Showing posts with label Line Breaks. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Line Breaks. Show all posts

Friday, June 27, 2025

What is a Weird Thing About You?

A Few Peonies
Photo by Amy LV


(I will post a recording when the recoder is not giving me difficulty!)

Students - The other day as I walked by the peonies on the table, I looked at the petals falling from my peony bouquet and again I heard/imagined hearing the sound of piano notes. This made me wonder if everyone hears piano notes when they see many flower petals fall at once. Perhaps this is something I heard in a cartoon once, or perhaps my brain just thought of it, but either way, my brain hears it now.

Yesterday my friend Karen shared this Albert Einstein quote with me, "Creativity is seeing what everyone else has seen, and thinking what no one else has thought." So this week let me recommend that you fall in love with paying attention to the very special and individual way that you see the world. What is something weirdly wonderful about the way you see things? Watch for it. Then, express this wonderfulness in some way. Spending time on human thought and human art makes us more thoughtful, and it makes us more artful. 

Today's poem is short, but I spent a lot of time playing with the words to find just-the-right-ones and also to arrange them just so. Originally, the lines were longer and the poem looked like this:
Then, after playing with the words for a long time, I decided that the poem should have more of a falling feeling, so by adding more line breaks, I created more falling from line to line. Do remember that when you write a poem, the line breaks (where you choose to go from line to line) and white space (space where there is no text) play an active part in the life of the poem. So feel free to play with them! Move the lines one way. Then another. 

Thank you to my friend Mary Lee for reminding me this week of the importance of making every day.

Tanita is hosting this week's Poetry Friday roundup over at{fiction, instead of lies}, sharing some different poetic forms and new poems too. Each Friday, all are invited to share poems, poem books, poetry ideas, and friendship in this open and welcoming poetry community.

I wish you glorious and wonderful weird moments inside and outside of your own head!

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.
Posted by at 6 comments:
Labels: , , , , , ,

Saturday, April 19, 2025

HELLO MY NAME IS - Day 19

Happy National Poetry Month!

(Feel free to search for poems in the sidebar or watch videos in the tab above.)


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

And now for today!

Students - Last night I woke around 3:30am and wondered about what Lou's favorite book might be. I love Charlotte's Web, and perhaps this is why it came to mind for Lou. As I kept thinking I realized that she has a different reason to like this book. A spider and a pig are unlikely friends just as a girl and a wolf who ate her grandmother are unlikely friends. In books, we see ourselves and through books, we come to understand the world in different ways. If we love a certain book, it is good and right to read it again and again.

If you are wondering why the last two lines  of this free verse poem are so short, it is because short lines cause a reader to slow down. White space in a poem does that, and there is a lot of white space at the ends of these two lines.

In case you were wondering, I did reread the description of Zuckerman's barn to find the exact words milk pails and grain sacks.

Thank you for joining me on this twentieth 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!

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.
Posted by at No comments:
Labels: , , , ,

Wednesday, April 9, 2025

HELLO MY NAME IS - Day 9

 Happy National Poetry Month!

(Feel free to search for poems in the sidebar or watch videos in the tab above.)


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

And now for today!

Students - Today's poem brings us back to Poem 1 in this series, "First Poem," in which Lou describes herself as (more a hiker, mushroom seeker). It felt like a good day for LRRH to go mushroom seeking (Hunting? Seeking? Which word to choose?) with her Nan, to write a poem showcasing this hobby these two share.

Today's is a free verse poem with no real rhyme or meter. The poem part relies on line breaks and white space. Because Lou and Nan are walking through deep forest, the line breaks moving along and indenting from left to write mirror their footsteps and their gathering. The white space creates pauses and slows down reading, quiets the poem down.

One thing you might choose to notice is that I name specific mushrooms: morels, lions mane, hen of the woods. When a person has a hobby, that persons know the specific words around that hobby, so of course Lou and Nan know and use actual specific mushroom names. When you reread your own writing, both poems and stories and nonfiction and opinion too, reread and revise to make any nouns more specific if you can. This will create more vivid and clear pictures in the minds of your readers.

Thank you for joining me on this ninth 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!

