Showing posts with label Question Ending. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Question Ending. Show all posts

Friday, October 18, 2024

Writing Our Surroundings

Time for Inside Fires
Photo by Amy LV



Students - The weather is getting much colder here in Western New York where I live, and because we are having new siding put on our house, I needed to bring all of last year's leftover firewood inside. Yes, I could have piled it out under a tarp, but why do so when it will just need to come in soon anyway? And truth be told, it is cozy living among the stacks of wood. I feel like a little mouse in a storybook.

So now, surrounded by wood, I cannot help but think about wood and then trees and then forests and then questions. Today's poem came from all of this - my right-now surroundings. When you sit down to write you might choose to look around and ask, "What am I surrounded by at this very minute?" Some days for me the answer may be as simple as "messes and cat fur," and some days it might be "cookies and candles." Anything nearby or around us can offer us thoughts and questions, and in this way too, I am thinking about what I wish to surround myself with. One cannot choose everything...but one can choose some of our surroundings.

You may have noticed that this poem has a repeating line - all of this firewood. I invite you to play with repeating one line throughout a poem or a story that you write. And too, if you're not sure how to end a piece of writing, this may be because you are wondering something. If so, just end with a question as I have done today. Writing strategies and techniques belong to all of us, and we can all learn from each other. 

Matt is hosting this week's Poetry Friday roundup over at Radio, Rhythm, and Rhyme with all kinds of good publishing news. Each Friday, all are invited to share poems, poem books, poetry ideas, and friendship in this open and welcoming poetry community.

I wish you good and warm and kind surroundings. And I wish you small ways to create these for others too...

xo,

Amy

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Wednesday, April 24, 2024

ONE MORE OR LESS LINE CROW 24

  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-Four Crows, Seven Lines
Photo by Amy LV



Students - Do you like playing in the bath? Crows do too!

This is a list poem. Each of the lines tells something that Crow does in his bath...except for the last line. This last line asks a question about all of the lines that come before. You might wish to try this kind of poem. Simply think of a list related to your topic. Write it down the page. Write your last line as a question or wonder about what you wish to know about the lines that came before.

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.

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