Happy National Poetry Month!
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Hello, Poetry Friends! This month I am sharing poems written in the voice of Little Red Riding Hood, and I invite you to join me in writing in the voice of someone else too. You might choose a fairy tale character or a book character or a person from history or anyone else real or imagined. These are your poems, so you make the decisions. Each April day, I will share my poem and a little bit about writing poetry. Mostly, we’ll just be writing in short lines with good words and not worrying about rhyming. Meaning first. Our focus this month will be adopting the perspective of another…for 30 days. I invite you to join me in this project! To do so, simply:
1. Choose a character from fiction or history or somewhere else in the world of space and time, and commit to writing a daily poem in this person's voice for the 30 days of April 2025. You might even choose an animal.
2. Write a new poem for each day of April. Feel free to
print and find inspiration from this idea sheet that I will be writing from all month long.
Teachers, if you wish to share any HELLO MY NAME IS... subjects or poems, please email them to me at the contact button above. I would love to read what your students write and learn from how they approach their own projects.
LITTLE RED RIDING HOOD'S POEMS SO FAR
Students - Today's poem is simply a description poem of now, of something Lou is doing in the moment. It is written in the present tense, as if she is describing the scene around her, its colors and smells and sounds. In a way, it is a small moment poem and a list poem, and I like imagining this peaceful scene of LRRH surrounded by some of her favorite things.
If you are writing in the voice of another this month, or writing in your own voice, consider trying this. Write in the now. Where are you? What do you see, hear, smell, feel, taste in the air? Make a list and turn the list into a poem. Turn it into a different poem. Which do you prefer? If you like, combine them!
Notice - today's poem does not rhyme or follow a special meter/beat, but it does end with a short line. This is one way to bring a poem to a close. The short line feels like a punctuation mark indicating - This poem is over now.
Yesterday was such a fun Family Day at the Burchfield Penney Art Center. Several authors read to children, and the museum staff and volunteers made crafts with the children. For my book, WITH MY HANDS, POEMS ABOUT MAKING THINGS, children had the opportunity to make sock puppets or fingerprint pictures! Thank you to everyone at the Burchfield Penney for putting together such a wonderful day for families and authors too.
Sock Puppet Materials
Photo by Amy LV
Fingerprint Picture Materials
Photo by Amy LV
Thank you for joining me on this sixth day of HELLO MY NAME IS...
To learn about more National Poetry Month projects and all kinds of April goodness, visit Jama's Alphabet Soup where Jama has generously gathered this coming month's Kidlitosphere poetry happenings. And if you are interested in learning about or writing from any of my previous 14 National Poetry Month projects, you can find them here. Happy National Poetry Month!
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