Strings of cormorants
skim Lake Michigan's surface
necks stretching northward
JoAnn's Blog
Haiku a Day: Day 29 (4/29/15)
April 29, 2015
Be the first to comment
Haiku a Day: Day 28 (4/28/15)
April 29, 2015
hyacinth fragrance
permeates the neighborhood
trespass for a sniff
Haiku a Day: Day 27 (4/27/15)
April 29, 2015
Here is one good tern.
You know what they say, don't you?
Waiting. Watching. Where?
National Poetry Month Book Giveaway!
April 24, 2015
I've posted all my National Poetry Month daily haiku on this blog--hooray! I'm up to date--let's celebrate! I'll give away an autographed copy of Write a Poem Step by Step to a random winner. To enter, add a comment to this post by midnight on April 30, 2015. Be sure to include your contact information. Good luck!
Read More
Read More
9 Comments
Haiku a Day: Day 25 (4/25/15)
April 23, 2015
Sorry, orioles--
no grape jelly in the fridge.
Oranges okay?
Haiku a Day: Day 21 (4/21/15)
April 23, 2015
I'd like to lie down
in a blue bed of scilla
forget everything
Haiku a Day: Day 20 (4/20/15)
April 23, 2015
today's pond report:
goose in threat pose guarding nest
gnarled willow sprouting
Haiku a Day: Day 19 (4/19/15)
April 23, 2015
raindrops on catkins
brighten this gray, dreary day
okay, back to work
Haiku a Day: Day 18 (4/18/15)
April 23, 2015
at last, I've found you
woodpecker rapping up high
camouflaged on birch
Haiku a Day: Day 17 (4/17/15)
April 23, 2015
pulmonaria
early blossoms on our hill
pink and blue bee treats
Haiku a Day: Day 12 (4/12/15)
April 23, 2015
hush--do not disturb
mallard under bird feeders
yard cleanup can wait
Haiku a Day: Day 11 (4/11/15)
April 23, 2015
haul heavy buckets
watch boiling sap steam windows
tomorrow, French toast
Haiku a Day: Day 15 (4/15/15)
April 23, 2015
lake wind chills my ears
pesticide smells hurt my head
oh, but look--bloodroot
Haiku a Day: Day 13 (4/13/15)
April 23, 2015
swollen buds explode
on each tree as we walk by
firecrackers of spring
Haiku a Day: Day 10 (4/10/15)
April 23, 2015
Oops! I missed a day. Belated post:
yesterday's haiku
first on today's to-do list
O, slippery slope
Haiku a Day: Day 9 (4/9/15)
April 23, 2015
rain gushes down streets
pools in backyards and basements
brings ducks out to play
Haiku a Day: Day 8 (4/8/15)
April 23, 2015
stop to photograph
daffodils in rustic frame
lose another glove
Haiku a Day: Day 7 (4/7/15)
April 23, 2015
I pause, glance outside
yellow-bellied sapsucker
turn back to work, cheered
No photo today, but you can learn about the yellow-bellied sapsucker from the Cornell Lab of Ornithology's Bird Guide.
Haiku a Day: Day 4 (4/4/15)
April 23, 2015
Spring peepers call me
down a faint deer trail. Surprise!
Bea must hear them, too!
Haiku a Day: Day 2 (4/2/15)
April 23, 2015
wrinkled foreheads touch
two rocks kissing form a bridge
river doesn't care
Haiku a Day: Day 22 (4/22/15)
April 23, 2015
April must not know
I put away my mittens
wind chill: 32
Haiku a Day: Day 14 (4/14/15)
April 23, 2015
tiny diving grebe
disappears in quiet pond
ripples mark the spot
Haiku a Day: Day 5 (4/5/15)
April 23, 2015
skunk cabbage unfurls
under last year's leaf litter--
stinky sign of spring
Haiku a Day: Day 23 (4/23/15)
April 23, 2015
flock of umbrellas
May apples wait in April
ready to unfurl
Haiku a Day: Day 16 (4/16/15)
April 23, 2015
Soon to be revealed--
mystery spring flower buds.
What did I plant here?
Haiku a Day: Day 3 (4/3/15)
April 23, 2015
binoculars poised
we prowl the marshy pathways
stalking whooping cranes
National Poetry Month! Haiku a Day! Catching Up! (Day 1: 4/1/15)
April 23, 2015
I've been posting a haiku each day this month on Facebook and Twitter. Now I'm catching up by gathering them all here in one spot. Enjoy!
Nighttime walk, strange town--
foundry rumble, fast food glare,
same familiar moon
Haiku a Day: Day 6 (4/6/15)
April 23, 2015
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
Haiku a Day: Day 24 (4/24/15)
April 23, 2015
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!
Shape Poems & Final Book Giveaway of Poetry Month!
