A Letter from the Country

 Abandoned Kittens

by Amy LV

 

Click the arrow to hear me read this poem to you.

Students - Did you ever have anything bad happen to you that turned out to be good after all? Our family has. One such thing was finding kittens (which I have written about many times before). Many years ago we found some kitties on the side of the road, not even in a box, and we cared for them. Two we still have. It was a bad thing...turned good. Such stories of good and bad intertwined make strong writing topics.

You might also wish to try writing a letter to someone you have never known. For this is what today's poem really is, something I did not realize until I did this lengthening-revision. It's a letter with no real recipient.

Today's poem is a grown up poem, grown up from a shorter version of the same poem that I found in a pile of old poems.  Looking at it (below), I realized that it didn't tell the whole story of the cats or the whole story of my feelings either.  Try this sometime - find an old piece of your writing and ask yourself, Am I telling the whole story here, or is there more to say?  And then try revising by adding more.  You may be quite happy with the result...or you may stick with your original shorter version.  It's the experimentation that matters.

Did you like the sound of kittens in the background of the recording?  Those voices are the voices of two kittens we are fostering now, Apollo and Luna.  They were not abandoned, but they are looking for homes!

This week over at my other blog, Sharing Our Notebooks, I am so happy to welcome Barry Lane.  Barry is a cartoonist, a songwriter, a teacher of teachers, and a very inspiring notebook keeper.  If you keep a notebook (or if you're a curious person) do not miss his post.  Teachers - he has also offered a generous giveaway of two of his books about writing and a CD!  

I have also just added an index to Sharing Our Notebooks.  Click here to see a list of previous posters.  I will continue to add to the descriptions of the posts so far.

Please share a comment below if you wish.

To find a poem by topic, click here. To find a poem by technique, click here.

Like The Poem Farm on Facebook for more poems, articles, and poemquotes!