of a child who is having a tantrum:
When Iget angry,
Till
Blog: Wild Rose Reader (Login to Add to MyJacketFlap)
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Blog: Wild Rose Reader (Login to Add to MyJacketFlap)
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It is great being a nanny granny! I love spending so much time with my granddaughter Julia.
Blog: Wild Rose Reader (Login to Add to MyJacketFlap)
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Our journey to a warmer clime.
Mother Nature warned: “It’s time!”
We’re heading south before the snow…
And winter winds begin to blow.
We leave you with our parting call—
Honk! Honk! Honk!
THAT’S the sound of fall.
Blog: Wild Rose Reader (Login to Add to MyJacketFlap)
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I’m a hurrier
scurrier
scamperer
scavenger
searching for acorns
and maple tree seeds
stashing them now
for my wintertime needs.
I’ve much work to do.
So sorry I can’t stop
To visit with you.
Can’t chatter today.
I’m busy…too busy
Must be on my way.
Blog: Wild Rose Reader (Login to Add to MyJacketFlap)
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THINGS TO DO IF YOU ARE A MOLE
Blog: Wild Rose Reader (Login to Add to MyJacketFlap)
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and then surprised to hear the call
to leave home because I wasn’t meant
to stay there very long at all.
I began to push, to dry and move
the side door open, then it gave a sigh
I wiggled and jiggled till I was out
And I became a butterfly.
Blog: Wild Rose Reader (Login to Add to MyJacketFlap)
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I’m just a fossil now…
A relic of Earth’s ancient past.
I wish that I knew how
To break these rocky bonds
Which keep me trapped in days of yore
So I could flap my stony wings
And fly again once more.
The primitive-looking coelacanth (pronounc
Blog: Wild Rose Reader (Login to Add to MyJacketFlap)
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Here is a another animal mask poem that I wrote recently in the voice of the lowly mole:
Psst! Psst! HEY! I’m right down here.
I’m a busy little engineer
Building tunnels underground.
You rarely hear ME make a sound.
My life is lonely…one of toil.
The sun’s is not a face I know.
I live where seeds begin to grow.
Digging tunnels right down here.
Listen! Listen! Cup an ear.
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I settle on a blossom.
Uncoil my long proboscis
And sip the nectar sweet.
Dining in your garden,
Feasting on your flowers.
Painted Lady Butterfly Life Cycle
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Here is another of my new animal mask poems about little creatures. It is a quatrain with a rhyme scheme of AABB.
My love is this beautiful red, red rose.
Of all the blossoms, it’s the one I chose.
It has silky petals, leaves of emerald green.
It’s the yummiest flower that I’ve ever seen.
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I’m eating aphids in your garden.
I am not a bug to fear.
I’m eating aphids in your garden.
I have come to help you, dear.
I’m eating aphids in your garden.
3 Comments on LADYBUG: An Original Animal Mask Poem, last added: 4/12/2012
Blog: Wild Rose Reader (Login to Add to MyJacketFlap)
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14 Comments on Two Poems in Memory of My Cat Abby, last added: 4/7/2012
Blog: Wild Rose Reader (Login to Add to MyJacketFlap)
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I didn't have much time this week to write poetry or to do any poetry book reviews--so I'm posting Spider Speaks--which I wrote for a collection of animal masks poems that is still unpublished.
SPIDER SPEAKS
I’M a spinner.
I’M a weaver.
I’M a clever bug deceiver.
Of silver silk
I build my snare
And clueless insects blunder there.
I’m crafty, sly.
I use my head…
And yards and yards of sticky thread!
Blog: Wild Rose Reader (Login to Add to MyJacketFlap)
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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.
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.
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 tinkle in the icy air
And jingle across the milk-white snow.
Listen to me sing with a silver tongue.
********************
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.
Blog: Wild Rose Reader (Login to Add to MyJacketFlap)
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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?!
Blog: Wild Rose Reader (Login to Add to MyJacketFlap)
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I LOVE writing animal mask poems! I enjoy assuming the personality of different kinds of creatures and imagining what they might say to us if they thought we could understand them.
Here’s one of the poems from my unpublished collection of animal mask poems titled Animal Talk. In the poem, I speak in the voice of a boastful lion.
I AM LION
by Elaine Magliaro
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!
Here are two more of my masks poems “written by” boastful mammals from Animal Talk:
GRIZZLY BEAR
I’m grizzly bear. I’m fierce and fat…
And dangerous. Remember that!
My teeth are sharp as sabers.
My curvy claws can cut like saws,
And when I prowl the woods I growl
And frighten all my neighbors.
I rule the land. This forest’s mine!
I ain’t NOBODY’S valentine!
Don’t think that you can be my friend…
My dinner?
Yum!
GULP!
The End
BLUE WHALE’S BOAST
I’m the biggest whale
in the big blue sea.