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.
Posted by at 2 comments:
Labels: , , , ,

Friday, March 28, 2025

15 Years! A Place! A Poetry Peek!

The Poem Farm is 15 years old tomorrow.

How lucky I feel to have been an in-person-and-virtual-visitor to classrooms, a reader of student and adult poems, and a part of this wise blogging community. My first poem at The Poem Farm, on March 29, 2010, was titled Spring. This space was meant to last for one month...yet here we are. I feel so much gratitude and love. And now...poetry.

Illustration from A UNIVERSE OF RAINBOWS
Painting by Jamey Christoph



Students - In just a couple of days, bookstore shelves will welcome this new Eerdmans book, A UNIVERSE OF RAINBOWS: MULTICOLORED POEMS FOR A MULTICOLORED WORLD with poems selected by Matt Forrest Esenwine and illustrations by Jamey Christoph. Divided into sections - Rainbows of Light, Rainbow Waters, Living Rainbows, Rainbows of Rock, and Rainbows Beyond - this book celebrates the joy and surprise of all kinds of rainbows, and each poem is accompanied by a scientific sidebar offering a few interesting facts.


My poem is about the Caño Cristales, a Columbian river I had never heard of before, a river sometimes called the "River of Five Colors" or the "Liquid Rainbow" because of the way it sometimes looks just like a flowing rainbow. A special aquatic plant named Rhyncholacis clavigera grows in this river, and this plant changes the river's colors change based on the temperature, rainfall, other interplay of other living things, and sunlight at any given time....so occasionally, it's rainbow-y!

I often write about things I know about or have experienced, and I have never visited Columbia, so it was interesting to once again dive into a bit of research-before-writing. It was also fabulous to travel to a new place in my mind, to read about and study photographs of a beautiful wonder so far from where I live. You might wish to do this - write about somewhere you have never been or maybe never even heard of. While I was assigned to write about this river, you might assign yourself a place by opening an atlas or a nature book to any page. Close your eyes, open the book, open your eyes...and there's your place. Bon voyage!

In terms of crafting, you might write in the voice of your place (we call this a mask or apostrophe poem)....or you, too, might notice one word that hopes to stand alone on a line because it's so important. Did you notice how I gave Color! its own line in this poem? I did so because I hope that readers will pause their reading around that word. This is why I left a lot of space around it. I also chose to have my river share a message at the poem's end - feel free to try that if it sounds like fun to you. What message would your place like to share with humans?

It is such a joy to welcome Mrs. Melinda Harvey's imaginative fourth grade writers from Iroquois Intermediate School to The Poem Farm today! Below you may read their poems inspired by IF I COULD CHOOSE A BEST DAY: POEMS OF POSSIBILITY, the new book with poems selected by Irene Latham and Charles Waters and illustrations by Olivia Sua. I shared my poem from this book a couple of weeks ago, and now feel fortunate to make space for these thoughtful IF poems.

Click the Left Right Corner to Enlarge

These poems made me wonder about so many things, so much so that I have started an I WONDER page in my notebook. Thank you, Mrs. Harvey, and thank you, poets! 

Thank you to Marcie for hosting this week's Poetry Friday roundup over at Marcie Flinchum Atkins as she welcomes her new book ONE STEP FORWARD, "a YA historical fiction novel in verse about Matilda Young -- the youngest American suffragist imprisoned for picketing the White House to demand women's right to vote." Congratulations, Marcie! Each Friday, all are invited to share poems, poem books, poetry ideas, and friendship in this open and welcoming poetry community.

May your week ahead be full of surprises...and vibrant color too.

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.
Posted by at 14 comments:
Labels: , , , , , , , , , ,

Sunday, April 21, 2024

ONE MORE OR LESS LINE CROW 21

Happy National Poetry Month!

(For new poetry writing videos, see the COAXING POEMS tab above.)


Hello Poetry Friends! If you visited earlier this month, you may have noticed a change my National Poetry Month project title. For my National Poetry Month Project this year, I had originally planned to study crows and share a new crow poem each day of April with the number lines in each poem corresponding to the date. The plan was to write 1-line poem on April 1...and go all the way up to a 30-line poem on April 30. For a variety of personal and poetic reasons, I have changed the project. The poems have lengthened to 15 lines...and now they decrease from 15 back down to 1. Hence the new name: ONE MORE OR LESS LINE CROW. 

