Poetry Friday & NaPoWriMo Poem #9

Happy Poetry Friday! If you are new to Poetry Friday, please let me introduce you to this weekly holiday through a helpful article by Susan Thomsen at the Poetry Foundation.  For links to many of the postings and events hosted thus far this month, check out Wild Rose Reader where Elaine has put together a fabulous contents.  Today's Poetry Friday roundup is hosted by Marjorie at Paper Tigers.

Musing on a topic for today's NaPoWrimo poem, one photograph kept sneaking into my mind.  Over the winter, we had some family photos taken by the wise and lovely Elizabeth Pellette, and in addition to human pictures, she took this charmer of our dog Cali and our cat Mini.

photo by Elizabeth Pellette Photography

One of my favorite ways to get writing (and to get students writing) is to list real photographs from our lives or list photographs that should have been taken but were not, an idea I most likely learned at The Teachers College Reading and Writing Project.  Then choose a photo from the list, and get writing.  The best part of this exercise is the choice: write a list of photos taken, photos not taken, or write both lists.  Something always grows from such compost, no matter how many times you try it.

I am certainly glad this tender photograph was taken at our little farm.  Something about it feels so curious, so trusting, and it made me think about pet secrets.

Cat-Dog Secret

When humans go out

we wrestle.

We chase.

We nuzzle our noses.

We sniff everyplace.

We sleep on the couch

me on you

you on me.

We share food and water.

We always agree.

When humans come home

we bite

fight

pretend

we can't stand each other.

But you're my best friend.

©Amy LV

Teachers - today I would like to celebrate two professional books that will help all of us teach poetry.  If you are a lover of poetry and seek books to help you spread the love, each of these books is full of rich, meaningful, and very friendly ways to share poems with children - through reading, performance, play, art, and writing.  If poetry scares you a little bit, these books will take you by the hand and welcome you into a world of joy and power.

Georgia Heard's work and this book so inspired me that our second daughter is named after her many Grandpa Georges and Georgia Heard too!

Awakening the Heart
by Georgia Heard

Shop Indie Bookstores

Poems Please!

by David Booth & Bill Moyer

Shop Indie Bookstores

This month's issue of Appleseeds magazine (a Cobblestone publication) is all about poetry.  You can read some of Sheri Doyle's poems and see the issue here.  What a treat to have a whole magazine devoted to reading and writing poetry, and you can even purchase one issue at at time.

Here's wishing that you find poems everywhere you look today, even in that clogged sink or those muddy dog prints across your kitchen floor.  As Naomi Shihab Nye says in her well-loved poem 'Valentine for Ernest Mann', 

"...poems hide.  In the bottoms of our shoes, they are sleeping..."

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