Work...and Trust the Mystery Too

Self-Talk in Sky

Drawing by Amy LV

Students - Where did this little verse come from? I honestly do not know. Last evening I was writing in my notebook and jotted the line I tried to do a thing I did not think that I could do and then I just kept following word after word after word and those wordy breadcrumbs led me to the small cottage that is now this poem.

I do write by hand, and writing the drafts for this poem ended up as quite a messy experience with crossouts and writing over writing and words spilling from page to page linked by arrows and lists of rhyming words. There was work...and too, there was mystery. See, even though I did the work here, I am still somewhat surprised by the poem. (Where on earth did the kite come from?) Writing is indeed mysterious like this. We do work, and still we can be surprised by which lines choose to land in our hearts and on our pages.

This week I suggest writing a bit each day in a notebook, write bits about what you see and think, write about your wonders and hopes. List words you love, and listen to the part of you that is whispering good ideas. By doing this regularly, you will always have writing ideas just waiting for you to shape into the pieces you are meant to write.

This week, Sarah Grace is hosting the Poetry Friday roundup over at Sarah Grace Tuttle with happy news about her redesigned website (including resources for teachers!) and an original poem titled "Hitchhiker". Each Friday, all are invited to share poems, poem books, poetry ideas, and friendship in this open and welcoming poetry community.

I wish you the strength to hear the words that help you become the you you most wish to be.

xo,

Amy

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Make a Comparison

Sweaters

Drawing by Amy LV

Students - Last week I complimented a man who stood in line with me at the grocery store on the joyful sunflowers he was purchasing. His eyes welled up, and he told me that his twenty-seventh wedding anniversary would be the next day, that his wife had died in early summer, and that she had loved sunflowers. The man was going to place the sunflowers on her grave. I have been thinking about him ever since.

I have a handful of friends who are grieving the loss of loved ones at this time, and so when I sat down to write, this sunflower man and my grieving friends came right to my mind. I found myself thinking about how different people grieve in different ways, and that we usually never know what is happening inside another person's heart. 

As I wrote, I felt myself remembering and inspired by one of my favorite poems, Charlotte Zolotow's poem "People." (Scroll down a wee bit at this link to read it.) I appreciate the way Charlotte compares two different kinds of people in her poem, the way she describes each type of person in its own stanza. I chose to write one stanza per type of grief sweater, and I also added a third stanza offering a bit of advice.

Reading helps us writers as the more we read, the more possibilities we understand and can imagine for our writing. Today I challenge you to try writing a poem - or some other kind of writing - that compares two things. You may wish to list some ideas: two pets, two kinds of cookie, two ways to show a feeling, any two things. Write one stanza (or paragraph) about the first and then another stanza (or paragraph) about the second. If you wish, add a third...or fourth...or fifth. You may surprise yourself.

If you are wondering why I repeated that last line - as good as it can - it is because I wanted to linger in that sadness. Grief does not usually feel good, and I hope to honor this truth.

This week, Linda is hosting the Poetry Friday roundup over at TeacherDance with a thoughtful and timely poem inspired by a collection of books written by Charles Dickens and recently donated to the all-volunteer-run bookstore where she works. Each Friday, all are invited to share poems, poem books, poetry ideas, and friendship in this open and welcoming poetry community.

This week may you be comfortable in all of your clothes and in all of your moods. May you be you.

xo,

Amy

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Take Photos! Repeat End Words!

(This is the first morning of Fall 2025 where I am writing by the heater....brrr!)

Bumblebee Bottom Sticking Out of a Dahlia

Photo by Amy LV

Students - Yes, it's true! Some bees - bumblebees certainly - do sleep in flowers! And this summer I found many adoze as I did my morning garden rounds. They are adorable all tucked into their petal beds. I have fallen in love with this image and this knowledge that bees sometimes sleep in flowers. I carry it with me every day now.

With this thought and photo in mind, today I wrote my first tritina, a new form to me - with much gratitude to "The Poetry Princesses," a group of poet friends who share different forms and ideas for writing. They shared this form last week, and I was so enchanted by their poems last week on Poetry Friday, I wanted to have a go at a tritina myself.

Here is an explanation of the tritina from Tamar Yoselff at Poetry School - The American poet Marie Ponsot invented the tritina, which she describes as the square root of the sestina. Instead of six repeated words, you choose three, which appear at the end of each line in the following sequence: 123, 312, 231; there is a final line, which acts as the envoi, which features all three words in the order they appeared in the first stanza. So the poem is structured as three tercets and one single line in conclusion.

