ANCIENT
Photo by Amy LV
Students - Today is day #1 of the Dictionary Hike. As promised, I found the A section, closed my eyes, and pointed. And oh, was I happy to find that my finger landed on ANCIENT, such a beautiful word. A tortoise was the first ancient thing that came to mind, followed by coins and shipwrecks and stars and stones. But I came back to a tortoise, as I love thinking about the mysteries and stories that old animals hold.
Are you going to take a dictionary hike? My eleven-year-old daughter, Georgia, is. She will be hiking through the letters of her first, middle, and last name. Her first closed-eyes-finger-point landed on the word GLIMPSE. I will link to some of her poems throughout the month.
If you decide to take on this challenge in any way, please let me know! I would love to read your poems.
This has been a beautiful weekend. On Friday, I unknowingly sat across from Naomi Shihab Nye at the Philadelphia airport. I was flying home to Buffalo, NY, and she was flying to Buffalo, NY for a weekend of readings. I looked up, saw her open face, and gasped, "I love you." Then, we sat and chatted until the plane arrived.
Yesterday, my daughter Georgia and I heard Naomi read at Talking Leaves Books. Both of us came home with a stack of new books and a renewed spirit for writing. Tomorrow we will celebrate her work again at the Williamsville School District's Poetry and Music Festival.
Remember, voting remains open for the Final Four in the March Madness poetry tournament over at Think Kid, Think! Head on over and take a look at the last four poems...and vote for your favorites!
Throughout this month, you will find many exciting poetry happenings around the Kidlitosphere. Find a great listing here at Jama's Alphabet Soup, and visit on your own or with your class!
Tomorrow, look for a peek into Janet Wong's notebooks over at my other blog, Sharing Our Notebooks. I will happily host a giveaway here of a small stack of Janet's books.
Happy National Poetry Month!
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Looking forward to your poems this month!
ReplyDeleteHi Amy! I was thinking of doing a home/school poetry project this month with the them (for the adults) of "When I was a kid" and for the kids "When I grow up". I already wrote my poem...it was fun! What do you think?
ReplyDeleteLove the first poem.
Lori
Hi Amy,
ReplyDeleteI sure love a challenge. I saw The Poem Farm on Laura Shovan's blog and had to check you out. I am going to try and crank out a haiku each day using the word you find for us. Here is a haiku for day one:
The ancient soul aches
for one more undoing or
doing of the heart.
Lovely & thoughful beginning to your dictionary fling Amy. I will try to do some with you as I move through April. My own challenge is to write a poem each day, so your support on your posts will add to my ideas for sure. Thanks for all this!
ReplyDeleteGreat start, Amy! How perfect that you would get such an old word for a new beginning of ways to share poetry! We will be watching, writing and learning with you!
ReplyDeleteAmy,
ReplyDeleteGreat poetry idea! What an excellent start to your Poetry Month project. I'm looking forward to reading all your "Dictionary Hike" poems.
LOVE it! GREAT word!!
ReplyDeleteAnd I can so picture you looking up and saying that to Naomi Shihab Nye. You are probably best friends now!
This looks like it is going to be such a fun project and one I'm going to have to copy in the future.
ReplyDeleteMy favorite line is:
He begins to cry
for an ancient voice
and an ancient touch