Day #24: A Poem For...

Today you will write a poem about a person in your life.

The mentor text is titled "Abuelito Who."

Abuelito means grandpa. Notice how the poet uses anaphora by repeating

Abuelito who...

who...

who...

who...

with each "who" followed by a vivid description of the grandpa.

After you read Sandra Cisneros' poem, read mine. I wrote about a friend who died about six years ago.

As you write your own poem, think of vivid ways you can SHOW who your person is. Show your readers images of the person's actions or surroundings to help us see/smell/experience the person you are writing about.

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Mentor Text: “Abuelito Who” by Sandra Cisneros

Abuelito who throws coins like rain
and asks who loves him
who is dough and feathers
who is a watch and glass of water
whose hair is made of fur
is too sad to come downstairs today
who tells me in Spanish you are my diamond
who tells me in English you are my sky
whose little eyes are string
can’t come out to play
sleeps in his little room all night and day
who used to laugh like the letter k
is sick
is a doorknob tied to a sour stick
is tired shut the door
doesn’t live here anymore
is hiding underneath the bed
who talks to me inside my head
is blankets and spoons and big brown shoes
who snores up and down up and down up and down again
is the rain on the room that falls like coins
asking who loves him
who loves him who?

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Judy Who

Judy who cackled like firecrackers
in the halls during class,
drawing wrath from teachers
demanding silence bell to bell:
no laughter
should compete
with lectures drear.

Judy who counseled
our most fragile and volatile
students toward
something resembling
warmth,
resembling survival.

Judy who after her divorce
built a country home with
a long driveway
and a 10-foot chicken sculpture
in the yard.
In the house, a suit of armor
and a porcelain phrenology head
she brought home from New Orleans
as her Delta carry-on.

Judy whose coral nails
and heavy Danish silver
defined her style:
sparkling eyes
great hair
faint breath of whiskey
under quality perfume.

Judy who tagged me
as a friend,
hosted raucous parties
culminating in hysterics
as we took turns shooting pumpkins
in her garden
with her varmint .22

Judy, Judy
who late on that blizardly February night
too drunk to be driving
made it home
but missed the driveway.
Stuck in a drift
she hoofed the hundred yards
toward her steel chicken
and what the previous fall had been
the pumpkin patch.

Judy who
did not survive
the trek
to warmth of hearth
whose body was was found
next morning
by her brother who
lived a mile across the section
and raised chickens for Campbell’s Soup.

Judy who
radiated warmth
died in
alcohol’s frozen embrace.

Day #23: Shakespeare's Birthday!

Good morning!

As you know, Shakespeare wrote in iambic pentameter. 

The iamb is the heartbeat rhythm: 

du-DAH, du-DAH, du-DAH, du-DAH, du-DAH

Because the iamb has two syllables and is repeated five times (PENTAmeter), it calls for 10 syllables in each line.

On the Bard's special day, let's try to use an aspect of a sonnet in our writing. Choose from ONE of the following:

1. Write a poem with 14 lines.
2. Write a poem with 10 syllables in each line.
3. Write in iambic rhythm.
4. Write in iambic pentameter.
5. Write with A-B-A-B rhyme.
6. Write a poem about love

Here is a Shakespearean sonnet to use as a mentor text.

Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day?
Thou art more lovely and more temperate:
Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May,
And summer’s lease hath all too short a date:
Sometime too hot the eye of heaven shines,
And often is his gold complexion dimm’d;
And every fair from fair sometime declines,
By chance or nature’s changing course untrimm’d;
But thy eternal summer shall not fade
Nor lose possession of that fair thou owest;
Nor shall Death brag thou wander’st in his shade,
When in eternal lines to time thou growest:
So long as men can breathe or eyes can see,
So long lives this and this gives life to thee.

Here is a sonnet I wrote about teaching creative writing:

Sonnet 1, for my Creative Writing Students

By Allison Berryhill

 

I wanted for them each to find a muse

And push like Sisyphus against a thought--

To hear an inner voice and set it loose

And touch the place where soul with sound is wrought.

To give them tools to carve onto the page

The exquisite release of hidden self,

To gift them ways to transform joy and rage

To poem, essay, book upon a shelf.

But hour six too often slid away

With chattered scattered shot and little more

And what I’d hoped for them to learn each day?

Abandoned, crumpled drafts upon the floor.

Ah, did they learn the lesson of the pen?

Revise, revise, and let me try again.

Your turn!

Remember, you don't need to write an entire sonnet. Just choose one aspect to mirror.

Happy writing,

AB

Day #22: Flashbulb Memory

On Tuesday when the George Floyd murder conviction was announced, I was sitting in the nail salon. I glanced on my phone to see post after post from all the news feeds I follow, announcing the verdict. 

The verdict is being framed as an important step forward in addressing systemic racism in our country. Many people were waiting with high anxiety to see the jury's decision. When, where, and what they were doing may become a "flashbulb memory" for them. 

from Wikipedia



I have "flashbulb memories" from several occurrences:


1) My dad's hand on the doorknob of a closet that held my birthday present: a red wagon with a white bow.

2) Teaching in a classroom in Exira when a boy ran in to say the space shuttle Challenger had exploded.

3) Standing in the kitchen, holding the phone, when my sister told me her 4-year-old son had cancer.

4) Teaching journalism (as a sub) for Mrs. Mckay, who was out for maternity leave. The art teacher ran in and said, "Turn on your TV! A second plane just ran into the Twin Towers!"

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A few days ago, Mr. Hallgren asked me what was my earliest "historical event" memory. I remembered it immediately. I was seven years old. (I'll let you "solve" my poem for yourself to determine the historical event.)

Childhood Memory

I saw Katy’s dad
crying. It was April 4
1968.

