Laura Shovan's Blog, page 7
April 10, 2020
#WaterPoemProject: Day 20, Margarita Engle
It’s Day 20 of our #WaterPoemProject — 30 days of water-themed poetry prompts from your favorite children’s authors.
If you’re looking for National Poetry Month writing prompts, we’ve got you covered. Start with Day 1 and you’ll have poetry prompts from now through the end of April.
New to this project? Please read the Introduction and FAQ. Or you can watch this video of me describing how to participate. It’s on the YouTube channel Authors Everywhere.
What a treat it is to invite our immediate past Young People’s Poet Laureate, Margarita Engle, to our project! Margarita’s writing prompt is tied to the places we might be missing while we’re sheltering in place.
Margarita’s prompt is: Ode to the Shore
Margarita Engle
When I was a child, I touched this river near my mother’s hometown in Cuba. According to legend, anyone who touches it will always long to return.
Is there a shore that makes you nostalgic? Were there mysteries in the water, such as the manatees, sharks, crocodiles, and caymans of Cuba’s estuaries? Does it comfort you to remember times when travel to that place was easy?
Can you join me in believing that times of joyful travel to beloved shores will gradually return?
Photo of Trinidad de Cuba by Margarita’s great-uncle Julián Santana.
Let your Ode to the Shore flow like water!
***
Readers, you know I’m a fan of odes. Read about my ode workshop here for some tips on how to write today’s poem. Your goal is to draft your ode by the end of the day tomorrow, Saturday, April 11, 2020.
If you’re doing the #WaterPoemProject with a group, be sure to share or post your rough draft, read other people’s poems, and cheer for their efforts. Or leave your poem here, in the comments.
Margarita Engle is the Cuban-American author of verse books such as The Surrender Tree, Enchanted Air, Forest World, and Drum Dream Girl. Awards include the NSK Neustadt Prize, Astrid Lindgren Award Nomination, a Newbery Honor, multiple Pura Belpré, Walter, Américas,Jane Addams, and International Latino Book Awards and Honors, as well as the Charlotte Zolotow, PEN USA, Golden Kite, Green Earth, Lee Bennett Hopkins, Arnold Adoff , and Claudia Lewis Awards. Margarita served as the 2017-2019 Young People’s Poet Laureate.
Margarita’s most recent verse memoir is Soaring Earth. Her forthcoming books include Dancing Hands, Dreams From Many Rivers, and With a Star in My Hand. She was born in Los Angeles, but developed a deep attachment to her mother’s homeland during childhood summers with relatives on the island. Margarita studied agronomy and botany along with creative writing. She lives in central California.
***
#WaterPoemProject Series Posts:
Project Introduction
FAQ
Prompt 1: Irene Latham, The Language of Water
Prompt 2: Elizabeth Steinglass, What Would a Raindrop Say?
Prompt 3: Linda Mitchell, Found Haiku
Prompt 4: Shari Green, Fogbow Fibonacci
Prompt 5: Margaret Simon, The Taste of Water
Prompt 6: Heather Meloche, The Shape of a Wave
Prompt 7: Amy Ludwig VanDerwater, A Water Memory
Prompt 8: Laura Shovan, Rainy Day Opposites
Prompt 9: Kathryn Apel, Silly Solage
Prompt 10: Buffy Silverman, A Watery Home
Prompt 11: Kara Laughlin, Frozen Fog
Prompt 12: Debbie Levy, Jump into a Limerick
Prompt 13: Joy McCullough, What Are Water Bears?
Prompt 14: Linda Baie, Frozen Water Skinny
Prompt 15: Chris Baron, The Hidden World of Water
Prompt 16: Michelle Heidenrich Barnes, Water Wordplay
Prompt 17: Susan Tan, The Sound of Water
Prompt 18: Mike Grosso, Waterplay!
Prompt 19: R. L. Toalson, Wishing Well
Prompt 20: Margarita Engle, Ode to the Shore
Please support the #WaterPoemProject authors by buying their books from your favorite independent bookstore.
Tweet
April 9, 2020
#WaterPoemProject: Day 19, R. L. Toalson
Welcome back to my month-long #WaterPoemProject, Poetry Friday friends.
It’s Day 19. We are almost at the three week mark!
If you’re new to this project, please read the Introduction and FAQ. Or you can watch this video of me describing how to participate. It’s on the YouTube channel Authors Everywhere.
For #WaterPoemProject regulars who are new to Poetry Friday, each week a kidlit blogger hosts poetry-related links and posts from around the kidlitosphere. This week’s host is Amy Ludwig VanDerwater, who is welcoming us — virtually — to the Poem Farm today. (Thanks, Amy!) Still confused? Renée LaTulippe has a great post about our weekly poetry party.
