Happy Birthday to The Poem Farm...and National Poetry Month!

Today, March 29, 2017, is the seventh birthday of The Poem Farm!  To celebrate this happy occasion and all of the wonderful friends I have made here, I will give away 10 copies of my EVERY DAY BIRDS to a class or group in special need of books.  If you have a suggestion as to where to send these books, please leave it in the comments, and I will announce the winner (one winner for all 10 books) on Friday, April 12.

Giveaway! 

10 Copies for Children

We are almost to the eve of the beginning of National Poetry Month. Started by the Academy of American Poets in 1996, this month-long celebration is always full of delights and surprises. You can learn more about ways to celebrate National Poetry Month at poets.org.  This logo below comes from the poets.org site, a treasure trove of poetry goodness.

Each year at The Poem Farm, just like many other writers, I choose to write and share a poem each day. It has been fun to organize these poems around themes, and during the weeks before April, I find myself trying to choose something that piques my interest.  Before we talk about this year's Poetry Month project at The Poem Farm, here's a timeline of my past Poetry Month projects here.

2010 - The Poem Farm Begins!  I wrote a poem each day for a month, beginning actually, on March 29, 2010. This blog just to be a one month project, just for me, to get me writing again as I awaited the publication of FOREST HAS A SONG.  At the end of April 2010, I was having too much fun to stop, decided to go for one whole year, publishing a poem at The Poem Farm each day.  After that, I still hung around!

2011 - For each day of April 2011, I continued to write and share daily poems.  However, I had no theme as the blog was just entering its second year.

2012 - A-Z Dictionary Hike - Here's where the themes began.  Each day of April 2012, I opened my children's dictionary to a different letter, starting with A, ending with Z.  Eyes closed, I pointed to a word and this word became the title of that day's poem.

2013 - Drawing into Poems - For each day of April 2013, I slowed myself down and looked closely at an object, drawing it with black pen into my notebook. On some days, I wrote poems from these drawings, but on many days, I simply allowed the looking-drawing practice to practice becoming a closer observer.

2014 - Thrift Store - For each day of April 2014, I wrote a poem from a photograph of an item I found in a thrift store.  These poems are no longer at The Poem Farm as I am trying to sell them as a collection.

2015 - Sing That Poem - For each day of April 2015, I wrote a poem to the meter of a well-known tune and challenged readers to match the poem to the tune by seeing if it was singable to the same meter.

2016 - Wallow in Wonder - For my 2016 National Poetry Month project, I celebrated learning and writing from learning, writing poems from each daily Wonder at Wonderopolis.  I have not yet collected these posts into one post, but I will do so.

And now....this year!

This year's National Poetry Month project at The Poem Farm is....

(Rhyme and meter match that of Robert Frost's 

"Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening")

Students - Each day of April 2017, I will close my eyes, and I will reach into my box of 64 Crayola crayons.

Aerial View of Crayola Box

Photo by Georgia LV

Each day I will choose a crayon (without looking), pulling this crayon out of the box. This daily selected crayon will in some way inspire the poem for the next day.  So, on March 31st, I will select the crayon for April 1st, on April 1st I will select the crayon for April 2nd's poem, and on through the month, thinking and writing about one color each day for a total of 30 poems inspired by colors.

Writing from colors is popular with poets.  My friend Laura Shovan did this in at her blog in February 2014, inviting poets to write from Pantone colors each day.  And folks will often write poems inspired by paint chip colors, as you can see here at Mrs. Hall's blog, Fabulous in Fifth.

I welcome any classrooms of poets who wish to share class poems (class poems only please) related to each day's color.  You'll see instructions on how to do this beginning on April 1.

Happy almost National Poetry Month!  Write a rainbow!

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