I’m blubbery big
as a whale should be.
I’m bigger than
an elephant
three rhinos,
a giraffe.
I’m bigger than
ten walruses
twos hippos
and a half.
There’s nothing
in the world
that’s bigger than me…
except, of course,
for the big blue sea!
In Animal Talk, Toucan tells us about himself—but he doesn’t assume the same boastful tone as lion, grizzly bear, and blue whale do.
TOUCAN TALK
I’m Toucan. I’m more beak than bird.
In profile I may look absurd.
I sport a bill that’s giant-size.
It’s true. I don’t hyperbolize.
It’s strong and filled with rigid foam.
It’s like an airy honeycomb.
It doesn’t weigh me down. It’s light!
It’s sharp.
It’s colorful
And bright.
It helps me to attract a mate.
It’s perfect female birdie bait!
It’s really great for plucking fruit
From trees—and self defense, to boot.
A useful tool, it’s versatile—
A beak that truly fits the bill!
Snake takes on a sly, sneaky, quiet persona—informs us about his movements and how he goes about his business.
SNAKE SOLILOQUY
Blog: Wild Rose Reader (Login to Add to MyJacketFlap)
JacketFlap tags: Mary Ann Hoberman, Poetry Friday, Elaine's original poems, mask poems, Add a tag
After their book signing, Mary Ann and Linda invited Grace and me to have dinner with them and Joanne Myszkowski, who was taking them around to different events in Massachusetts. We had a fabulous dinner at a lovely Italian restaurant just two doors down from the book store. We all had a grand time eating and talking. I didn’t return home until 10:30—so I just didn’t have the energy to work on several book reviews. I decided to post an original poem today instead.
I’m dedicating my poem Dragonfly to Mary Ann and Linda in honor of their new book. Dragonfly is a poem I wrote for Docile Fossil, a collection that I’ve been working on for the past year.
Dragonfly
by Elaine Magliaro
Long, long ago
before dinosaurs
roamed the land
I flew through prehistoric skies,
my glassy wings glistening in sunlight.
Long, long ago
I printed my image
in mud,
then melted into Earth’s memory.
Now
you can see me
stenciled on the stony pages
of time.
You can read about Mary Hoberman Here: Mary Ann Hoberman Named Children’s Poet Laureate.
Click here to read some of my Wild Rose Reader posts about Mary Ann and her poetry.
At Blue Rose Girls I have three original double dactyls.
At Political Verses, I have two new posts this week: A Poem about the Conservative Bible Project and Better Duck...It's Dick: A Poem about Dick Cheney's Hunting Prowess.
Kelly has the Poetry Friday Roundup at Big A, little a.
Blog: Wild Rose Reader (Login to Add to MyJacketFlap)
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Written by Alice Schertle
Illustrated by Petra Mathers
Harcourt Children’s Books, 2009
Like Mathers’s animals, Schertle’s poems all have their own “personalities.” Their rhythms and rhyme schemes vary. The book of poems never gets bogged down in a boring “sameness.”
I asked Alice Schertle if there was anything she could tell me about where she got the inspiration for this book, how long it took her to complete the collection, or any other interesting facts she’d like to share about Button Up!.
Alice responded: Button Up! started with one poem, Jennifer's Shoes--and that was years ago. I wrote that one in the course of fiddling with shoe poems in general, liked it, and found it handy to use when I'd talk about mask, or persona poems. Much more recently I began adding to my stash of poems in which kids' jackets and shoelaces and hats are doing the talking and it began to look like a collection. The trick was in finding the duds that children would recognize and trying to give them a bit of individual personality. Once I got going, assembling, choosing and discarding, it probably took half a year. I found myself chuckling as I wrote: always a good sign.
I, too, chuckled as I read the poems in Button Up!. I’m sure you will too!
Here are some tasty tidbits from a few of the book’s poems to give you a flavor of the delicious verses in Button Up!:
Bob’s on his bike
and I’m on Bob.
I’m Bob’s helmet.
I’m on the job.
From Jennifer’s Shoes
We are learning the ways
of Jennifer’s world:
the way that Jennifer’s
toes are curled,
the softness of carpet,
the steepness of stair,
the curve of the rung
under Jennifer’s chair…
From Jack’s Soccer Jersey
When Jack plays soccer we get our kicks.
I’m Jack’s jersey.
I’m number 6.
I’m a gingham sheet and I used to sleep
tucked into the guest room bed.
One day—surprise! Clyde cut out eyes
and slipped me over his head.
We’re Emily’s undies
with laces and bows.
Emily shows us
wherever she goes.
She doesn’t wear diapers,
not even to bed.
Now she wears undies
with ruffles instead.