Let’s ask verse novelist and children’s book author Rachel Toalson to create a watery poetry prompt for us today.
Rachel poetry prompt is: Wishing Well
Image Credit: Abigail Low, Unsplash
Long ago (and in many parts of the world, still, today), water was a scarce and precious source of life. People in cultures across time believed that water had sacred properties, perhaps even hosted spirits and gods. And so wishing wells, places where ordinary people could speak their wishes and hope for the granting of that wish, became important symbols of water’s value to the world. Sometimes people traded armor or weapons for their wishes. Today people trade pennies or other coins.
Your poetry challenge is to write a list poem about all the wishes you would toss into a wishing well or pool. A list poem is simply a list that, in this case, can begin with “I wish…” or you can write “I wish” once and list all your wishes. Have fun. Use your imagination. And remember: No wish is too silly to record.
My example:
I wish…
I could swing at the park
I could see my mom and stepdad, sister, brother, nieces, nephews, aunts, uncles, grandparents
I could enjoy a trip to the frozen yogurt shop
Strawberries grew in my backyard
Chocolate was as good for you as vegetables
I had more time to read
I could write an unforgettable book
I didn’t have to do laundry
We knew all the mysterious of the ocean (or not)
Unicorns were real
I had perfect vision
I could stop thinking about my worries
I could find my favorite purple pen
Flowers could talk
I could go to Disney World
It would stop raining for a few days
All good dreams came true
We’d learn how to love each other better
No one went to bed hungry
The earth could heal itself
I could save the world
Image Credit: R. L. Toalson
***
I wish for you all to write a Wishing Well List poem before the end of the day tomorrow, Friday, April 10, 2020.
If you’re doing the #WaterPoemProject with a group, be sure to share or post your rough draft, read other people’s poems, and cheer for their efforts. Or leave your poem here, in the comments.
Rachel Toalson is an award-winning poet, essayist, and novelist who is the author
of multiple books, including This is How You Know, Life: a definition of terms, and
the three-book Crash Test Parents series, published in 2017. In addition to poetry
and essays, she has written multiple novels for early and middle grade readers
under the pen names R.L. Toalson and L.R. Patton. In addition, Rachel contributes poetry and essays to multiple print and online publications around the world. Born in Houston, Texas, Rachel lives in San Antonio with her husband and six sons. Find her online at http://www.racheltoalson.com/.
***
#WaterPoemProject Series Posts:
Project Introduction
FAQ
Prompt 1: Irene Latham, The Language of Water
Prompt 2: Elizabeth Steinglass, What Would a Raindrop Say?
Prompt 3: Linda Mitchell, Found Haiku
Prompt 4: Shari Green, Fogbow Fibonacci
Prompt 5: Margaret Simon, The Taste of Water
Prompt 6: Heather Meloche, The Shape of a Wave
Prompt 7: Amy Ludwig VanDerwater, A Water Memory
Prompt 8: Laura Shovan, Rainy Day Opposites
Prompt 9: Kathryn Apel, Silly Solage
Prompt 10: Buffy Silverman, A Watery Home
Prompt 11: Kara Laughlin, Frozen Fog
Prompt 12: Debbie Levy, Jump into a Limerick
Prompt 13: Joy McCullough, What Are Water Bears?
Prompt 14: Linda Baie, Frozen Water Skinny
Prompt 15: Chris Baron, The Hidden World of Water
Prompt 16: Michelle Heidenrich Barnes, Water Wordplay
Prompt 17: Susan Tan, The Sound of Water
Prompt 18: Mike Grosso, Waterplay!
Prompt 19: R. L. Toalson, Wishing Well
Please support the #WaterPoemProject authors by buying their books from your favorite independent bookstore.
Tweet
April 8, 2020
#WaterPoemProject: Day 18, Mike Grosso
It’s Day 18 of our #WaterPoemProject — 30 days of water-themed poetry prompts from your favorite children’s authors.
If you’re looking for National Poetry Month writing prompts, we’ve got you covered. Start with Day 1 and you’ll have poetry prompts from now through the end of April.
New to this project? Please read the Introduction and FAQ. Or you can watch this video of me describing how to participate. It’s on the YouTube channel Authors Everywhere.
My good friend, middle grade author, coder, educator, and poet Mike Grosso is in charge of today’s writing prompt.
Mike’s poetry prompt is: Waterplay!
