Category: Wax Poetic

I shrink in the company of Sarcasm. I’m admittedly deficient, two steps behind when it comes to her volley of shrill phrases. When she enters the building, I chuckle a bit but rarely participate. I acknowledge that, on edge of her spectrum, chatter is light-hearted, friendly. Still, try as I might, I can’t quite squeak a giggle in the midst of her raucous presence.

Recently two students in my guild moved on to explore new education paths. Both students had been part of the guild for many years. My idea was to provide an opportunity for closure by challenging writers to craft a farewell phrase. I decided to incorporate this exercise into our regular writing workshop. What better way to put my “writing is a gift” motto into action?

So we began, “Let’s craft kind words to encourage our friends as they set out on a new adventure.” Sounds simple, right?

As I watched the card I provided move from writer to writer, I anticipated reading the messages before posting them the old fashioned way. But later that day, when I sat down with a cup of tea excited to read the phrases inscribed on the card, my heart sank. There she was, Sarcasm, smirking in all her glory, “Have fun wandering the halls,” and “Happy Easter (jk),” and “Yeah, whatever, thanks for leaving me behind,” and “Life is good (not),” …not a single kind word. There were careless spelling, capitalization, and punctuation errors.

Decibels peaking, Sarcasm crossing over to the caustic zone, I wanted to shrink. At one point in the reading, I wanted to cry. Our guild is not a typical classroom where children come and go annually, most of these children have been learning together for many years. These children are respectful of and grateful for friendship. Still, not a single phrase in the card was crafted vulnerably. What in the world? I knew that this group would really miss their friends who had moved on. I knew this must be something else. Maybe they did not know how to craft vulnerable words.

Continue reading Crafting a Poem of Thanksgiving

Haiku are the little powerhouses of the poetry world! They are a fun challenge involving the best of word play, mixed with a little finger counting to get the syllables just right! Here's a brief "Haiku 101" to help you and your kids get started.

1. Haiku poems consist of a three-line stanza that has a total of 17 syllables written in the following pattern:

Line 1: 5 syllables
Line 2: 7 syllables
Line 3: 5 syllables

 *Slight variations in syllabication is appropriate as this helps the poet maintain "one thought in three lines"

2. Haiku poems are observations of nature, often making reference to the seasons. 

3. Haiku poems are like photographs, which capture moments in time. A  "haiku moment" describes a scene that leads the reader to a feeling. 

4. Haiku poems were originally written as introductions to longer works of poetry and should be written as one thought in three lines.

Consider these haiku written by the Japanese poet, Matsuo Basho:

Yellow rose petals
Drop one-by-one in silence:
Roar of waterfall.

Within plum orchard,
Sturdy oak takes no notice
Of flowering blooms.

Ready to write? Try crafting three original haiku inspired by any of these photographs. Share them with us in the comments section, we'd love to read them!

Douglas Florian is a poet and artist extraordinaire!

Winner of the Lee Bennett Hopkins Poetry Award and recipient of an ALA Notable Children’s Book Award, he is the author and illustrator of many delightful children’s books.

Douglas Florian believes there is only one rule when it comes to poetry, that there are no rules.

Your youngest students can explore scientific and silly facts about creatures of all kinds with our Douglas Florian Earlybird Guide, and even try their hand at writing their own animal poetry. The results are fantastic!

 
Shark

Ate a thousand fish

In the white bathtub

In the night when the people were sleeping

To grow as big as the house

– Jedd, age 5

Whale

Jumped and did a back flip

Under blue and white water

At snack time

To have fun

– Cameron, age 6

Seahorse

Met a friend

At the light blue drop off

Early in dark morning

To not have to wait as long

– Maddie, age 6

If you really stop to think about it, it's more than miraculous that a humble, hard-shelled little thing called a seed, once buried in dirt, watered, and warmed by the sun, transforms into something beautifully alive, growing, and life-giving.

Basho wandered by foot through medieval Japan, kept a diary
of his journeys—prose woven with haiku. There is sublime simplicity in the
poet’s observations:

 A hundred years!

All here in the garden in

these fallen
leaves

 With plum blossom scent,

this morning sun emerges

along a
mountain trail

Basho’s work echoes the ordinary, revels in simplicity, and
invigorates the soul.  

This time, be creative with haiku form. After all, Basho
warned his students, “Do not simply follow in the footsteps of the ancients;
seek what they sought…abide by the rules, then throw them out!”

