Poetry Friday is Here & Baseball Glove - Poem #4

IS HERE!

Happy Happy First Poetry Friday of National Poetry Month.  I am so glad you stopped by.  Today is Day #4 in my series of 30 April poems and process notes all on the theme...

LIVE!

Learn about this, my April 2014 Poetry Project, HERE!

Baseball Glove
Photo by Amy LV

Students - Yesterday I was a nervous writer.  See, writing can make me anxious.  A blank page can make me feel scared, and I can do a thousand things to avoid getting started.  Fortunately, dogs understand moods, and so a dog can truly be a writer's best friend.  Below you can see my wonderful muse dog Cali: just yesterday: telling me to get writing, napping on my notebook, cuddling the page as I think, napping as I revise.  Her warm furry body made me believe I could get started after all.

Cali Collage

Photos by Amy LV

At first I thought that today's verse might begin with the sound of the ball hitting a glove.  Then I thought it might be about how broken in the mitt in this photo is - about a child breaking in a glove.  This is when I stood up and walked to the computer to do a bit of research and when Cali decided to plop herself right on my notebook.  Shortly after, I decided not to write about breaking in a glove.

I considered using one of my favorite meters from "A Jellyfish" by Marianne Moore (you can see the hash marks in the first photo below) but abandoned that idea quickly.

Baseball Glove - Draft Page Spread #1

Photo by Amy LV

Then, just writing along, I came up with the idea of every baseball glove getting that one moment of glory.  That was the spark, the line to follow.

It takes such a spark to really get me moving.  A spark just lights.  Perhaps my fear is simply fear that a spark will never really light at all.  The fear that my mind's kindling is...well...wet.

Today's poem took about seventy-five minutes to write, not including the revision at the computer screen which involved the fun movement in stanza 4.

About the rhyme, "story"/"glory" - yup.  One of my favorite rhyme pairs.  I learned it in BLESS US ALL: A CHILD'S YEARBOOK OF BLESSINGS, by the wondrous Cynthia Rylant.

And "winterwaits" - yup.  Another wordsmush.

Baseball Glove - Draft Page Spread #2

Photo by Amy LV

One last process note.  Recording these poems really helps the writing.  You see many cross outs in my drafts, and I have told you that I read my poems aloud many times.  But in a final recording, I often hear one glitch that sends me back to the keyboard.  This happened last night.  In the second stanza, you now read the word "saves."  Originally it read "saved."  Listening to my own voice, I heard the tense switch and it made me crazy as this is number ten in the Twenty Most Common Errors in College Writing. Now it is consistent: gets, saves, has, looks.

In happy news, I am truly tickled to be part of a conversation with Stephanie Parsons and her fourth grade writers over at The Learning Laboratory. Stephanie, author of so many books I admire and co-author with Lucy Calkins and me of Poetry: Big Thoughts in Small Packages (Heinemann), is exploring poetry with her students in many beautiful ways, and I know I will learn a lot from them.

There are still two days left to leave a comment and thereby enter the Post-It Note giveaway over at Sharing Our Notebooks.  Don't miss Mary's notebook poem celebration.

And tomorrow, please return here to enter a giveaway for two books: one copy of THE POETRY FRIDAY ANTHOLOGY FOR SCIENCE compiled by Sylvia Vardell and Janet Wong and one copy of my own FOREST HAS A SONG. Each Saturday of April, I will offer this same giveaway here, for eight books in all.  Thank you to Sylvia and Janet for your generosity.

At last!  It's time for....the Poetry Friday posts!  Please leave a few words about your post along with a direct link in the comments, and I will add everyone's information all day, old school!  For those of you who are new to this community, we meet and share poetry links every Friday, and all are always welcome - to read, to link, as you wish!

It's Poetry Friday!

At On Point, Lorie Ann has her haiku "Cobalt Dreams" from her recent trip to Santorini.

Over at Life on the Deckle Edge, Robyn is in with a (slightly creepy but fun) peek into the POETRY FRIDAY ANTHOLOGY FOR SCIENCE.

Linda is celebrating and reviewing Margarita Engle's new verse novel, SILVER PEOPLE: VOICES FROM THE PANAMA CANAL at TeacherDance.

Jone offers Poetry Postcard Poems by students at Check it Out.  And at Deowriter, you can find her original poem, "Puddle Dancing."

April  and the Teaching Authors are celebrating the 5th blogiversary all this month by giving away five book bundles...and each TeachingAuthor will share a favorite poem too. April's offering is Janet Wong's "Liberty" from DECLARATION OF INTERDEPENDENCE--poems for an election year.  And April is having a metaphoraffair at her own website/blog, in this, her namesake month.

At Gathering Books, Myra's Poetry Friday contribution is Langston Hughes' The Negro Speaks of Rivers.

Greg is diving into the 30 Poets/30 Days archives all month at GottaBook.  Today he shares poems by X. J. Kennedy and Calef Brown up for a read.

At The Opposite of Indifference, Tabatha shares poems by Irene Latham and Sandra Lindow today.  And at Savvy Verse and Wit, she speaks about Poetry Friday itself.  If you are new - or old - to Poetry Friday, her words will give you the flavor of this community!