Mike Grosso
When I think of water, I don’t think of drinking,
or washing my face, feet, and hands
(though the last is important).
I think of play.
There are so many ways —
you can swim, wade, dip your fingers and toes
beneath the surface on a blazing hot day.
Do you jump in feet or head-first?
Or are you still gathering the courage to do so?
You can splash-dive and soak the witnesses,
or Marco Polo with eyes closed, splish and splash,
floating like a croc across the surface
before putting your head under and
pretending to be the water monster.
Some of us avoid the moving sprinkler as it inches towards us,
while others run right into the spray.
All of this water play is the right way.
But how do you play?
That’s the poem you should write today.
***
Alright playful poets! Let’s get our feet wet, make a mess, and PLAY with water in our drafts today. Your task is to have a rough draft by the end of the day tomorrow, Thursday, April 9, 2020.
If you’re doing the #WaterPoemProject with a group, be sure to share or post your rough draft, read other people’s poems, and cheer for their efforts. Or leave your poem here, in the comments.
Mike Grosso is an author, musician, game designer, and middle school math teacher who always keeps a guitar in his classroom. Mike writes books and records music at his home in Oak Park, Illinois, where he lives with his son, fiance, and a drum set he plays much too loud. I AM DRUMS is his first middle grade novel. Find Mike online at http://www.mikegrossoauthor.com/
***
#WaterPoemProject Series Posts:
Project Introduction
FAQ
Prompt 1: Irene Latham, The Language of Water
Prompt 2: Elizabeth Steinglass, What Would a Raindrop Say?
Prompt 3: Linda Mitchell, Found Haiku
Prompt 4: Shari Green, Fogbow Fibonacci
Prompt 5: Margaret Simon, The Taste of Water
Prompt 6: Heather Meloche, The Shape of a Wave
Prompt 7: Amy Ludwig VanDerwater, A Water Memory
Prompt 8: Laura Shovan, Rainy Day Opposites
Prompt 9: Kathryn Apel, Silly Solage
Prompt 10: Buffy Silverman, A Watery Home
Prompt 11: Kara Laughlin, Frozen Fog
Prompt 12: Debbie Levy, Jump into a Limerick
Prompt 13: Joy McCullough, What Are Water Bears?
Prompt 14: Linda Baie, Frozen Water Skinny
Prompt 15: Chris Baron, The Hidden World of Water
Prompt 16: Michelle Heidenrich Barnes, Water Wordplay
Prompt 17: Susan Tan, The Sound of Water
Prompt 18: Mike Grosso, Waterplay!
Please support the #WaterPoemProject authors by buying their books from your favorite independent bookstore.
Tweet
April 7, 2020
#WaterPoemProject: Day 17, Susan Tan
It’s Day 17 of our #WaterPoemProject — 30 days of water-themed poetry prompts from your favorite children’s authors.
If you’re looking for National Poetry Month writing prompts, we’ve got you covered. Start with Day 1 and you’ll have poetry prompts from now through the end of April.
New to this project? Please read the Introduction and FAQ. Or you can watch this video of me describing how to participate. It’s on the YouTube channel Authors Everywhere.
I’m excited to welcome middle grade author Susan Tan to write with us today!
Susan’s poetry prompt is: The Sound of Water
Susan Tan
The sound of water can be the soothing rush of a stream, the strangely loud “plop!” of a drip in a broken tap, the gentle patter of rain on a window, and so much more. Imagine a sound that water makes, in any form, and write a poem about what these sounds are saying. Bonus points if the rhythm of your poem matches or evokes the rhythm of the water you’re giving voice to.
***
What’s that sound I hear? Is it the scritch-scratch of pencils moving? I hope you’re feeling inspired to incorporate sounds into your poem today. Aim to have a rough draft by the end of the day tomorrow, Wednesday, April 8, 2020.
If you’re doing the #WaterPoemProject with a group, be sure to share or post your rough draft, read other people’s poems, and cheer for their efforts. Or leave your poem here, in the comments.
Susan Tan is the author of Cilla Lee-Jenkins: Future Author Extraordinaire (winner of the Asian/Pacific American Librarians Association Children’s Honor Award), Cilla Lee-Jenkins: This Book is A Classic, and Cilla Lee-Jenkins: The Epic Story (Shortlisted for the New England Book Award). She loves reading, crocheting, and eating cookies whenever possible. Susan also recently began a YouTube channel called Authors Everywhere, which collects and creates videos from children’s book authors and illustrators to offer kids creative and emotional outlets during this time out of school. Authors Everywhere has activities, read alouds, writing workshops, and more!