To do so, simply:

1. Choose a subject that you would like to stick with for 30 days. You might choose something you know lots about...or like me, you might choose something you will read and learn about throughout April.

3. Write a new poem for each day of April 2024, corresponding the number of lines in your poem to the date. For example, the poem for April 1 will have 1 line. The poem for April 14 will have 14 lines. The poem for April 30 will have 30 lines. OR....invent your own idea! And if you start later in April, just play around however you wish.

4. Teachers and writers, if you wish to share any ONE MORE LINE... subjects or poems, please email them to me or tag me @amylvpoemfarm. I would love to see what your students write and to know that we are growing these lines...and our understandings of different subjects...together.

Twenty-One Crows, Ten Lines
Photo by Amy LV



Students - Have you ever wondered about those crows perching on the electric lines? Well, they are a little bit warm...and there is a looot of space to sit together. And...you can see everything when you're up high. 

Today's ten line poem is made up of rhyming couplets, and the last line is shorter than the rest. I did this on purpose. When you break a pattern in your writing, it changes how your reader reads, thus drawing attention to the change. In breaking this pattern, I hope for readers to slow down and think about how quickly it all goes. Crows flying...and everything else too.

Thank you for joining me for ONE LINE CROW...

To learn about more National Poetry Month projects and all kinds of April goodness, visit Jama Rattigan at Jama's Alphabet Soup where Jama has generously gathered this coming month's happenings. Happy National Poetry Month!

xo,

Amy

ps - If you are interested in learning about any of my previous 13 National Poetry Month projects, you may do so here.

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.
Posted by at No comments:
Labels: , , , , , , , ,

Saturday, April 20, 2024

ONE MORE OR LESS LINE CROW 20

  Happy National Poetry Month!

(For new poetry writing videos, see the COAXING POEMS tab above.)


Hello Poetry Friends! If you visited earlier this month, you may have noticed a change my National Poetry Month project title. For my National Poetry Month Project this year, I had originally planned to study crows and share a new crow poem each day of April with the number lines in each poem corresponding to the date. The plan was to write 1-line poem on April 1...and go all the way up to a 30-line poem on April 30. For a variety of personal and poetic reasons, I have changed the project. The poems have lengthened to 15 lines...and now they decrease from 15 back down to 1. Hence the new name: ONE MORE OR LESS LINE CROW. 

I invite you to join me in this project! 

To do so, simply:

1. Choose a subject that you would like to stick with for many days. You might choose something you know lots about...or like me, you might choose something you will read and learn about throughout April.

3. Write a new poem for each day of April 2024 and decide if you would like to match your line breaks to the date in any way. You might correspond the number of lines in your poem to the date. For example, the poem for April 1 will have 1 line. The poem for April 30 will have 30 lines. You may wish to switch it up as I have, writing increasing-line poems from 1-15 lines for this first half of April and then decreasing-line poems for the second half of the month. OR....invent your own idea! 

4. Teachers and writers, if you wish to share any ONE MORE OR LESS LINE... subjects or poems, please email them to me or tag me @amylvpoemfarm. I would love to see what your students write and to know that we are growing these lines...and our understandings of different subjects...together.

Twenty Crows, Eleven Lines
Photo by Amy LV



Students - Today's poem serves a purpose in this growing collection of 30 crow poems. In the first days, we saw Crow born and growing. Now he and his mate are parents. The sun goes around and the cycle of life goes on and will do so each year. It is interesting to think about crows having a new family each year.

You may have noticed the line breaks moving down the page in this one. I made the decision to break lines this way to show the movement of the nestlings to the ground and then the movement of the fledglings along the ground. Line breaks can serve many purposes. Consider playing with yours!

Thank you for joining me for ONE MORE OR LESS LINE CROW...

To learn about more National Poetry Month projects and all kinds of April goodness, visit Jama Rattigan at Jama's Alphabet Soup where Jama has generously gathered this coming month's happenings. Happy National Poetry Month!

xo,

Amy

ps - If you are interested in learning about any of my previous 13 National Poetry Month projects, you may do so here.