Tritina Draft, October 3, 2025

Photo by Amy LV

You can see in my draft above how I listed words I might choose as end-line words at the top and then wrote the numbers along the left hand side of the draft to help me stay in order for this form. Forms can be very helpful to me as a writer. Rather than finding them restrictive, I find they can be freeing, helping me to find new ideas as I wrestle with word orders and syllables. I do not believe that one must always or ever write in forms, but sometimes...it does help and push me to do so.

This week, I have two different recommendations for you. The first suggestion is to take photos - either with a camera or with your mind (like Cam Jansen in the CAM JANSEN books). Use your photos to inspire your writing. Or if you prefer, write inspired by photographs taken by others. I welcome you to work with any of the photos here at The Poem Farm, for example. The second suggestion is to try playing around with the ends of your poem lines. You need not write a whole tritina, but perhaps you will choose one important word and repeat it at the ends of a couple lines of your poem. Repetition is a powerful force. When it is used well, we readers love it and are drawn to it as bees to pollen.

As for these photographs, a couple of years ago, when our children moved away, I decided I needed to take care of something and would learn to garden a little bit. These flowers are part of my learning - they are dahlias. Here is another bee - all pollen dusted - snoozing away in his own dahlia. (I am writing "him" and "his" as according to my research, it is most often the male bumblebees that sleep in flowers.)

Pollen Dusted Sleeping Bee in a Dahlia

Photo by Amy LV

And here is a ladybug resting in the day.

Little Ladybug Napping

Photo by Amy LV

Tomorrow I look so forward to reading and maybe writing with the children who visit me at Meg's Alice, Ever After Books in Buffalo, NY. This is the most delightful bookshop, and if you are ever in Western New York, I highly recommend a visit! Tomorrow I will be there from 10:30am - 11:30am and welcome you.

This week, Matt is hosting the Poetry Friday roundup over at Radio, Rhythm, & Rhyme with some celebratory news and two poems by two different poets from his anthology A UNIVERSE OF RAINBOWS: MULTICOLORED POEMS FROM A MULTICOLORED WORLD. Each Friday, all are invited to share poems, poem books, poetry ideas, and friendship in this open and welcoming poetry community.

Sleep well, my friends, as well and as cozy as you can. I wish I could grow you each a big flower bed!

xo,

Amy

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Try Something New on Poetry Friday

Card from WOODLAND WARDENS

Photo by Amy LV

Students -  On some mornings, I choose to begin my writing time by choosing a card from a deck of picture cards. I look at the picture and read the words and think about the meaning. Today I did this with my Woodland Wardens cards by Jessica Roux. I smiled to myself when Hare and Oak appeared as I had chosen this card at random the very last time I chose from this deck, on September 12. 

Fall is, indeed, a good time to think about new opportunities. Our own oak tree is tossing acorns every day, and each one that falls makes me think about new acorns growing new trees. Yesterday I saw a former student, a young man I'd taught when he was in fourth grade. Now he is in ninth grade, and while in some ways he is the same, in some ways he is new and grown.

This week I encourage you to try something new. Maybe you will act in a way you usually do not act or eat a food you do not prefer to see how it goes. Perhaps you will find a writing idea by opening a book at random to a page and choosing a word from that page. Or maybe you will write three words on three little pieces of paper, toss them in a bowl, and with your eyes closed, choose one to be your day's writing topic. You need not feel that you always KNOW who you are or what to write about immediately; you may find inspiration and play little games to find your writing ideas and also yourself. Way does lead onto way, and your right words and right will find you. We all just need to keep experimenting, keep trusting, keep trying. 

This week, I am the hosting Poetry Friday. Each Friday, all are invited to share poems, poem books, poetry ideas, and friendship in this open and welcoming poetry community. Thank you, dear friends, for reminding me when I forgot to get here early. Please leave your links below.

You are invited to the Inlinkz link party.

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May a small new bring you new joy this week.

xo,

a.

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Wonder about a Person from the Past

Great Grandma Marie's Chair

Photo by Amy LV

Students - I never knew my Great Grandmother Marie Braun Pappier, but her chair lives in my living room now, and our kitty Claude likes to lie down in between the rockers. My mom has always told me how kind and loving Marie was, how she'd read the newspaper in that chair and rub her hands at the ends of the arms. I like thinking about how many hours it must have taken to wear away the paint, and when I rub my hands on those worn brown places, I feel connected to this ancestor of mine, Marie who married Henry, my father's mother's father.

Marie Braun Pappier's Chair

Photo by Amy LV

This week you might choose to take a trip back in time in your mind, visiting an ancestor or other person you may know or may have never known. Perhaps you have heard a name or place or small story about someone from the past. Perhaps an ancestor, perhaps someone completely unrelated to you. Maybe there is an object in your home that connects with this person: a chair, a watch, a cup, a book title, a sweater, a painting or photograph. The object may be old or it might just remind you of the person. 