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Your poem challenge today is to think of a flashbulb memory YOU have. It may be related to an event in the news, or it may be a personal event that carried shock or surprise in a way it has set down roots in your visual/sensory memory. 

I like haiku form for this small, intense memory. It forces you to look at what aspect of the memory can capture the intensity. In my case, I'd never see a friend's FATHER cry. I knew something major had happened. 

If you need to write a series of haiku, or use another form, you certainly may! If you don't feel you have a flashbulb memory to write about, choose another strong childhood image/memory.

Happy writing!

AB

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

Day #21: Duality Poem

Duality is the condition of containing two parts, often contrasting parts. Consider either/or dualities:

off/on

speaking/silent

laughing/crying

or consider both/and dualities when two :

nervous & excited

exhausted & satisfied

giddy & hopeful

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Today I challenge you to write a duality poem, examining two (or more) sides of something. Use what ever form calls to you!

Here is mine:

CONTRASTS

Melville wrote:

“There is no quality in this world that is not what it is merely by contrast.”

I tap my app
at the end
of a run;
it is the going
that gives the stopping
its rippling frisson.

I read the
closing lines
of a thousand-page book:
releasing and relief-ing
goodbye dear friend
my heart swells
and hurts.

Friday-night tired
pushes through my muscles
and settles in my bones;
ah, sublime hour
when the week
meets the weekend.

Day #20: Summer Poem

 

Good morning! 

Today's mentor poem is by Jacqualine Woodson's poem "Firefly." Look how she captures summer by focusing on an insect!

It’s almost May
and yesterday
I saw a firefly.

You don’t see
them a lot
in the city.

Sometimes
in the park
in the near dark

one comes out
you’ll hear
a little kid shout

Lightning bug! Firefly!

It’s almost May
and yesterday
I caught a firefly in my hand.

First firefly I
seen in a
long, long time.

Make a wish,
Miss Edna said.
Make a good one.

Firefly wishes always come true.

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The forecast for Atlantic today is cloudy with a miserable April high of 45 degrees. Together, let's direct our focus to SUMMER and craft imagistic, sensory poems that make us SEE, SMELL, TASTE, HEAR and FEEL.

Think of a specific moment or image that you want to capture. Use crisp words. Pay attention to the sounds of words next to each other. Give us a hot slice of summer pie with a dollop of ice cream on top!

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Berryhill's Poem on the Deck

sparrow has transformed
the grill into her well-appointed
condo

wasp loops by
legs a-dangle,
then rests on my footstool
inches from my ankle

the glass at my elbow
is slippery cold
to my touch

breeze scatters
pistachio shells
across the deck

I turn the page
it is summer
all is well

Berryhill's summer view from her deck.

Miss Lipp's poem uses the nonet form, which you already know:

Summertime meant I was stranded on six Iowa acres.
Landlocked between cornfields, I fantasized of town life.
In my youth, I resented being isolated
but now I see its use:
exploration without hesitation — looking for
hidden kittens in hay,
defending stick castles,
naming each
star

Happy writing!

AB

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

Day #19: Wire Sculpture Poem

Good morning! On Day #19 we will try a Wire Sculpture poem! Take a look at these:





The wire sculptures above were made by Privet Design in Poland. Notice how they are crafted from a single piece of wire.

Your poem task today is to think about writing a poem as a wire sculpture. Begin with an image or an idea. Follow your mind as one word, phrase or image leads into the next. Like wire sculpture, your words/ideas might cross back on each other. Hopefully, by the end, you will have "arrived" at a place where the poem feels whole.

I began thinking about my son's dog, who knows no personal space. She is always right up in everyone's face! That spurred me to begin with an image of her on the bed in the morning, and that made me think about all the "morning smells" she smells!

As you read my poem, you'll see I used some unusual words. I've linked them to their definitions. 

the lab lies
between
their rustling forms

she is
doused in their
mingled breath;
she smells
the single
point on the number line
when sleep
becomes
wake

she inhales
the bouquet of
pandiculation:
flexed toes
and yawning axillae

pockets
of odor
puff forth
as muscles
creak
as eyelid
groin
and ear
release apocrine scent

her nose
knows
all smells
are good

Your turn! I look forward to seeing how you twist a string of words into the sculpture of a poem!

Happy writing,

AB

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


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

Day #18: Living Traits

Today's prompt sprouts from J. Ruth Gendler's “The Book of Qualities.”

Gendler personifies traits such as this:

“Anxiety is secretive. He does not trust anyone, not even his friends, Worry, Terror, Doubt and Panic … He likes to visit me late at night when I am alone and exhausted. I have never slept with him, but he kissed me on the forehead once, and I had a headache for two years …”

Here are lines from other traits she examines:

Despair has “stopped listening to music.”

Courage “looks you straight in the eye…knows first aid…is not afraid to weep…has made the journey from loneliness to solitude”

Beauty “will dance with anyone brave enough to ask her.”

Excitement wears orange socks.

Pain’s “voice is hoarse from crying and screaming…if you face him directly, he will give you a special ointment so your wounds don’t fester.”

Anger “sharpens kitchen knives at the local supermarket on the last Wednesday of the month.”

Blame “keeps a pharmacist’s scale at the corner of his desk.”

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Your challenge is to personify a trait. You may write in prose-poem form or arrange your ideas on the page like a more traditional poem, as I did.  Here is a list of traits to choose from!

I chose "Strong."

Strong

You’ll meet Strong’s
public face first:
muscles in the gym
don’t mess with her.

Then you’ll meet her
softer side:
endurance through pain
speaking up
she’ll stand alone.

Then listen deeper
to hear
Strong’s silent self:
answering
to be
or not to be
with
Be.

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