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.
Posted by at No comments:
Labels: , , , , , ,

Tuesday, April 16, 2024

ONE MORE OR LESS LINE CROW 16

 Happy National Poetry Month!

(For new poetry writing videos, see the COAXING POEMS tab above.)


Hello Poetry Friends! If you visited earlier this month, you may have noticed a change my National Poetry Month project title. For my National Poetry Month Project this year, I had originally planned to study crows and share a new crow poem each day of April with the number lines in each poem corresponding to the date. The plan was to write 1-line poem on April 1...and go all the way up to a 30-line poem on April 30. Now, for a variety of personal and poetic reasons, I have changed the project. The poems have lengthened to 15 lines...and now will decrease from 15 back down to 1. Hence the new name: ONE MORE OR LESS LINE CROW. We are still on the MORE part, but beginning on April 16, we go back down in line numbers. Yes, the logo and the crow pics will change too!

Sometimes life surprises us, and we can change our plans to match the needs at the time. I chose to change course rather than abandon this project, and after some good thinking last night, I feel happy about this decision.

If you'd like to play along, simply choose a topic that you'd like to explore for many days. It might be a subject that you already know a lot about or perhaps you'll explore something new.

I invite you to join me in this project! 

To do so, simply:

1. Choose a subject that you would like to stick with for many days. You might choose something you know lots about...or like me, you might choose something you will read and learn about throughout April.

3. Write a new poem for each day of April 2024 and decide if you would like to match your line breaks to the date in any way. You might correspond the number of lines in your poem to the date. For example, the poem for April 1 will have 1 line. The poem for April 30 will have 30 lines. You may wish to switch it up as I have, writing increasing-line poems from 1-15 lines for this first half of April and then decreasing-line poems for the second half of the month. OR....invent your own idea! 

4. Teachers and writers, if you wish to share any ONE MORE OR LESS LINE... subjects or poems, please email them to me or tag me @amylvpoemfarm. I would love to see what your students write and to know that we are growing these lines...and our understandings of different subjects...together.

Sixteen Crows, Fifteen Lines
Photo by Amy LV



Students - In the second fifteen line poem of this month, I ask you to notice a few things about line breaks:

  • The first stanza focuses on our main character Male Crow.
  • The second stanza is only one line long. This is because the line illustrates an important moment. The moment of connection.
  • The third stana brings the two paired crows together.
  • The last line is only two words long. Short lines slow a reader down, and these two words, slowed down, illustrate the fact that not everyone knows: crows mate for life.
When you choose line breaks and stanza breaks, you conduct the silent-and-aloud-voices of your readers. Where would you like them to focus? Make a break right there.

One other thing - what joy I took in all of those -oo words!

Thank you for joining me for ONE MORE OR LESS LINE CROW...

To learn about more National Poetry Month projects and all kinds of April goodness, visit Jama Rattigan at Jama's Alphabet Soup where Jama has generously gathered this coming month's happenings. Happy National Poetry Month!

xo,

Amy

ps - If you are interested in learning about any of my previous 13 National Poetry Month projects, you may do so here.

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.
Posted by at 1 comment:
Labels: , , , , , , , , ,

Sunday, April 7, 2024

ONE MORE LINE CROW - Day 7

 Happy National Poetry Month!

(For new poetry writing videos, see the COAXING POEMS tab above.)


This month I am studying crows, sharing a new crow poem each day of April. The number of lines in each poem will correspond to the date, with a 1-line poem on April 1...and a 30-line poem on April 30. If you'd like to play along, simply choose a topic that you'd like to explore for 30 days. It might be a subject that you already know a lot about or perhaps you'll explore something new.

I invite you to join me in this project! 

To do so, simply:

1. Choose a subject that you would like to stick with for 30 days. You might choose something you know lots about...or like me, you might choose something you will read and learn about throughout April.

3. Write a new poem for each day of April 2024, corresponding the number of lines in your poem to the date. For example, the poem for April 1 will have 1 line. The poem for April 14 will have 14 lines. The poem for April 30 will have 30 lines. OR....invent your own idea! And if you start later in April, just play around however you wish.