Alice Schertle Interview
More Mask Poems
You can read some of my previous posts about mask poems and some of my original mask poems in the following Wild Rose Reader posts: Earthworms: An Animal Mask Poem, Poetry Friday: Mask Poems, JACK: A Mask Poem, Toucan Talk: An Original Mask Poem, and Mask Poems Reprise.
I have two new poems this week over at Political Verses— GOING ROGUE: A Poem about Sarah Palin & Her Book and Onward to a Teacher's Life: A Poem in Written in the Style of Peggy Noonan.
Blog: Wild Rose Reader (Login to Add to MyJacketFlap)
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Tricia is back with another poetry challenge for us this week at The Miss Rumphius Effect: Monday Poetry Stretch - Animal Poems.
For Tricia’s Poetry Stretch, I decided to revisit an animal mask poem about a toucan that I had written many years ago. I wasn’t happy with the poem’s ending. I had changed it a number of times. I decided to do a bit more research on the toucan—of which there are different types—in hopes of getting some fresh ideas for the poem…and maybe writing a better ending.
Here’s the toucan poem as it stands at the moment:
TOUCAN TALK
by Elaine Magliaro
I’m Toucan. I’m more beak than bird.
In profile I may look absurd.
I sport a bill that’s giant-size.
It’s true. I don’t hyperbolize.
It’s strong and filled with rigid foam.
It’s like an airy honeycomb.
It doesn’t weigh me down. It’s light!
It’s sharp.
It’s colorful
And bright.
It helps me to attract a mate.
It’s perfect female birdie bait!
It’s really great for plucking fruit
From trees—and self defense, to boot.
A useful tool, it’s versatile—
A beak that truly fits the bill!
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I’m grizzly bear. I’m fierce and fat…
And dangerous. Remember that!
My teeth are sharp as sabers.
My curvy claws can cut like saws,
And when I prowl the woods I growl
And frighten all my neighbors.
I rule the land. This forest’s mine!
I ain’t NOBODY’S valentine!
Don’t think that you can be my friend…
My dinner?
Yum!
GULP!
The End
LOOK AT US NOW!
The day we hatched from jellied eggs…
We looked like fish. We had no legs.
We breathed through gills. We had no lungs.
We didn’t have long sticky tongues.
We didn’t look like frogs…for sure.
But then we started to mature.
And day by day we changed and grew.
To tails and gills we bid adieu.
Now we have lungs and four fine limbs…
And we can croak
and jump
AND swim!
I’m a slippery slitherer,
silent and sleek,
sliding and slinking
through grasses
I sneak
weaving and winding
legless and low
I slip slyly hidden
wherever I go.
Wending and bending
by stalk, stem, and stone
like a ribbon of muscle
and skin without bone
tongue catching the scent
of a soft, furry prey.
Smells like it’s field mouse
for dinner today!
I love mask poems! I love reading and writing them. I think it’s so much fun to take on the personality and speak in the voice of an animal, element of nature, an inanimate object. In my animal mask poems posted above, I tried to capture different personalities or emotions: The bear is boasting about how tough he is and trying to scare other animals. The frogs are excited about having grown into adults. The snake is speaking quietly about the way he moves—sliding and slinking and sneaking up on prey.
In the following poem, a snail speaks. This poem is meant to be read in the voice of a plodding slowpoke. (I’m sorry that I can’t print the end of the first stanza on Blogger the way it should be.)
I’M SNAIL
I’m snail. I’m slow.
That’s how I go
From place to place.
I never race.
I take my time.
I s l i d e
along
my
trail
of slime.
I have a heavy shell to bear…
But I don’t care.
I never grouse
Because I have to wear
My house.
I just suppose
That’s how it goes…
Some are fast
And some are slow…
And slow is fast
As I can go.
Slow’s the only speed I know.
I loved sharing and writing mask poems with my students when I was an elementary teacher and a school librarian. I found having my students write mask poems was an excellent way to encourage them to think and write creatively about subjects that they were learning about in school.
If we were doing a unit of study on space, my students could pretend they were the sun, the moon, a planet, a meteor, a star, a galaxy—and write poems from the perspectives of those “heavenly “ objects. Imagine pretending to be a galaxy spiraling around in the universe…a meteor blazing through Earth’s atmosphere…the sun blasting out solar flares…a star looking like a jewel in the night sky!
Imagine speaking in the voice of an animal you had learned about through doing research on and writing a report about. In your poem, you could slither and hiss as a cobra. You could be a cheetah and run across the grassland chasing prey. You could be a penguin speeding “through the freezing sea like a bullet.”
After taking walks in the woods, observing a tree in or near your yard for several days, and studying about evergreen trees and about the yearly cycle of broadleaf trees—you might even pretend to be a willow tree with a crown of green that “looks like a leafy waterfall”—or a birch tree that feels alone in the forest and whistles “in the night when the wind blows through my leaves”—or a tree beseeching a bluebird to build a nest in its leafy arms and to lay eggs the color of the sky in it.