***
#WaterPoemProject Series Posts:
Project Introduction
FAQ
Prompt 1: Irene Latham, The Language of Water
Prompt 2: Elizabeth Steinglass, What Would a Raindrop Say?
Prompt 3: Linda Mitchell, Found Haiku
Prompt 4: Shari Green, Fogbow Fibonacci
Prompt 5: Margaret Simon, The Taste of Water
Prompt 6: Heather Meloche, The Shape of a Wave
Prompt 7: Amy Ludwig VanDerwater, A Water Memory
Prompt 8: Laura Shovan, Rainy Day Opposites
Prompt 9: Kathryn Apel, Silly Solage
Prompt 10: Buffy Silverman, A Watery Home
Prompt 11: Kara Laughlin, Frozen Fog
Prompt 12: Debbie Levy, Jump into a Limerick
Prompt 13: Joy McCullough, What Are Water Bears?
Prompt 14: Linda Baie, Frozen Water Skinny
Prompt 15: Chris Baron, The Hidden World of Water
Prompt 16: Michelle Heidenrich Barnes, Water Wordplay
Prompt 17: Susan Tan, The Sound of Water
Please support the #WaterPoemProject authors by buying their books from your favorite independent bookstore.
Tweet
April 6, 2020
#WaterPoemProject: Day 16, Michelle Heidenrich Barnes
It’s Day 16 of our #WaterPoemProject — 30 days of water-themed poetry prompts from your favorite children’s authors.
If you’re looking for National Poetry Month writing prompts, we’ve got you covered. Start with Day 1 and you’ll have poetry prompts from now through the end of April.
New to this project? Please read the Introduction and FAQ. Or you can watch this video of me describing how to participate. It’s on the YouTube channel Authors Everywhere.
It’s wonderful to have Michelle Heidenrich Barnes here with a writing challenge for us today.
Michelle’s poetry prompt is: Water Wordplay
Michelle Heidenrich Barnes
When Laura asked me for a poetry prompt about water, I immediately thought of a water-themed workshop I presented back in 2016. It was adapted from Nikki Grimes’s exercise to write a free verse poem using wordplay, which you can find HERE.
Think about the word WATER. Close your eyes and picture what it means to you. Consider your memories and all of your senses—how water looks, sounds, feels, smells, and tastes.
Now write a poem that begins, “Water is a __________ word.” In the next few lines, help us to understand your experience of water. Play with poetic devices like alliteration and onomatopoeia, or even how the poem is arranged on the page!
Here are some excerpts from poems my students wrote a few years ago:
***
You’ve got this, wordsmiths! Draft a poem that begins with “Water is a ___ word” by the end of the day tomorrow, Tuesday, April 7, 2020.
If you’re doing the #WaterPoemProject with a group, be sure to share or post your rough draft, read other people’s poems, and cheer for their efforts. Or leave your poem here, in the comments.
Michelle Heidenrich Barnes has been sharing poetry at Today’s Little Ditty since 2013. Her poetry has also appeared in magazines, greeting cards, on the streets of Washington DC, and in anthologies such as I Am Someone Else, The Poetry of US, One Minute till Bedtime, and Here We Go: A Poetry Friday Power Book. http://www.michellehbarnes.com/
***
#WaterPoemProject Series Posts:
Project Introduction
FAQ
Prompt 1: Irene Latham, The Language of Water
Prompt 2: Elizabeth Steinglass, What Would a Raindrop Say?
Prompt 3: Linda Mitchell, Found Haiku
Prompt 4: Shari Green, Fogbow Fibonacci
Prompt 5: Margaret Simon, The Taste of Water
Prompt 6: Heather Meloche, The Shape of a Wave
Prompt 7: Amy Ludwig VanDerwater, A Water Memory
Prompt 8: Laura Shovan, Rainy Day Opposites
Prompt 9: Kathryn Apel, Silly Solage
Prompt 10: Buffy Silverman, A Watery Home
Prompt 11: Kara Laughlin, Frozen Fog
Prompt 12: Debbie Levy, Jump into a Limerick
Prompt 13: Joy McCullough, What Are Water Bears?
Prompt 14: Linda Baie, Frozen Water Skinny
Prompt 15: Chris Baron, The Hidden World of Water
Prompt 16: Michelle Heidenrich Barnes, Water Wordplay
Please support the #WaterPoemProject authors by buying their books from your favorite independent bookstore.
Tweet
April 5, 2020
#WaterPoemProject: Day 15, Chris Baron
Can you believe it’s Day 15 of the #WaterPoemProject? We are halfway through our 30 days of water-themed poetry writing prompts from your favorite children’s authors.
