April - Poetry Month - 2024, Day Four, Poem of Direct Address

 Happy Poetry Month!

If you'd like the poster, go here!

 

        I'm taking the advice from the poet who has given so much to help us all, including students and teachers, write poetry. I'll be moving from A to Z, obviously needing to combine a few to make it all come out to 30. FYI—Sometimes, Paul Janeczko offers a prompt to write a poem that begins with the specific alphabet letter instead of a poem type. It will be fun to be open to writing in all kinds of ways!

       You can find the path to the Progressive Poem over to the right! Simply click on the graphic!

Poems of address require poets not to write about something but to imagine what they would say if they could speak to the person, place, or thing being addressed.

An Architectural Romance

 

I wonder if you understand

the building of my mind,

the boards upon which lie my thoughts

constructed throughout time?

Do you feel balustrades surrounding,

protecting without and within?

And bricks as firm foundation,

mortar mixed into my skin?

 

I hope you like things nailed down

for I’ll not keep loosely made.

I’ll share the blueprint of my house

each parapet and colonnade

if you will share your mullions

your gutters and the grills.

We’ll reconfigure headers,

add in expensive frills.

 

If we can see each other’s plan

there’s nothing else we need to do,

but test each nail and sawcut done,

and love each piece of me and you.    

 

Linda Baie ©

April - Poetry Month - 2024, Day Three, Clerihew

 Happy Poetry Month!

If you'd like the poster, go here!

 

        I'm taking the advice from the poet who has given so much to help us all, including students and teachers, write poetry. I'll be moving from A to Z, obviously needing to combine a few to make it all come out to 30. FYI—Sometimes, Paul Janeczko offers a prompt to write a poem that begins with the specific alphabet letter instead of a poem type. It will be fun to be open to writing in all kinds of ways!

       You can find the path to the Progressive Poem over to the right! Simply click on the graphic!

        Clerihews are four line poems, with an aabb rhyming scheme, and in which the first line will generally end with the name of the subject of the poem. This form of verse takes its name from the middle name of its creator, the British writer Edmund Clerihew Bentley (1875-1956). It's supposed to be a bit funny. Mine is not hilarious, but for some reason, I thought of this favorite song by a favorite singer! Here goes!

 

In all the years, many others sang 

but no one as lyrical as K.D. Lang.

Her notes of upbeat Hallelujah 

never failed to be a “Gotcha”.

 

Linda Baie ©

April - Poetry Month - 2024, Day Two, Blessing Poem

 Happy Poetry Month!

If you'd like the poster, go here!

 

        I'm taking the advice from the poet who has given so much to help us all, including students and teachers, write poetry. I'll be moving from A to Z, obviously needing to combine a few to make it all come out to 30. FYI—Sometimes, Paul Janeczko offers a prompt to write a poem that begins with the specific alphabet letter instead of a poem type. It will be fun to be open to writing in all kinds of ways!

       You can find the path to the Progressive Poem over to the right! Simply click on the graphic!

       Today, the prompt asks for a Blessing poem, one that asks for protection or good fortune for someone or something. 

A Wee Praise for Large Acts

 

The only way to help the world

is to DO.

 

Blessings to 

 

the

determined-doers,

soul-solvers,

persistent-players and

goal-setters, then

goal-getters,

caring-completers

effortless-entertainers,

and absolutely

never

quitters.

            Linda Baie ©

It's Monday - Sharing Lovely Books

       

        Visit Kellee and Ricki at UnleashingReaders and Jen at Teach Mentor Texts to see what they and others have been reading! Your TBR lists will grow! It's been another warm, wonderful spring-like week with a few green leaves popping. And now, just as I wrote last week, we've had snow! An April fool welcome, right?

         I'm writing and posting a poem every day for April, Poetry Month! Hoping you will come visit when you can! 

        One thing I love about Kate DiCamillo's stories is that one can see she loves every character, too, each one, like all humans, with their goodness along with their quirks. This newest story centers around Emma Phineas Wilkey's summer before fifth grade. She's called Ferris because she was born under a Ferris wheel. It's also about her family, best friend Billy Jackson, and a few others, both from the past and her current beloved neighbors. It's about loving life and the people in one's life, taking great care of them, no matter how very hard it might be. The story shows the loving, though sorrowful goodbyes of life, and carrying on that love as time does not stop, but moves on no matter how much we might want it to. Knowing the right words for a moment has its own thread. You'll see and love that, too. I am glad I had the fun of reading one more from Kate DiCamillo, but sorry to see it end.

Thanks to Candlewick Press 
for this copy!

         For middle schoolers, who often feel as if they have no power, a new graphic novel series by Kekla Magoon and Cynthia Leitich Smith begins the stories of Riley Halfmoon and Maya Dawn, cousins who haven't seen each other in years but have moved to Urbanopolis to live with their activist grandma. They couldn't be more different, and besides being in a brand new environment, home, and school, they must share a room! They're just making some progress in their relationship when they begin to wonder about their school's vice-principal, who seems only interested in the many cameras spying on all the students and sending many students to detention. With the challenges at school and learning from their grandma that they do have star power, they begin to see their differences just might be a huge strength. It's a great story of persistence in doing what's right and figuring out differences add to the whole in a very good way. Molly Murakami's art shows all the story's action and emotions in this powerful and inspiring story.

April - Poetry Month, Day One - Acrostic

Happy Poetry Month!

If you'd like the poster, go here!

 

        I'm taking the advice from the poet who has given so much to help us all, including students and teachers, write poetry. I'll be moving from A to Z, obviously needing to combine a few to make it all come out to 30. FYI—Sometimes, Paul Janeczko offers a prompt to write a poem that begins with the specific alphabet letter instead of a poem type. It will be fun to be open to writing in all kinds of ways!

       You can find the path to the Progressive Poem over to the right! Simply click on the graphic!

       The first challenge for A is to write an acrostic!

      Here is what I wrote! Some days, I'll write about the world today and today this poem reflects our troubled world, the challenges of war, politics, climate change, and accidents, which all often leave us wondering if there is a way we can make a difference? I hope so!

                                               SURVIVAL

                                        S imple, you say?

                                        U nder fire

                                        R aging

                                        V ast

                                        I  rreconcilable differences

                                        V ainglorious

                                        A nxiety

                                        L  ost breath

                                                            Linda Baie ©