I try to walk to Lake Michigan every day. Thinking about my haiku a day for National Poetry Month while I walk helps me pay attention.
today's gifts: pansies
mergansers diving through waves
children holding hands
Bea lies in sunshine
just when I need a poem
good old helpful pal
Today's Poetry Friday Roundup is at No Water River. Enjoy!
Happy Poetry Month!
Today's poem is an apostrophe poem, also known as a poem of direct address. It's not so much a form as a point of view--second person, to be precise. An apostrophe poem speaks directly to a person or thing. Here's a definition from the Poetry Foundation. And here's an example from me:
Transformation
Oh, brown paper bag stuffed with scribbled-up pages,
you wait on the curb on Recycling Day
holding old drafts of my stories and poems.
Soon you’ll be picked up and hauled away.
You'll be soaked and pressed into brand-new paper
where some other writer can dream and play.
I found a series of good examples by Elaine Magliaro at Wild Rose Reader. You can read more apostrophe poems in Hey You!: Poems to Skyscrapers, Mosquitoes, and Other Fun Things, selected by Paul B. Janeczko.
Teaching Authors!
Today on the Teaching Authors blog, I've posted a video of Jill Esbaum, April Halprin Wayland, and me reading Mary Ann Hoberman's "Counting-Out Rhyme" in rounds. Check there again on Wednesday for another poetry-themed Writing Workout. You can also enter to win one of five Teaching Authors Blogiversary Book Bundles!
Book Giveaway!
The winner of this week's giveaway of an autographed paperback copy of Write a Poem Step by Step is Linda Baie.
Post a comment here (on today's post) to enter for another chance to win. I’ll choose a winner at random next Friday from all entries posted by midnight (CST) Thursday, notify the winner by email, and ask for a mailing address and personalization request. Good luck!
Poetry Friday
Today's Poetry Friday Roundup is at Today's Little Ditty. Enjoy!
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When our kids were little and needed a bit more attention than they do these days, I used to wait till they were safely occupied or sleeping, make a conscious effort to let go of everyday concerns, sink down into a creative frame of mind, and open up to gifts from the blue. I’d tell myself to slow down and pay attention. I called that wonderful state Poetry Mode.
Later, I read For the Good of the Earth and Sun: Teaching Poetry by Georgia Heard. Heard describes a visit to her teacher Stanley Kunitz. Before she left, she asked him for any last advice. He said, “You must first create the kind of person who will write the kind of poems you want to write.”
The thought gives me goosebumps.
Then yesterday, though a Facebook post, I found this gorgeous poem, “Valentine for Ernest Mann” by Naomi Shihab Nye. The lines that struck me:
“. . . poems hide. In the bottoms of our shoes,
they are sleeping. They are the shadows
drifting across our ceilings the moment
before we wake up. What we have to do
is live in a way that lets us find them. . . .”
Slow down and pay attention, right?
I’m thinking in threes today. I planned to write a triolet, but my Book of Forms opened to the tercet page instead. Any poem of three lines, rhymed or unrhymed in any meter, is a tercet. Here’s mine:
First Signs of Hope
Among the dry, brown leaves that shield the hill,
surprises bloom in spite of winter’s chill.
Crocuses—an unexpected thrill!
Book news!
Write a Poem Step by Step is now available as an eBook from Lulu. Soon it will also be in the iBookstore and the NOOK Book Store. Paperback copies are available from Lulu, IndieBound, amazon, Barnes&Noble, and local bookstores.
Book Giveaway!
Post a comment to enter for a chance to win an autographed paperback copy of Write a Poem Step by Step. Be sure to include your email address so I can notify you if you win and ask for your mailing address and personalization request.
I’ll choose a winner at random next Friday from all entries posted by midnight (CST) Thursday. Watch for another chance to win next week. Good luck!
Poetry Friday
Today's Poetry Friday Roundup is at The Poem Farm.
Read More
Hooray! It's National Poetry Month!