If you’re looking for National Poetry Month writing prompts, we’ve got you covered. Start with Day 1 and you’ll have poetry prompts from now through the end of April.
New to this project? Please read the Introduction and FAQ. Or you can watch this video of me describing how to participate. It’s on the YouTube channel Authors Everywhere.
We have a debut author with us today! Middle grade verse novelist Chris Baron is in charge of today’s poetry prompt.
Chris’s poetry prompt is: The Hidden World of Water
Chris Baron
When we look at a beach we see a big blanket of sand stretching all the way into the water. When we scoop up sand in our hands we can start to see the grains, or some seaweed, or even a sand crab.
If we take that sand and put it under a microscope we something even more amazing! There is an entire world of objects.
Look at this remarkable photo from Geologist Gary Greenberg.
It shows minuscule grains of sand magnified up to 300 times revealing hidden treasures that are all unique.
When we look at the ocean, or a lake, or even a puddle, we see the surface of the water, but just like the sand there is a whole world hidden there.
PROMPT:
Find some water near where you are—a puddle, a stream, a bathtub, or maybe even the ocean. Write a free verse poem about the hidden world of that water. Think about the kinds of things that could be in that particular water.
Some starters:
Think about the photo. Imagine you just scooped up a big handful of sand. Write a poem about some of the objects and how they came together.
Write about all the objects you would find in the water you pick to write about. Describe them using lots of good adjectives.
Write about a magical world that is hidden beneath the surface of the water
Write about the treasures waiting to be found
Write about whatever was frozen into a glacier
***
Got your thinking caps on, poets? Draft a poem about the hidden world of water by the end of the day tomorrow, Monday, April 6, 2020.
If you’re doing the #WaterPoemProject with a group, be sure to share or post your rough draft, read other people’s poems, and cheer for their efforts. Or leave your poem here, in the comments.
Chris Baron’s middle grade debut is All of Me, a novel in verse from Feiwel & Friends/ Macmillan. He is a Professor of English at San Diego City College and the director of the Writing Center. Baron has published numerous poems and articles in magazines and journals around the country, performed on radio programs, and participated in many readings, lectures, and panels. He grew up in New York City, but he completed his MFA in Poetry in 1998 at SDSU. Baron’s first book of poetry, Under the Broom Tree, was released in 2012 on CityWorks Press as part of Lantern Tree: Four Books of Poems (which won the San Diego Book Award for best poetry anthology). He is represented by the amazing Rena Rossner from the Deborah Harris Literary Agency. Visit Chris’s website.
***
#WaterPoemProject Series Posts:
Project Introduction
FAQ
Prompt 1: Irene Latham, The Language of Water
Prompt 2: Elizabeth Steinglass, What Would a Raindrop Say?
Prompt 3: Linda Mitchell, Found Haiku
Prompt 4: Shari Green, Fogbow Fibonacci
Prompt 5: Margaret Simon, The Taste of Water
Prompt 6: Heather Meloche, The Shape of a Wave
Prompt 7: Amy Ludwig VanDerwater, A Water Memory
Prompt 8: Laura Shovan, Rainy Day Opposites
Prompt 9: Kathryn Apel, Silly Solage
Prompt 10: Buffy Silverman, A Watery Home
Prompt 11: Kara Laughlin, Frozen Fog
Prompt 12: Debbie Levy, Jump into a Limerick
Prompt 13: Joy McCullough, What Are Water Bears?
Prompt 14: Linda Baie, Frozen Water Skinny
Prompt 15: Chris Baron, The Hidden World of Water
Please support the #WaterPoemProject authors by buying their books from your favorite independent bookstore.
Tweet
April 4, 2020
#WaterPoemProject: Day14, Linda Baie
It’s Day 14 of our #WaterPoemProject — 30 days of water-themed poetry prompts from your favorite children’s authors.
If you’re looking for National Poetry Month writing prompts, we’ve got you covered. Start with Day 1 and you’ll have poetry prompts from now through the end of April.
New to this project? Please read the Introduction and FAQ. Or you can watch this video of me describing how to participate. It’s on the YouTube channel Authors Everywhere.
I’m so pleased that educator and Poetry Friday Linda Baie is in charge of today’s writing prompt. Linda and I have known each other for many years, but didn’t meet in person until this past February, when I visited Denver, Colorado.
Linda’s poetry prompt is: Hurrah for Frozen Water!
