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Every good writer, poet or not, knows that good writers spend the majority of their time on revising and editing. Some experts say it’s 20% writing/80% revising, while others go so far as to spend 90% of their work time in revisions. For this week’s Poetry Friday (sponsored by Tabatha Yeatts: The Opposite of Indifference,) I decided to share a revised version of a poem I wrote a few weeks ago for my poetry class. Continue reading “Revisions for Poetry Friday”
Still too busy with NaNoWriMo to do much else, so for this Poetry Friday, I am sharing two final favorites from I Feel a Little Jumpy Around You: A Book of Her Poems & His Poems Collected in Pairs, collected by Naomi Shihab Nye and Paul B Janeczko. I finally finished the entire collection and must now get it back to the library!
The first poem is the title poem from the collection and was written by Harryette Mullen, pictured at right.
I feel a little jumpy around you.
Like when I think a house has
roaches, and I watch everything
out the corner of my eye to see
if it crawls away.
By Harryette Mullen
And here’s poem #2 by Paul B Janeczko. It’s about a daughter, but I feel it applies also to sons (of which I have 2.) Continue reading “Jump City and other favorites for Poetry Friday”
I’m crazy right now with NaNoWriMo, so for today’s Poetry Friday, I’ll be sharing a quick poem by Andrea Carlisle from I Feel a Little Jumpy Around You: A Book of Her Poems & His Poems Collected in Pairs, collected by Naomi Shihab Nye and Paul B Janeczko.
Monday
Figure out what to wear—white dress?
Put hair in bun
Bake gingerbread for Sue
Peer out window at passersby
Write poem
Hide poem
Tuesday
White dress? Off-white dress?
Feed cats
Chat with Lavinia
Work in garden
Letter to T.W.H. Continue reading “Emily Dickinson’s To-Do List on Poetry Friday”
This is this writer’s life today on this beautiful Poetry Friday:
This week’s KidLitoSphere’s Poetry Friday Round-up is brought to you by Jama’s Alphabet Soup.
Friday rolls around once more, and once more, I am attempting to participate in KitLitoSphere’s Poetry Round-up. If only I had a poem ready to share this week. But alas, I have yet to look at my homework for my kids and YA poetry class. I did just check out my syllabus, and it looks like I need to read pages 87-99 in Mary Oliver‘s Rules for the Dance: A Handbook for Writing and Reading Metrical Verse. So, I think I’ll talk about this for now instead of trying to pop out an off-the-cuff poem that will likely just fizzle and flop.
In addition to Rules of the Dance, we are also reading Mary Oliver’s A Poetry Handbook. Each week, we must read a selection from one or both of these books, and then write a poem based on the reading. For example, last week I had to write a metered poem (didn’t go so well, in case you’re wondering.) This week’s reading will require even more metrical verse, and this is why I’m not in a hurry to try to pop out my poem for the week. This is going to take some time and thought. Continue reading “Poetry Friday: “Rules for the Dance””
I’d never even heard of Sweetest Day before I moved to Wisconsin. So for years, I’ve largely ignored it. It’s always seemed to me like just another fake holiday developed by the jewelry and flower industries to generate revenue right before the big holiday push. This year, I am observing the day with my sweetest. However, likely without jewelry or flowers. And with that, here’s a little poem I hope will make you think twice before blowing your hard-earned cash on roses this year.
If you’re going
to bring me flowers,
bring me weeds. Continue reading “A poem for Sweetest Day”
Is it hot out this week, or what? I wrote another poem for my poetry class and was thinking I’d have to hang on to it for a few months since it has a summery feel to it. But with this weather, I’m thinking, “Why not share it now?”
I got the idea for this poem one morning while out on my morning walk. Our reading for the week, from Mary Oliver‘s A Poetry Handbook, was focused on sound. So, I was trying to decide how to start writing a sound poem.
While mulling this over, I began to think about the challenge of spelling out sounds without using the same old boring cliches. You know, “Boom!” “POW!” “THWACK!” That kind of thing.
This semester, I’ve been taking a course on writing poetry for children and young adults. I’ve never really thought of myself as much of a poet, but I thought it would be good to push myself out of my comfort zone and give it a shot.
As it turns out, I’ve learned quite a bit about language and words that will probably help me in my other writing. I would recommend at least one poetry class for every aspiring author, poet or non.
And as long as I have to write a poem every week, I thought it might be fun to share my poems with you. So here’s a Halloween poem for you, inspired by my childhood fear of catching a glimpse of my own reflection in the window at night: Continue reading “Hiding from the Creeps”
It’s October 1, September is done. We took a nice little walk downtown this morning… Probably one of the last nice weather days we’ll have this fall before we’re buried in snow.
To commemorate the passing of time, here’s a little poem I wrote recently for the poetry class I’m taking this semester:
Chipmunks chatter
on their branch above,
teenagers gossiping
of homework and love.
Silver bullet slash
of a passing car,
dry leaves skittering,
scattering far. Continue reading “Farewell September”
Write on the World 