Follow your thoughts and wonderings. Jot what rises in your mind. And see where you go. You might go to a poem place or a story place or simply a wondering place. All such places are good. 

If you keep a notebook, you may even make a list of people-from-the-past to write about in your own future.

Here is a photo of my Great Grandmother Marie with my father and mother on their wedding night, midnight December 31, 1967 - January 1, 1968.

Marie Braun Pappier with George Ludwig and Debby Dreyer Ludwig

New Year's Eve 1967

This week, Jama is hosting the Poetry Friday roundup over at Jama's Alphabet Soup with a continued celebration of the alphabet and a truly fun abecedarian. Each Friday, all are invited to share poems, poem books, poetry ideas, and friendship in this open and welcoming poetry community.

We are all connected.

xo,

Amy

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Make Friends With Your Notebook

A Clearing

Photo by Amy LV

Students - Last night I woke up a few times with a writing idea I had planned to work on this morning. I began that work, but somehow felt it was not the right poem for this day. So I flipped through my notebook and found this draft from April.

April Notebook Draft

Photo by Amy LV

It felt more important to write about magic today, so I decided to type up the above draft to see what would happen. I played around a lot with the sound and read aloud as I worked. And I am happy I did so! 

My tip for today is to make friends with your notebook. Just stuff stuff in there: ideas, wonderings, unusual thoughts, bits and snips of poems, cards, photos, sketches, leaves, ticket stubs, stickers, recipes...anything! See, it is not easy for a writer to do all of the things in one day: think of an idea, draft it, play with the sound and structure, and edit. That's a lot to do! So a notebook can be a trusty friend who holds onto your ideas until you may (or may not) wish to turn then into drafts. I used to keep a whole blog about notebook keeping - Sharing Our Notebooks - and I am considering getting back to this as a central practice in my teaching. Our writing in notebooks helps us know what interests and charms us.

You may have noticed that today's poem does not carry a lot of rhyme. Rather, I focused on the sound, playing with short lines, each one almost contained and holding a bit of rhythm. Reading aloud as I write is one of my most important revision tools. If you don't do this now, I recommend giving it a try. Write a bit...read it aloud...revise what sounds off...keep going.

So consider it - write in a notebook just to see what you get. Revisit the writings in a few weeks to see if one of the bits may wish to grow into a story or a poem or an essay or a letter or something else. Our brains and hearts do a lot of work that we don't even know about, and a notebook can help us hang onto that thinking and love.

This week, Rose is hosting the Poetry Friday roundup over at Imagine the Possibilities with a bit about her "Snippets" log and a poem about imaginings. Each Friday, all are invited to share poems, poem books, poetry ideas, and friendship in this open and welcoming poetry community.

I send you magic and belief in magic...

xo,

Amy

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What Reminder Do You Need?

Chubby Sunflower Bee

Photo by Amy LV

Students - On these August mornings, I often begin the day by picking blackberries and flowers. Sometimes, I see bees dozing in the zinnias and on the sunflowers, and I smile...wondering what they dream about. 

Reflecting on these bees, I found myself noticing how much I love watching them doze, how much I love their little pollen pants and fuzzy bodies. I found myself noticing how different this experience is than the experience of reading information and looking at pictures (even adorable pictures) on my phone or computer screen.

Long ago, I remember reading an article about a baby swiping at a magazine, trying to turn the page as one does on an iPad. That troubled me, and it troubles me when I find myself trying to click on one of my own thoughts (does anyone else do this?) When such a thing happens, I am reminded:

Go outdoors.

The natural world is real in ways that the technological world can never be. Trees and bees and meteors remind us of our humanity. We need them. This is my reminder to me...and perhaps to you if you also need it.

What might you need to be reminded of? Perhaps make a list...and then choose one or more of the items from your list to write about. Maybe a poem, maybe not. When we write about our goals and struggles, it helps us to think about them in new ways. And sometimes, when others' read our reminders, they find themselves reminded of something too. In this way, writing helps us and others at the same time.

Teachers - It is a new school year. Please allow me to recommend more time outdoors. The best book I can recommend about combining curriculum with time outdoors is one of my favorite professor's books - LITERACY MOVES OUTDOORS by Valerie Bang-Jensen. Wise, practical, and beautiful. I cannot recommend this book more!

Available through Heinemann

This week, Heidi is hosting the Poetry Friday roundup over at my juicy little universe with good news and a sudoko poem. Each Friday, all are invited to share poems, poem books, poetry ideas, and friendship in this open and welcoming poetry community.

May your brain encourage you and also push you where you need to be pushed...

xo,

Amy

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