Food vector created by freepik – www.freepik.com
Have you ever written a Skinny before? It is a short poetry form invented by a wonderful Maryland poet named Truth Thomas. Read more about the Skinny here.
Linda has a model Skinny for us to check out:
a skinny
Sometimes an Oreo –
simple
survival
ignore
calories
simple
crunch
beloved
grit
simple
fight for the last one
Linda Baie ©
Linda says, “I love writing Skinny poems because they can deliver images and feelings with a few words. If you want to share about something you love whether it’s food or something in nature or a special person, a Skinny will let you ‘show’ that love in a burst of a picture, especially meaningful from you!”
***
Brrr! Are you ready to write about frozen water, poets? Draft a Skinny about frozen water by the end of the day tomorrow, Sunday, April 5, 2020. Alternate prompts — write a Skinny on any water-related topic.
If you’re doing the #WaterPoemProject with a group, be sure to share or post your rough draft, read other people’s poems, and cheer for their efforts. Or leave your poem here, in the comments.
Linda is a former middle-school teacher and literacy coach at a gifted school in Denver. She blogs at TeacherDance where she shares her own poetry and by others, also reviews children’s and young adult books. She now is the volunteer coordinator at a local used bookstore that is entirely run by volunteers.
***
#WaterPoemProject Series Posts:
Project Introduction
FAQ
Prompt 1: Irene Latham, The Language of Water
Prompt 2: Elizabeth Steinglass, What Would a Raindrop Say?
Prompt 3: Linda Mitchell, Found Haiku
Prompt 4: Shari Green, Fogbow Fibonacci
Prompt 5: Margaret Simon, The Taste of Water
Prompt 6: Heather Meloche, The Shape of a Wave
Prompt 7: Amy Ludwig VanDerwater, A Water Memory
Prompt 8: Laura Shovan, Rainy Day Opposites
Prompt 9: Kathryn Apel, Silly Solage
Prompt 10: Buffy Silverman, A Watery Home
Prompt 11: Kara Laughlin, Frozen Fog
Prompt 12: Debbie Levy, Jump into a Limerick
Prompt 13: Joy McCullough, What Are Water Bears?
Prompt 14: Linda Baie, Frozen Water Skinny
Please support the #WaterPoemProject authors by buying their books from your favorite independent bookstore.
Tweet
April 3, 2020
#WaterPoemProject: Day 13, Joy McCullough
It’s Day 13 of our #WaterPoemProject — 30 days of water-themed poetry prompts from your favorite children’s authors.
If you’re looking for National Poetry Month writing prompts, we’ve got you covered. Start with Day 1 and you’ll have poetry prompts from now through the end of April.
New to this project? Please read the Introduction and FAQ. Or you can watch this video of me describing how to participate. It’s on the YouTube channel Authors Everywhere.
Sharing our writing prompt for Day 13 is middle grade author and YA verse novelist Joy McCullough. (Side story — Joy was my PitchWars coach when I was revising The Last Fifth Grade of Emerson Elementary. We have been friends ever since!)
Joy’s poetry prompt is: What Are Water Bears?
Do you know what a water bear is? Maybe you picture something like this:
But did you know this microscopic water creature is called a water bear? (It’s more officially called a tardigrade.)
Sometimes the same word can have very different meanings. Your task is to write a poem using a word with very different meanings, but to include both of the word’s meanings in your poem. So you might write a poem about water bears, and include both polar bears and tardigrades. What makes them different? Do they have anything in common?
Here are some more words with different meanings. You can use one of them, or think up one of your own!
cool
dove
yard
tear
bark
nail
bolt
season
draft
harbor
racket
***
Okay, poets! Draft a poem using a word that has two very different meanings by the end of the day tomorrow, Saturday, April 4, 2020.
If you’re doing the #WaterPoemProject with a group, be sure to share or post your rough draft, read other people’s poems, and cheer for their efforts. Or leave your poem here, in the comments.
Joy McCullough is the author of books for kids and teens. Her YA novel-in-verse, Blood Water Paint, won the Washington State Book Award and was long-listed for the National Book Award. Her middle grade novel A Field Guide to Getting Lost comes out on April 14th! Visit Joy’s website.
***
#WaterPoemProject Series Posts:
Project Introduction
FAQ
Prompt 1: Irene Latham, The Language of Water
Prompt 2: Elizabeth Steinglass, What Would a Raindrop Say?