My students really got into the groove of taking on the “personality” of the subjects they wrote about in their mask poems.
Here are three mask poems written by my second grade students that won prizes in the 2000 Massachusetts Science Poetry Contest:
FIRST PRIZE
If I Were a Tree
SECOND PRIZE
Sun
HONORABLE MENTION
I Am the Sun
I am the sun,
I am the sun.
PENGUIN
Recommended Poetry Books with Mask Poems
This terrific anthology includes poems by Karla Kuskin, Bobbi Katz, Tony Johnston, Patricia Hubbell, Lilian Moore, Marilyn Singer, Jane Yolen, Douglas Florian, Alice Schertle, April Halprin Wayland, and Kristine O’Connell George. In these poems, the poets speak in many different voices—including those of a vacuum cleaner, a washing machine, the winter wind, a whale, a cow, a mosquito, a bacterium, a blue crayon, a snowflake, and trees.
In Baylor's book, we hear the voices of desert animals—including those of a jackrabbit, a rattlesnake, a spadefoot toad, a buzzard, and a coyote—speaking to us about themselves and their life in the desert. The free verse mask poems in this book serve as excellent examples for children in early elementary and middle grades.
Insectlopedia is my absolute favorite Douglas Florian poetry book! Not all of the poems in this collection are mask poems—but the nine that Florian wrote for Insectlopedia are exceptional examples for kids…and they’re a lot of fun to read to and recite for students. The mask poems in this book include The Dragonfly, The Inchworm, The Black Widow Spider, The Weevils, The Whirligig Beetles, and The Locusts. The other poems in this book are terrific, too.
OLD ELM SPEAKS: TREE POEMS
Written by Kristine O’Connell George
Illustrated by Kate Kiesler
Clarion, 1998
Just five of the poems in Old Elm Speaks are mask poems—but they are fine examples to share with children. In Oak’s Introduction, an oak tree speaks to a child—telling him he’s been watching him grow…and inviting the child to see how high he can climb on him/her now that the tree has also grown and has strong branches. In Miss Willow, a narcissistic tree has been admiring herself in “the still cool waters” when a heron comes along and splashes down on her “glorious reflection.” In the book’s other mask poems: a maple shoot remembers helicoptering through the air the previous fall and how it had come to rest in a patch of dirt that was “sweet and soft”; a neatly clipped city tree speaks of having wild dreams of being a forest when all the cars have gone home for the night; and an old elm tells a young sapling It will take/autumns of patience/before you snag/your/first/moon. This lovely book by an award-winning poet would be a great addition to an elementary classroom library collection.
More Than Mask Poems
WHEN RIDDLES COME RUMBLING: POEMS TO PONDER
Written by Rebecca Kai Dotlich
Illustrated by Karen Dugan
Wordsong/Boyds Mills Press, 2001
Many of the poems in this book are not just mask poems--they are riddle rhymes to boot! It would be fun to read these rhythmic, rhyming riddles aloud to children and ask them to guess whose "voice" is speaking in each poem. The voices include those of a snake, a pizza, fireworks, a trampoline, and a roller coaster. The illustrations will help children guess the answers to the riddles.
BUTTERFLY EYES AND OTHER SECRETS OF THE MEADOW
Written by Joyce Sidman
Illustrated by Beth Krommes
Houghton Mifflin, 2006
All of the poems in this book are riddles; many of them are also mask poems. Winner of the 2006 Cybils Award for Poetry, this book contains outstanding examples of mask poems. Some of the "voices" speaking to us in the poems are those of the dew, a grasshopper, a spittlebug, xylem and phloem, a milkweed plant, and a hawk. The illustrations in this book also provide clues for young readers to help them solve the riddles. You can read my review of BUTTERFLY EYES here.
********************
At Blue Rose Girls, I have a second post about Magnetic Poetry, which includes poems composed online by Mary Lee of A Year of Reading, Pam Coughlan of Mother Reader, Meghan McCarthy of the Blue Rose Girls, and me.
At Political Verses, I’m featuring Poem for the End of the Twentieth Century by J. Patrick Lewis for this first Poetry Friday during National Poetry Month.
Amy Planchak Graves has the Poetry Friday Roundup at ayuddha.net.
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Oh Termites! Great poem about those hungry uninvited guests.
Enjoyed the video. Julia has gotten SO big! What pretty blue eyes :).
Hate the termites but I love the poem! Love the idea of your animal mask collection too!
Oh, my: Julia is growing up so fast. She'll be able to recite your poems back to you pretty soon.
Planks, parquet, clogs--your termites have quite a varied diet!
I love that Tastes so/Tastes so/Tastes so good! What a fun poem - and what a beautiful Julia. Lucky both of you! I missed you at NCTE, Elaine... xo, a.
Love it! Funny how wonderful a poem about something completely icky can be.