Day #17: Question Poem

Today's prompt asks you to begin with a question you have heard or have asked yourself. The mentor text is by Nizar Qabbani and begins with this stanza and a question from his son. (You can read the entire poem by clicking on the link.)

A Lesson In Drawing
My son places his paint box in front of me
and asks me to draw a bird for him.
Into the color gray I dip the brush
and draw a square with locks and bars.
Astonishment fills his eyes:
"… But this is a prison, Father,
Don't you know, how to draw a bird?"
And I tell him: "Son, forgive me.
I've forgotten the shapes of birds."

.........

I decided to use the question Why not? which has driven a lot of my choices over the years. I have found that there are always plenty of reasons NOT to try something and plenty of people who want to hold me back--often with lots of reasons something is (in their eyes) not a great idea. My poem tries to capture how I feel when people want to hold me back.

Here is what I wrote:

Bones

not Why, but why not?
my thin bones
(pale bones
at my core)

push against
barbed wire cages
stone unclimbable walls

the fences of reason
fuel my fury
my voice
my bones

...................

Give it a try! Write a list of five questions, then choose one to use as the jumping-off point for your poem. The question may or may not actually appear in your poem!

Happy writing!

AB

Thanks to Ethical ELA for many of the prompts I'm adapting for my students this month.

Day #16: Poem Without a Title

Good morning! Your challenge today is to write a poem and save the TITLE for the end. Hopefully the title will change how the poem was first read. That is, it will ADD meaning to what came before.

Here is a sample: 

Don't be polite.
Bite in.
Pick it up with your fingers and lick the juice that

may run down your chin.
It is ready and ripe now, whenever you are.

You do not need a knife or fork or spoon
or plate or napkin or tablecloth.

For there is no core
or stem
or rind
or pit
or seed
or skin
to throw away.

----------

Think about that poem. What does it seem to be about?

Now scroll down and find the title. Does it change the meaning for you at all?

"How to Eat a Poem" by Eve Merriam

----------------------

Here is the poem I wrote, with its title at the end...

scratch of dry nib
misfired squib
drool on the bib

cheetos gone stale
no wind in the sail
a rusty bent nail

jarred mice mocking
brain cells balking
empty knocking

..................

Titled: "Writing a Poem on Day #15"
Do you see my poem in a new way when you read the title?

Here's your challenge. Choose a form, then write the poem. Think of a title. Go back through your poem and eliminate any DIRECT references to your title. Post your poem, and a few lines later, post your title!

Rock on! You're doing great! Today we are on the SECOND HALF of the month!

Thanks to Ethical ELA for many of the prompts I'm adapting for my students this month.

Day #15 - Hope Poem

Poet Emily Dickinson wrote:

“Hope” is the thing with feathers -

That perches in the soul -

And sings the tune without the words -

And never stops - at all -

You can read the entire poem here. 

Today's challenge is to think of a metaphor for hope. Dickinson used a bird (feathers, perches, sings).

I wrote in haiku form and used the COVID vaccine as my metaphor because I felt such a surge of hopefulness when I got my second dose and knew I could soon gather with my vaccinated family and friends. I then took the metaphor a step further and compared the needle prick to a bee sting. 

Vaccine

Little bee alights
Her stinger Moderna’s kiss
Hope buzzes my veins
-------------

What could be a new, fresh metaphor for hope? Try thinking of answers that could fill in this blank:

Hope is............

Try to think of at least five before you choose one to transform into a poem. You might do something rhyming in the model of Dickinson, or write in haiku form as I did. You also have several other forms in your repertoire to draw on: nonet, skinny poem, an epistolary (the letter-writing form) come to mind as forms that might work for this poem!

Happy writing!

AB

Thanks to Ethical ELA for many of the prompts I'm adapting for my students this month.

Day #14: Take and Taken

Usually when writing, we try to avoid repeating the same word unless we are using its repetition for a specific intent.

Today's prompt invites us to use words over and over again!

Take / Taken / Took

In a two-stanza poem, consider what you TAKE (from friends, parents, school, the world) alongside what has been TAKEN from you (by friends, parents, school, the world).
----------------------

While I began with this prompt, as I wrote, my poem morphed into a rhyming ditty about the precious time I TAKE with my morning coffee!

I look forward to seeing where this take/taken/took prompt TAKES you!

Coffee

I take the filter off the shelf
It takes five minutes brewing
I take a measure of myself
While coffee grounds are stewing.

I’ve taken time while waking up
I’ve taken morning lathers
I’ve taken stock then filled my cup
Now take on all that matters.

Thanks to Ethical ELA for many of the prompts I'm adapting for my students this month.

Day #13: That Memory

Today's prompt asks you to sift through memories of your past nine years of school.

Make a list.

Jot down 12 (I love that number!) images that come to mind when you think of grades K-now. 

Of the memories on your list, which calls out to you as hot, deserving your attention and reflection?

A memory that came to my mind was about swear words. Here's what came of it when I tried to think about all my senses in as I experimented saying cuss words aloud in the privacy of my bedroom when I was maybe 10 or 12. (Lemon button is a type of fern.)

Lesson

Even shut-up was forbidden in our house
so of course I
wanted to cuss

I craved the razor
burning against my tongue
in the privacy of my
blue bedroom
where at the window
a macrame noose held
a flourishing lemon button

Mere words
sparked sensations
spicier than Doritios and
richer than cream
green as the fern
in my pink mouth

Day #12: Day Poem

Here's a fun poem to try!

According to NationalToday.com, April 12 is National Grilled Cheese Day!

Think of a day that has special meaning to you, then search the site and discover what else is celebrated on that day.

Or work in reverse: Think of a hobby, interest, or item and search the site to see if there is a holiday for it!

If you can't find a day celebrating your love for juggling or skid loaders (I couldn't find either on the site, but via a Google search, I found that World Juggling Day was celebrated on June 20 last year.), designate your own day for your own desired celebration and write about that!

I chose to write about July 12. Read my poem and see if you can figure out the "National Days" associated with that date and then the reason I chose to write about it. (You can check the day here.)

July 12

It’s simple
as it should be
on National Simplicity Day:
Eat your jello
and pecan pie.
A good day for both.
Give Orangemen Day
a shudder,
since his mother
is from Belfast,
(though I’m loathe
to celebrate fires
of religious hate)
Wink at heterochromia;
pet a husky.

But keep it simple:
absorb the goodness of the sun
inhale the hydrangea
sing a verse of
lullaby.
My heart pumps little
puffs of joy
to know that
12,796 km
as the crow flies
safe in New Zealand
William Wolf Hoegh
turns one.

William Wolf on the day of his birth, July 12, 2020

Thanks to Ethical ELA for many of the prompts I'm adapting for my students this month.

Happy writing!

AB

Day #11: A Skinny Poem!

 Process

• A skinny poem has only 11 lines!
• The first and last lines are the only lines with multiple words.
•  Lines 2-10 are each one word only.
• Line 2, 6, and 10 are each the same word!
• Line 11 uses the same words as line 1, but it can be rearranged for your purposes.

I made a table to number my lines on one side and wrote my poem on the other. As you'll see, I wrote about watching a student who wasn't reading during reading time. The image stayed with me because I'm always trying to figure out how to help students sink into their books.

For ideas, consider moments in the past week that have lodged into your memory for some reason. Or an image of your pet. Or a moment from a holiday.

Consider the image you want to write about and describe the situation in the first line. From there, skinny it on out! You may link a series of skinny poems together for a longer poem.

Happy writing,

AB

Thanks to Ethical ELA for many of the prompts I'm adapting for my students this month.