Prompt 3: Linda Mitchell, Found Haiku
Prompt 4: Shari Green, Fogbow Fibonacci
Prompt 5: Margaret Simon, The Taste of Water
Prompt 6: Heather Meloche, The Shape of a Wave
Prompt 7: Amy Ludwig VanDerwater, A Water Memory
Prompt 8: Laura Shovan, Rainy Day Opposites
Prompt 9: Kathryn Apel, Silly Solage
Prompt 10: Buffy Silverman, A Watery Home
Prompt 11: Kara Laughlin, Frozen Fog
Prompt 12: Debbie Levy, Jump into a Limerick
Prompt 13: Joy McCullough, What Are Water Bears?
Please support the #WaterPoemProject authors by buying their books from your favorite independent bookstore.
Tweet
April 2, 2020
#WaterPoemProject: Day 12, Debbie Levy
Welcome back to my month-long #WaterPoemProject, Poetry Friday friends.
It’s Day 12. We have been writing in response to prompts about water for nearly two weeks!
If you’re new to this project, please read the Introduction and FAQ. Or you can watch this video of me describing how to participate. It’s on the YouTube channel Authors Everywhere.
For #WaterPoemProject regulars who are new to Poetry Friday, each week a kidlit blogger hosts poetry-related links and posts from around the kidlitosphere. This week’s host is Heidi Mordhorst, who invites us to Shelter in Poetry at her blog, My Juicy Little Universe. (Thanks, Heidi!) Still confused? Renée LaTulippe has a great post about our weekly poetry party.
Who is joining us to share a writing prompt about water today? It’s poet, children’s book author, and RBG biographer Debbie Levy!
Debbie’s poetry prompt is: Jump on In — Let’s Write Limericks!
Debbie Levy
When I observe animals at home in their environments, whether watery or otherwise, I’m always struck—and usually awed—by the things they do, the structure of their bodies, the sounds of their voices. But you know what else strikes me? How they can make me smile and laugh, especially if I imagine a funny story to go along with what I’m seeing or hearing.
So for my turn on the #WaterPoemProject, I’d like to inspire you to smile or laugh! To do that, I’m sharing two videos that I’ve taken of critters in the Chesapeake Bay, near where I live, and instructions on how to write a poem known as a limerick.
In poetry, there’s nothing quite as silly as a limerick. Limericks are also known as “nonsense” poems. Here’s an example of a limerick by Edward Lear, an English poet of the nineteenth century who was a master of the form:
There was an Old Man with a beard,
Who said, “It is just as I feared!
Two Owls and a Hen,
Four Larks and a Wren,
Have all built their nests in my beard!”
You see? Nonsense. Here’s another:
There was a Young Lady of Norway,
Who casually sat in a doorway;
When the door squeezed her flat,
She exclaimed, “What of that?”
This courageous Young Lady of Norway.
The easiest way to understand the “rules” of a limerick is to read one or two of them aloud and notice where the rhymes fall and what the rhythm of the poem is. What you’ll see is that:
A limerick has five lines. Lines 1 and 2 rhyme with each other. Lines 3 and 4 rhyme with each other. Line 5 rhymes with 1 and 2.
Lines 1, 2, and 5 have 9 or 10 syllables, or beats.
Lines 3 and 4 have 5 or 6 syllables, or beats.
The rhythm of a limerick goes like this:
da – DA – da – da – DA – da – da – DA
da – DA – da – da – DA – da – da – DA
da – DA – da – da – DA
da – DA – da – da – DA
da – DA – da – da – DA – da – da – DA
Say the da-das out loud, and you’ll get it.
Okay, here goes. Check out the videos below. One shows a large school of fish. The other is a small school of rays. Let your imagination run free and funny, and think up some ridiculous story to go with what you see. You can focus just on the school of fish, or just on the rays, or put them together. The sillier the better! Then write that story in limerick form. As you’re writing, it may help you to make lists of words that rhyme in the margins of your paper.
Here’s a limerick I came up with—this was something I worked on last week, and the process of thinking and writing brightened my day:
There once was a fish in a pool
Who wanted to swim in a school
He jumped into the bay
Where he found a stingray
And decided to stay home from school.
Have fun! And in case you’re curious about the videos: Every fall in the Chesapeake Bay, giant schools of menhaden can be seen swirling the surface of the water. Often they’re being chased by larger fish, such as striped bass and bluefish, trying to fatten up before the cold winter comes. These giant schools are awesome sights to see.
The second video shows cownose rays (not stingrays) in a river that feeds into the Chesapeake. These schools of cownose rays show up all summer in the Chesapeake region. I love them!
***
Your task is to jump into a water-themed limerick before the end of the day tomorrow, Friday, April 3, 2020.