April 24, 2014
This rose is a rose in both subject and form: it's a shape poem. I created it in Microsoft® Office Word using WordArt, which can be both fun and challenging.
Shape poems, also called concrete poems or spatial poems, create shapes out of words, either by outlining (like "Rose" above) or by filling in a picture like John Hollander's "Swan and Shadow."
A good topic for a shape poem lends itself to an appropriate shape: concrete objects work better than abstract ideas. If you want to try a shape poem, I strongly suggest that you write the poem first. Then fit it into the shape. That way, you focus on the logic and say what you mean to say rather than being distracted by trying to form a shape while you write.
Look for the WordArt icon (a blue A) on the Insert tab in the Text section. Click one of the styles that appears, enter or paste your text, select the font, size, and features you want, and click Okay. Once your text is in the document, you can add special effects and change the size and position with the tools on the Format tab. In "Rose," each petal, bud, and thorn is a separate piece of WordArt.
You can read more shape poems in these collections:
A Poke in the I, edited by Paul B. Janeczko
Splish Splash and Flicker Flash: Poems by Joan Bransfield Graham
Doodle Dandies: Poems that Take Shape by J. Patrick Lewis
Come to My Party and Other Shape Poems by Heidi Bee Roemer
Technically, It’s Not My Fault: Concrete Poems and Blue Lipstick: Concrete Poems by John Grandits
Book Giveaway!
Tara is the winner of this week's giveaway of an autographed paperback copy of Write a Poem Step by Step.
Post a comment 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 10 p.m. (CST) Thursday, notify the winner by email, and ask for a mailing address and personalization request. Good luck!
Teaching Authors
Look for me each Wednesday during National Poetry Month at TeachingAuthors.com, where I'm posting poetry-themed Wednesday Writing Workouts. Last Wednesday's challenge was a Fib.
Guest Blog Post
At at Rochelle Melander's Write Now! Coach blog, you can read about five of my favorite poetry collections and enter to win a copy of Write a Poem Step by Step.
Poetry Friday
Tabatha Yeatts has today's Poetry Friday Roundup at The Opposite of Indifference. Enjoy!
Read More
Shape poems, also called concrete poems or spatial poems, create shapes out of words, either by outlining (like "Rose" above) or by filling in a picture like John Hollander's "Swan and Shadow."
A good topic for a shape poem lends itself to an appropriate shape: concrete objects work better than abstract ideas. If you want to try a shape poem, I strongly suggest that you write the poem first. Then fit it into the shape. That way, you focus on the logic and say what you mean to say rather than being distracted by trying to form a shape while you write.
Look for the WordArt icon (a blue A) on the Insert tab in the Text section. Click one of the styles that appears, enter or paste your text, select the font, size, and features you want, and click Okay. Once your text is in the document, you can add special effects and change the size and position with the tools on the Format tab. In "Rose," each petal, bud, and thorn is a separate piece of WordArt.
You can read more shape poems in these collections:
A Poke in the I, edited by Paul B. Janeczko
Splish Splash and Flicker Flash: Poems by Joan Bransfield Graham
Doodle Dandies: Poems that Take Shape by J. Patrick Lewis
Come to My Party and Other Shape Poems by Heidi Bee Roemer
Technically, It’s Not My Fault: Concrete Poems and Blue Lipstick: Concrete Poems by John Grandits
Book Giveaway!
Tara is the winner of this week's giveaway of an autographed paperback copy of Write a Poem Step by Step.
Post a comment 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 10 p.m. (CST) Thursday, notify the winner by email, and ask for a mailing address and personalization request. Good luck!
Teaching Authors
Look for me each Wednesday during National Poetry Month at TeachingAuthors.com, where I'm posting poetry-themed Wednesday Writing Workouts. Last Wednesday's challenge was a Fib.
Guest Blog Post
At at Rochelle Melander's Write Now! Coach blog, you can read about five of my favorite poetry collections and enter to win a copy of Write a Poem Step by Step.
Poetry Friday
Tabatha Yeatts has today's Poetry Friday Roundup at The Opposite of Indifference. Enjoy!
Read More
Apostrophe Poem and Book Giveaway!
April 5, 2014
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!
Read More
Three Poetry Thoughts, a Spring Tercet, and a Book Giveaway!
April 4, 2014
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
Celebrating National Poetry Month!
April 1, 2014
Hooray! It's National Poetry Month!
Lucky for us all, Jama Kim Rattigan has compiled a list of National Poetry Month events we can peruse.
Throughout the month, I'll be posting Wednesday Writing Workouts at the Teaching Authors blog, where we'll all be celebrating by sharing some of our favorite poems.
On Fridays, I'll post here and also give away copies of Write a Poem Step by Step.
Watch both sites for writing tips, poetry assignments, and links to more poetry!
Read More