Gone fishing

Hi everyone,

I left this morning for a two day trip. I loved the initial reaction to our new poetry tag game and hope that while I’m away you will continue to find ways to relate other poems. At this point I suggest that we move away from Jane Heitman Healy’s original poem about shoes and branch out in other directions. We don’t have to be literal in making our connections.

For example, some shoes have tongues. Some loaf. Some leap higher than the tallest buildings. Tongues can lead us into gossiping. Loafing reminds me of drone bees. Leaping takes us to track games, to childhood, to hasty conclusions. Tall buildings inspire us with poems about cities. Cities take us all sorts of places.

Let’s see what comes to mind over the next couple of days. I’ll be back in touch soon. If anyone wants to start the next Woza Woza Poem, be my guest!

David

Last day for your poems

My sincere thanks to Vicki Grove for yesterday’s guest article. If you haven’t read it yet, be sure you don’t miss it!

REMINDER: CUTOFF FOR JANUARY WORD OF THE MONTH POEMS IS MIDNIGHT TONIGHT CENTRAL STANDARD TIME.

REMINDER: SIGN MY GUEST BOOK THIS MONTH FOR A CHANCE FOR A POETRY OR PICTURE BOOK CRITIQUE.

BULLETIN: Guess who posted a poem last night? Kathy Temean, that’s who! Better go have a look. It’s a fun poem.

Hi Everyone,

This past week was a busy one.

On the 16th, I proposed to provide tips on writing poetry and said I’d get back with a plan. I also listed the schedule for upcoming guests including Vicki Grove (1/22), Laura Robb (1/29), Laura Purdie Salas (2/5), and Lee Bennett Hopkins (2/12).

On the 17th, Kathy Temean posted another of my poems, “My Essay on Birds,” as the Poem of the Week. Thanks to the generous support of George Brown, Sharon Umnik, and the graphic team at Boyds Mills Press, Kathy now has access to all of my books with BMP and can choose at random a poem each week for the Sunday feature. I hope you enjoy the weekly feature because I have enough published poems to last a number of years. By asking Kathy to do the choosing, I’m often surprised to see old friends.

On the 18th, I told you about newly posted poems by Liz Korba, Rosalind Adam, Erin McMullen, V. L. Gregory, Melanie Bishop, Reta Allen, and Genia Gerlach. I also discussed the poetic foot as part of my proposed series of poetry tips.

On the 19th, I posted a proposed outline for poetry tips to come. I said that I’ll try to stay with a schedule of adding tips on Wednesdays but asked that you not hold me to it every week.

On the 20th, I announced that we had heard from our first four young poets of the month and urged everyone to read their work. Jan Gallagher posted a poem. I reported on an article I like in this issue of Language Arts, a publication of NCTE. The article is called “Asking the Experts: What Children Have to Say About Their Reading Preferences.”

On the 21st, you read some biographical information about Vicki Grove prior to her appearance the following day as my guest. Mimi Cross posted her poem for January.

On the 22nd, Vicki’s straight talk from the heart reached a lot of readers who related to her words and shared similar problems in making time to write. Vicki observed that life-inspired surprises can happen to a story when it’s left alone. Jane Yolen shared her term for it: “Here come the elves.” We also received poems from three more young poets.

David

Outline for poetry tips

Hello everyone. This is a working outline for topics I might cover in the coming weeks. See what you think and let me know. Remember, this needs to be interactive. When we reach places where we need examples, I hope you’ll consider supplying some of your own. Here we go.

OUTLINE FOR POETRY TIPS

#1 FOOT
#2 LINE
#3 Length: Dimeter — Hexameter
#4 End-stopped, Enjambment
#5 Punctuation, Capitalization
#6 Arrangement
#7 Syllabic, Accentual
#8 METER, Rhythm, Sprung Rhythm
#9 SOUNDS: Color, Pitch, Stress, Quantity
RHYME
#10 Traditional Schemes
#11 Link Rhymes
#12 Slant Rhyme (Near Rhyme, Off Rhyme, Half Rhyme)
#13 Alliteration, Consonance, Assonance
STANZAS
#14 (2 lines) — Couplet
#15 (3 lines) — Tercet
#16 (4 lines) — Quatrain
#17 (5 lines) — Quintet or Cinquain
Limerick, Crapsey, Other
#18 (6 lines) — Sestet
#19 (7 lines) — Septet
#20 (8 lines) — Octave
#21 Longer Forms
#22 French Forms: Rondeau, Rondel, Villanelle
#23 Japanese Forms: Haiku, Tanka, Other
#24 Sonnet
#25 Blank Verse

Some subjects will take a while to get through while others will move quickly. I have no hard schedule for these but will shoot for Wednesdays. I’m already posting a Poem of the Week on Sundays and a Guest of the Week on Fridays so why not have Poetry Tips on Wednesdays? (I’ll get Kathy Temean yet. She told me this was going to be easy.)

David