At her brand spanking beautiful new Poetrepository, Mary Lee has Day 4 in her month long poetry project -  Our Wonderful World.  Today's poem celebrates The Catacombs of Kom el Shoqafa.

Heidi Mordhorst is on Day 4 of what didn't start out as a "project" per se, but has evolved into one!  Over at My Juicy Little Universe, she's keeping a National Poetry Month Travel Journal where she'll visit all the folks who ARE doing projects and report from those destinations. Today Heidi visits Liz Steinglass's back yard.

For National Poetry Month, Laura has a series on Source Poems at Author Amok -- poems that feed the soul, or have special significance in someone's life. Guest blogging today is poet J.C. Elkin about a mysterious poem "Hannibal Clim." She remembers Hannibal, a giant dragon, from childhood, but hasn't been able to track him down again. Can you help?

At The Drift Record, Julie offers an original poem in celebration of gardens - especially knot gardens.

At Reflections on the Teche, Margaret is writing using the ABCs of styles, forms, and techniques.  Her students collaborated on a haiu using one of the tough words from the March Madness Poetry Final Round, and she also features a stolen poem from the line lifter extraodinaire and a delightful couplet by Kaylie.

Liz is writing about backyard treasures each day of National Poetry Month over at Elizabeth Steinglass.

At A Teaching Life, Tara offers a Mary Oliver poem to honor Jane Goodall, who turned 80 yesterday.

At Tapestry of Words, Becky celebrates the great Shel Silverstein, her favorite poet of all time.

Buffy stacks a couple of book spine poems and gives us a spring riddle over at Buffy's Blog.

Michelle has a "Five for Friday" celebration of poetry going on at Today's Little Ditty and welcomes all to join in!

At Live Your Poem, Irene is in with some wise words and a poem from Nikki Giovanni.

Charles shares an original poem titled "Fenced In" At Poetry Time.

Keri, at Keri Recommends, announces the winner of a copy of WATER CAN BE by Laura Purdie Salas...who could it be?

At Random Noodling, Diane has a sequence of soup haiku.  Kurious Kitty shares a poem by NH poet, Alice B. Fogel.  And at KK's Kwotes, you can read the words of Robert Pinsky.

At Karen Edmisten, Karen is in with all of the Poetry Month activities at Poets.org and also "Plans" by Stuart Dischell.

JoAnn has posted three poetry thoughts and a tercet about another springtime thrill at JoAnn Early Macken. She'll be posting on this site each Friday in April, giving away a copy of WRITE A POEM STEP BY STEP. On Wednesdays, she'll post a poetry-themed Writing Workout at TeachingAuthors.com.

Amy reviews Marilyn Singer's RUTHERFORD B., WHO WAS HE? at Hope is the Word.

At Radio, Rhythm, & Rhyme, Matt reminds us of Irene Latham's Progressive poem and #MMPoetry.

Find "The Donkey", a Lent/Easter poem by G. K. Chesterton, at Supratentorial.

Tricia is in at The Miss Rumphius Effect with a poem entitled "Quatrains for a Calling."

Anastasia shares line 4 of the 2014 Kidlitosphere Progressive Poem, a fun Poetry Month project that Irene Lantham created, at Poet! Poet!

B.j. Lee is in at Blue Window with her March Madness Poem based on the word 'incontinent,' down to the Final Four and matched up with J.J. Close.

Violet is back (welcome back, Violet!) at Violet Nesdoly/poems, sharing an original poem, "Talking with a stranger."

At Wild Rose Reader, Elaine joins us with an original mask poem about the La Brea Tar Pits.

At Dori Reads, Dori has added a new cinquain in her goal of writing one a day this month.  Today's focus is the Kalahari.

Little Willow shares a poem from within Natalie Lloyd's novel A SNICKER OF MAGIC today at Bildungsroman.

Over at There's No Such Thing as a God-Forsaken Town, Ruth got a new (written by a Poetry Friday regular!) book in the mail today, and she is excited to read it.  

At One Deep Drawer, Kortney shares her family's poetry teatime.

Holly has a post at HATBooks about using the app Notegraphy to write her poem "Lotus Wanting."

Over at her author blog, Emily offers her translation of "Moon", a poem written by Xue Tao, a woman poet who lived in China during the Tang Dynasty. She also shares how her translation of "Moon" has a unique journey, over a thousand years after the original Chinese text was conceived.

At All About the Books with Janet Squires, Janet's selection is EARTHSHAKE: POEMS FROM THE GROUND UP by Lisa Westberg Peters with pictures by Cathie Felstead.

Jennifer shares FIREFLY JULY, Paul Janeczko's new poetry collection from Candlewick, over at Teach Mentor Texts.

At Reederama, Jennifer is seeing Mary Oliver's poetry.

Laura offers one new Riddle-Ku each day of this month at Writing the World for Kids, and today's is hot!

Cathy is writing about "objects of memory" over at Merely Day By Day. These are poems about those little things you keep around because they are attached to stories planted deep inside of you.

Thank you very much for visiting The Poem Farm today...I wish you a joyful journey all around the Kidlitosphere, today and throughout the month.

Please share a comment below if you wish.