Thursday, April 7, 2011

Poems Come from Wonders & Questions


Topaz, Rainbow, & Moonstone
Photo by Amy LV

Rainbow Nursing Moonstone & Topaz
Photo by Amy LV

Yesterday we had a surprise at our house.  Actually, we had two surprises.  Our Icelandic ewe, Rainbow, gave birth to twins!  We decided to name this year's lambs after gemstones, and so this ram (lighter colored badgerface) is named Topaz, and this ewe (black) is named Moonstone.

Thank you to my kind and patient colleagues at Elma Primary yesterday.  They were so sweet as I was quite excited to share the news of these new babies, born midday and announced with a call from Mark.


If you think that Icelandic Sheep are beautiful, check out Perri's honest and lovely family farm blog, Mud on the Tracks.  She also keeps a fun and thoughtful writing blog at  Lesser Apricots.

After a year of daily poems and strategy ideas, I continue to revisit one strategy/technique for each day of April.  Today's thought is: can come from your wondering place.  

Wonder and Question Poems

Students - our brains are always going.  Even when we sleep, our brains crunch through the day and all of the things that we have seen, done, learned, and thought.  In between all of those thoughts lie many questions, and these are fantabulous fertilizer for writing.

Some wonderings we have are serious.  Some are funny.  But they all say something about how our minds work, and they all begin little poem paths should we choose to take them.  Listen to the questions that come to you, the wonderings that niggle at you.  Let them set your thinking - and your writing - on fire!

from June 2010


from February 2011


Here are a couple of more poems full of question and wondering. 

Questions

What little things do you wonder?  What big things do you wonder?  What do you want to ask a person or the world?  Reading and writing poems can help you find your voice.

This Month's Poetry Revisits and Lessons So Far

April 2 - Imagery
April 3 - Poems about Animals We Know
April 4 - Line Breaks and White Space
April 5 - Poems from Everyday Life
April 6 - Free Verse
April 7 - Poems from Wonders & Questions

Teachers and Students - I welcome your poems inspired by any of these posts or any other poems you are reading and learning about in class.  With your permission, I would be honored to share some of your work here at The Poem Farm throughout this month and into May.

Next Thursday is Poem in Your Pocket Day.  Have you decided what poem to keep in your pocket?  Teachers and Administrators - have you planned something for this day?  If not, check out last year's Poetry Peek into Country Parkway Elementary on Poem in Your Pocket Day.

Tomorrow, I look forward to welcoming Intermediate Literacy Coordinator Kristie Miner and teacher Ken Hand along with their fourth grade class from Tioughnioga Academy in the Whitney Point Central School District in Whitney Point, NY. They will be sharing their classroom publishing center!

(Please click on POST A COMMENT below to share a thought.)
 

2 comments:

  1. Do ants like jazz?
    Do bees like the blues?
    What kind of music
    would centipedes choose?

    --That's the beginning of a poem I started working on a while ago. You're inspiring me to return to it!

    Sounds like an exciting day at your place! Welcome, lambs!

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  2. What fun! It is such a pretty day outside today...our bugs and critters are surely jamming and dancing to your poem. Thank you for the lamb welcome! A.

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