Concentrate on crafting lines with a designated number of
words instead of syllables:

five words

s e v e n  w o r
d s

five words

But, keep in mind, three lines should be woven to one
thought:

and I wait for the

scent stewed with honey, mottled with sun,

to ripen at room temperature

Explore Basho together and have fun writing some haiku. Use this image of pears in a bowl as a jumping off point or create your own still life. We'd love to read your poems so please share them here.

For more about Basho take a look at this wonderful book.

Cloe was a budding poet from the time she could
hold a pencil and has grown into a teenager who poetically describes the value
of cultivating imagination.

boldness fuels creativity
longing for its sweet
honey
dreaming of liberation
imagination
drowned in a stagnant pool
is a
prisoner of war

Here was the third grader who recited Emily Dickenson
barefoot to a mesmerized schoolroom of boys and went on to receive national
recognition for her own poetry five years later. Cloe was a contemplative
student most content inside a great story. So when I read her response to the
following standardized test question I burst out laughing:

According to the passage, how would you best describe the
Library of Congress?
a. cold
b. austere
c. cozy
e. dark

To Cloe, the description of the 200-year-old federal
cultural institution, an enormous library housing shelf upon shelf of rare
books resonated with pages straight from her imagination. I know this because I
had been working with her to revise those pages:

Perched on a sturdy willow branch I watched fireflies dance
in between gowns. I found myself completely bored until an hour before midnight
when I wove my way into Lady Cordial’s library. There I sat silently clutching
my plate of half eaten trifle, reading the many nonsensical books she had
collected over the years of training to be a versifier. Hours quickly passed
until the library bell loudly reminded me that it was one o’clock. I tiptoed
downstairs and was met by the ridiculing eyes of Maliesa. Not wanting to talk
about how amazing she was and how horrible I looked in my potato sack of a
dress. I escaped by accidentally dropping my dessert plate and running to fetch
a broom. (excerpt from Cloe’s,
“Pins and Needles”)

There was absolutely no doubt in Cloe’s mind that the
passage about the Library of Congress described a place providing a feeling of
comfort and warmth, that the question was best answered, “c” a “cozy” place.
There is no doubt in my mind that according to the writers of the test, “b” an
“austere” place was the desired response.

Quite simply, reading and writing poetry expands the
boundaries of the imagination and the intellect. Students who engage in writing
poetry will develop a broader understanding of the power of vocabulary,
increase confidence in their voice, and strengthen their ability to communicate
new ideas and observations about their world.

Blackbird & Company’s Exploring Poetry guide gives students an opportunity to delight in the reading of great poetry and discover the craft of writing poems, incorporating both analytic and creative exercises to spark the poet inside of your student.

Created for middle and high school students, Exploring Poetry is appropriate for 5th grade and beyond and is designed to work for a range of writing abilities. 

The bundle includes a seven-week poetry guide that can be expanded to 14 weeks, a personal writer’s journal, art cards and three required books.

If you are interested in opportunities to explore poetry with your younger students take a look at these poetry-based literature discovery guides:

Our Earlybird Douglas Florian Author Unit takes 1st and 2nd grade students through five illustrated read-aloud books of educational and delightful animal poetry. This guide follows the same format as our other Earlybirds while providing opportunities for your youngest students to explore writing poetry on their own. Books included: In the Swim (water creatures), Lizards, Frogs, and Polliwogs (reptiles), Mammalabilia (mammals), Insectlopedia (insects), and On the Wing (birds).

For older students, another great way to introduce poetic forms and the power of poetry to tell stories is through our Love That Dog and Locomotion guides.

Love That Dog, by Sharon Creech is a poignant and masterfully crafted story written entirely in verse, through the eyes of Jack, a boy who reluctantly discovers the poet within himself. Although this guide is a Level 1 (grades 1-3) title, it can be used through 4th grade when appropriate for the student's reading and writing level. Love That Dog includes many of the same elements as our other Level 1 guides, such as vocabulary, comprehension and discussion questions, but each week, students will be encouraged and guided in writing poems in the same styles and forms that Jack is writing. Exposure to several classic poets such at William Carlos Williams and Robert Frost are creatively woven into the story.

Locomotion, by Jaqueline Woodson, also written in verse, is about Lonnie C. Motion, a boy who has had some tough breaks in his life. As Lonnie’s fifth grade class is learning to write poetry, suddenly, he is finding the words to tell about his family, the fire that took his parents away, his little sister, and his world. In this Level 3 (grades 5-8) guide, students will work though exercises on charcter study and comprehension, as well as poetic devices such as simile, metaphor and personification. Students will read and make observations on Lonnie’s poems, while also writing their own that mirror the forms and topics that the story introduces.