4. Teachers and writers, if you wish to share any ONE MORE LINE... subjects or poems, please email them to me or tag me @amylvpoemfarm. I would love to see what your students write and to know that we are growing these lines...and our understandings of different subjects...together.

Seven Crows, Seven Lines
Photo by Amy LV



Students - You may be noticing that one week in, these crow poems are following one crow through its life cycle and that many of the poems include facts. I am not sure what will happen to our main character here, but I was startled to learn that half of baby crows do not make it through the first year. There is a lot of danger out there in the form of predators especially, and so crows stick close to their folks for quite a while.

When I write poems, I write without a plan, following my head and heart and hand. As I began realizing that today's poem would rhyme, I was not sure what I would do with that last line.

But of course...I had to shorten it. And repeat it. Yes, I could have kept it all on one line, but the new line creates a pause for the reader, and this pause emphasizes the brutal reality that Young Crow has half a chance to live one year...and half a chance to die. The pause creates time to think and to spotlight this natural drama.

to live one year...
                             ...to live one year.

Remember line breaks. Remember repetition. They show a reader how to read. They show a reader what matters.

Thank you for joining me for ONE LINE CROW...

To learn about more National Poetry Month projects and all kinds of April goodness, visit Jama Rattigan at Jama's Alphabet Soup where Jama has generously gathered this coming month's happenings. Happy National Poetry Month!

xo,

Amy

ps - If you are interested in learning about any of my previous 13 National Poetry Month projects, you may do so here.

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.
Posted by at 1 comment:
Labels: , , , , ,

Friday, February 16, 2024

Coaxing Poems 6: Give it Space

 

Greetings to you dear and funny Poetry Friends! Welcome to the sixth of ten poetry visits here 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. If you wish, you may watch the earlier videos linked below:

COAXING POEMS VISITS:

Visit 1: We Are Libraries
Visit 2: Eat the World
Visit 3: Make & Break a Pattern
Visit 4: Abacadabra!
Visit 5: Tell Us a Story

Please make yourself comfy for Visit 6: Give it Space.

Students - Line breaks and stanzas create the space in our poems. They are the air our poems need to breathe. See, to not make space inside of a poem is to stuff the poem into an airless jar, and we do not want our poems to live inside of airless jars. 

Pinecone Treasures
Photo by Amy LV


You may have noticed that I played even more with the line breaks - and the words - of this poem between recording the video and typing it up here. I decided to break this poem into two stanzas...one about the pinecones without the boy and one about the boy and his pinecone plans.

Below you can see some of my drafting for this poem. Messy, isn't it? Real work often is, so please do not worry about neatnes in your first drafts. Allow the messy thinking part of writing to be part of your work.

Now, notice the slashes. Those idicate where I chose to break my lines. If you ever write a poem that looks like a paragraph, or if you do not like the line breaks you first choose, know that you can change them. Simply draw slash marks to show where you will move to new lines in your recopy/typing of the work. 

Some Messy Pinecone Drafting
Photo by Amy LV

Here again, as in the video, you can see thre ways I considered breaking up that first sentence of the poem. You may have made choices than I did with these words, and this is one part of what makes writing interesting: we each do it our own way based on who we are.

A Few Line Break Possibilities
Photo by Amy LV

Consider breaking a line (going to a new line) in your poem if:
  • You wish for your readers to pause for a moment
  • You wrote line you wish to repeat exactly the same way
  • A new voice is speaking
  • You want the words and motion of your poem to match each other
  • One line - or word - is very important, deserving of its own line
If you wish for a greater pause or to show a more important change or shift as I did in today's poem, you might move to to a new stanza to help your readers feel this change as they read.

The space in a poem matters. As you write a poem, say this to yourself: Give it space.

Margaret is hosting this week's Poetry Friday over at Reflections on the Teche with two poems that span the human experience from love to grief. Each Friday, all are invited to share poems, poem books, poetry ideas, and friendship in this open and welcoming poetry community.

I wish you - and your poems - the healthy beauty of space in the week ahead.

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.
Posted by at 9 comments:
Labels: , , , , , ,
Subscribe to: Posts (Atom)