If you’re doing the #WaterPoemProject with a group, be sure to share or post your rough draft, read other people’s poems, and cheer for their efforts. Or leave your poem here, in the comments.
Debbie Levy’s most recent book is the graphic novel-style biography Becoming RBG: Ruth Bader Ginsburg’s Journey to Justice (Simon & Schuster 2019). It has no limericks in it, but it does include a couple of RBG’s favorite silly poems when she was a young girl. You can visit Debbie at www.debbielevybooks.com, connect on Twitter at @debbielevybooks, on Instagram at debbielevybooks, and on Facebook.
***
#WaterPoemProject Series Posts:
Project Introduction
FAQ
Prompt 1: Irene Latham, The Language of Water
Prompt 2: Elizabeth Steinglass, What Would a Raindrop Say?
Prompt 3: Linda Mitchell, Found Haiku
Prompt 4: Shari Green, Fogbow Fibonacci
Prompt 5: Margaret Simon, The Taste of Water
Prompt 6: Heather Meloche, The Shape of a Wave
Prompt 7: Amy Ludwig VanDerwater, A Water Memory
Prompt 8: Laura Shovan, Rainy Day Opposites
Prompt 9: Kathryn Apel, Silly Solage
Prompt 10: Buffy Silverman, A Watery Home
Prompt 11: Kara Laughlin, Frozen Fog
Prompt 12: Debbie Levy, Jump into a Limerick
Please support the #WaterPoemProject authors by buying their books from your favorite independent bookstore.
Tweet
April 1, 2020
#WaterPoemProject: Day 11, Kara Laughlin
It’s Day 11 of our #WaterPoemProject — 30 days of water-themed poetry prompts from your favorite children’s authors.
If you’re looking for National Poetry Month writing prompts, we’ve got you covered. Start with Day 1 and you’ll have poetry prompts from now through the end of April.
New to this project? Please read the Introduction and FAQ. Or you can watch this video of me describing how to participate. It’s on the YouTube channel Authors Everywhere.
I’m happy to welcome my friend, author Kara Laughlin to share a writing prompt with us today.
Kara’s poetry prompt is: Frozen Fog
Kara Laughlin
You’ve seen ice. You’ve seen fog. But have you ever seen ice fog?
Ice fog is a kind of freezing fog that happens only in very cold places. Fog is usually like a cloud on the ground—tiny droplets of water hang in the air, making it hard to see and getting everything wet. Ice fog contains tiny needles of ice. Freezing fog covers everything it touches with a thin layer of ice. This can be dangerous for driving, but it makes for beautiful walks outside.
Today your challenge is to write a frozen fog poem in two voices. In a two voice poem, the writer imagines two different speakers talking about the same thing from different points of view. They are usually written in two columns and read by two people, each reading down one column.
You might write about frozen fog:
in the voices of a driver and a walker.
in the voices of the ice and the fog.
in the voices of Spring and Winter.
in the voice of the fog and the voice of a tree getting covered by ice.
Here is a video that explains freezing fog (and shows a forest covered by it):
https://youtu.be/kksN1-U6J9U
Here are some two-voice poems by Paul Fleischman:
https://sites.google.com/site/childrenspoems/paul-fleischman
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j-5t8lFIzI4
***
Your task is to draft a two-voice poem about freezing fog before the end of the day tomorrow, Thursday, April 2, 2020.
If you’re doing the #WaterPoemProject with a group, be sure to share or post your rough draft, read other people’s poems, and cheer for their efforts. Or leave your poem here, in the comments.
Kara Laughlin is the author of over fifty nonfiction books for kids (some under the pen name Juniata Rogers). When she isn’t writing, she volunteers as a Girl Scout leader, Odyssey of the Mind coach and Sunday School program coordinator. Find all four of her weather books here.
***
#WaterPoemProject Series Posts:
Project Introduction
FAQ
Prompt 1: Irene Latham, The Language of Water
Prompt 2: Elizabeth Steinglass, What Would a Raindrop Say?
Prompt 3: Linda Mitchell, Found Haiku
Prompt 4: Shari Green, Fogbow Fibonacci
Prompt 5: Margaret Simon, The Taste of Water
Prompt 6: Heather Meloche, The Shape of a Wave
Prompt 7: Amy Ludwig VanDerwater, A Water Memory
Prompt 8: Laura Shovan, Rainy Day Opposites
Prompt 9: Kathryn Apel, Silly Solage
Prompt 10: Buffy Silverman, A Watery Home
Prompt 11: Kara Laughlin, Frozen Fog
Please support the #WaterPoemProject authors by buying their books from your favorite independent bookstore.
Tweet
