Look Around & Choose an Object

Garden Watering Time

Video by Amy LV

Hello Friends! First I would like to thank the community of Ripley Central School (Grades K-6), in New York State, for spending Wednesday with me. It was such a treat to begin these autumn days with thoughtful writers and teachers. I look forward to our future time together, and today's poem came from something I shared in our upper grade assemblies.

One of the most meaningful, interesting, and important parts of being a writer, whether we share our writing or not, is deciding what to write about...choosing an idea. And sometimes we can fall into the trap of believing that we need to have a GOOD idea, an IMPORTANT idea, a SPECIAL idea. But we do not need this at all. We just need to begin writing.

We can begin by starting down one of many possible paths, but one of these paths is simply the path of observation. We look around. We look at one object. We write about this object. Now, you may be wondering, Just what might we write about any object? Well, we can write in any genre, and we might:

• Describe the object with our senses
• Compare the object with something else in the world
• Tell about a personal memory related to this object
• Teach something about this object
• Share beliefs connected to this object
• List words this object brings to our minds and write from these
• Invent the beginning of a story inspired by this object
• Begin a poem about this object

For me, the best part of writing is the surprise part. I like beginning NOT KNOWING what I will write, NOT having a great idea to begin, but rather, allowing an idea to show up on the page like a surprise guest.

As for my poem today, I was trying to think of a writing idea when I realized that I should water the garden. As I did so, I admired the sprinkler and so...the sprinkler became my main character of today.

This poem is short and it does not rhyme. However, it does use a lot of sound repetition, namely of the short i sound. The poem, including title, has 20 words, and 10 of them include the short i sound, my favorite sound in the English language.

I would love to read and share any poems you write from just looking around, choosing an object, and allowing the object to bring you to new places, thoughts, and wordplay.

Linda is hosting this week's Poetry Friday roundup over at Teacher Dance. Each Friday, all are invited to share poems, poem books, poetry ideas, and friendship in this open and welcoming poetry community.

xo,

Amy

ps - For those of you who, like me, are fans of English Professor and Musician Gart Westerhout, he is back with another song version of one of my poems, "Summer Mystery," from two weeks ago. Hear him sing that poem about my generous neighbors here.

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Coaxing Poems 4: Abracadabra!

 

Hello again my dear Poetry Friends, and welcome to the fourth of ten little poetry visits starting off the New Year at The Poem Farm. In each of these short videos, I will share a small something about poetry, and you will always be able to find the poem(s) I read below the video. You can find the earlier videos linked below and you may wish to watch those first:

COAXING POEMS VISITS:

Visit 1: We Are Libraries

Visit 2: Eat the World

Visit 3: Make & Break a Pattern

And now I invite you to join me for Visit 4, Abracadabra!

Students - The whole world feels more interesting when we practice comparing various objects and feelings to different things we know in life. We find one way that two things are alike, tap our magic writing wands, and we turn one thing into another, right on the page. In this way, writing is magic. We see things anew, and we pass these surprising images on to our readers.

Here you can see the notebook page where I remembered some metaphors I have written before and came up with some new ones too. I have never written such a metaphor list in my notebook, but I think do this more often as I found it quite helpful.

Metaphor Notebook Page

Photo by Amy LV

Enjoy these two short, non-rhyming poems centered on metaphor, each comparing one thing to another. As a writer, it is my hope that each poem, even without a matching photo, will give readers a new way to see a familiar object.

When I was a little girl, I used to suck on lemons. Perhaps this is why I wished to write about citrus fruit. 

Orange Snack

Photo by Amy LV

The below poem, about my kitty Claude, focuses on just one object that I compare him to - a throw pillow. But truth be told, I compare Claude to many things. He is fast and quiet and hazy-furry, so sometimes I call him a ghost, and sometimes I call him a cloud. Perhaps I should make a page in my notebook for all of the different things I compare Claude to in the world.

Claude on the Couch

Photo by Amy LV

One last note to you about metaphors. You will read many metaphors in books and hear many people use metaphors in speech. Sometimes these are used so often that they lose their freshness. When I write in metaphor, I try not to use metaphors I have read or heard often, such as "He was a quiet mouse" or "Her anger was a thunderstorm." The work of a writer is to dig into our own strange and beautiful selves and find brand new ways of seeing old things. And when we come upon such a comparison...it is joyously surprising for our writing selves. We don't want our metaphors to be stale like week-old doughnuts.

In travel news, thank you so much to the Heights Elementary School community in Oakland, NJ for inviting me to visit this week. It was a joy to share some writing with you and to see the photographs of all of the projects you made with your own hands. I wish you much happiness in your own writing journeys.

Author Visit to Heights Elementary School

Photo by Librarian Stacy Contreras

Susan is hosting this week's Poetry Friday over at Chicken Spaghetti with a new year piñata poem inspired by a news article. Each Friday, all are invited to share poems, poem books, poetry ideas, and friendship in this open and welcoming poetry community.

Remember that you are a writing magician, and with a brilliant flash of your pen, you can turn one thing....into another. 

Poof!

xo,

Amy

Please share a comment below if you wish.

Know that your comment will only appear after I approve it.

If you are under 13 years old, please only comment 

with a parent or as part of a group with your teacher.