in print for the first time!

Welcome all visitors, new and seasoned! I'm looking forward to rounding up your poetry posts throughout the day, and I'm delighted also to share poems by 2nd graders from Mr. Gamard's class at Wyngate Elementary School here in Bethesda. Before I arrived, Mr. Gamard had laid the foundations for some very productive poetry work.

On Wednesday I spent 75 minutes sharing "Honeysuckle Hunting" and talking about how poetry tools like alliteration, personification and onomatopoeia are powerful--but how they work best in a poem about something that really matters to the poet. The children then drafted new poems. There was "Can I?" and "How should I?" and "Are we supposed to?" -- to which I always answer, "You are the boss of your poem."

On Thursday my aim was to highlight the freedom poets can exercise in arranging their poems on the page to help readers read it "right." I brought in "Botanical Jazz" printed across four left-justified lines (contrary to its appearance in the book), and after reading it aloud twice without showing it, I asked the children to cut and paste the words of the poem on lines, creating line breaks and stanzas. This turned out to be both challenging and instructive, and the kids enjoyed trying out the different readings commanded by their varying versions while comparing their own arrangements with each others' and with mine. More on this exercise next week....

Then they went back to work with their drafts, to reconsider arrangements on the page, word choice and pacing--or just to elaborate their illustrations. They were rather excited to think of their work being published on the World-Wide Web, and so without further ado (Okay, a little further ado: as always, I'm not able to preserve all the indents, so apologies to young writers who intended a little more variety in the shape of their poems)....THE POEMS!


Mouse
by Peter D.

Creeping crawling sneaking. Stealing
cheese.

Living in dark holes.

Always staying out of sight.
Always sneaking food at night.
Jumping out of sight when the
cat comes.

Brown, black, gray, white mice!


What am I eating?
by Danielle P.

The reds are
like SHINY red apples.

The oranges are
like JUICY tangerines.

The yellows are
like SOUR lemons.

The greens are
like
SWEET
lime.

The
purples
are
like BITTER grapes.

now I’m
eating SKITTLES!!!!!!


Drawing
by Cooper M.

Action!
I take my pencil and draw a circle.
Then a straight line down the bottom of the
circle. Then one line going to the right.
Then I draw one line
going diagonal and…
wow! You’ve got a troop. But make more!


The Night Is Like A Cat
by Kit F.

The night is like a big black cat

the moon is like his eye

with a gleaming glow of mischief sailing

across the sky.

The night is like a prowling cat

watching all the stars

which are like the mice

that make their home in ours.

Now you know that

the night is like a cat.


football
by Ryan G.

Hike
whoosh
the football flies through the air
click clank
the players crash together
he catches the ball
TOUCH DOWN!!!
BOOM!
he kicked the field goal everyone is out of
their seats
It’s good!
the Redskins win!


Monkey
Jeanne F.

I saw a monkey,
I saw a monkey! It
climbed on a tree. It climbed
a branch so high so far.

It pretended it was
on monkey bars! Now look
what I found I saw
it’s eating a banana.

It is so high it might
soon touch the sky.
Now please come and look
Please, Please, Please
I said please too many times
can you please come?

Please?


the Forest
by Jack M.

Deep in the forest where the deer
dance,

deep in the forest where the chipmunks
chirp “chirp, chirp,”

deep in the forest by the pond if
you listen you can hear “deep deep”
“deep deep,”

then, boom!
The hunters are coming!
quick, time to go home!


The Night Poem
by Hannah T.

A creepy sound in my bed that
goes “squeak, squeak” and a scary noise
in the moon like an owl going “who, who.”

The moon sets up when the sun
goes down and the same thing
happens around and around.

The night is like a big black
cat.

The noises in the night may
give you a slight fright.

Anything can happen in the
night, anything can happen here,
anything can happen there.

Right and left, here and
there night can freak you anywhere.

Peaceful dream relaxes your thoughts.

Within the night the stars
will shine and let it be good night
for bed time.

Skittles
by Elana R.

They taste so
GOOD.
Extremely good.
Skittles taste like
fruit
Ripe fruit
Perfectly ripe fruit.
Suck, suck till the flavor comes out.
Very
Chewy
Never swallow
them whole

Skittles, Skittles,
such powerful taste

Suck and suck
and before you know it they’ll be gone for today.


Halloween
by Jack O.

There’s lots of knights
fights for lots of gold
look over there!...
at the monsters with lots of gold
you just have to touch the monsters’
hair and you get the gold
but some have a rule 3 pieces each
then you get the glimmering gold
now to the next monster


ice cream
by David G.

Slurp! Slurp! Slurp!
Licking ice cream.

Drip! Drip! Drip!
Aaaaa! Ice cream melting.

Crunch! Crunch! Crunch!
Eating the cone.

Delicious.

Dodgeball
by Collin K.

Throwing balls 50 miles per hour
hitting people in the feet
ducking at fastballs
diving for catches
slides, monkey bars, swings
all around you
bright sun, light blue skies, white clouds
what a great day for dodgeball
we finally got him out
we win
YEAH! YEAH!


Look for Honeysuckles
by Olivia B.

Sniff smell the
honeysuckles. There on the
sweet honeysuckle tree.
I love it I see it.
They’re sweet they’re tasty
they’re amazing. They taste like
sweet juicy honey. Honey, honey,
the sweet of a honeysuckle
Hmmm when I taste it
first it looks gross.
When I taste again
I love it. Wait Stop!
We should save more for
later.

Dreaming Dogs
by Jordan F.

Dogs dogs, Dreaming day and night.
Dogs dogs, They never have a
fright.

Dogs dogs, Their minds are so
insane.
Dogs dogs, They always play all
day with owners.

Dreaming about having a dog
is the best dream.


Cats
by Conor C-I.

Furry balls of fluff and happiness.

Meow! The call for friends, family.

Cats are like balls of fluff scurrying about.

Purrrr! A happy cat's call, a calm cat's call.


Dragon Hunting
by Luke D.

We search all day but we may not find
it, the great chinese dragon we search day and
night.

I hear it swooshing through the grass
I see two glowing eyes I must say, there we finally
found it

David sneaks behind it and catches him
in a net

thanks to us americans have finally
found the first dragon



And now for contributions from the KidLitosphere:

*April Halprin Wayland was in early with notes on teaching revision at Teaching Authors.

*Charles Ghigna has an artist poetraits (poem portraits) over at The Bald Ego. This week's artist is Mary Cassatt.

*Tabatha has genetic poetry at The Opposite of Indifference.

*Sally weighs in from Japan on friendship at Paper Tigers.

*Mary Lee is winding down her school year with Annie Dillard at A Year of Reading.

*Carol is doing the same with last-day-of-school poems at Carol's Corner.

*Julie has a little rittle (or a liddle riddle) at the excitingly redesigned Drift Record.

*Toby shares one of her Wind Voices at The Writer's Armchair.

*Jama serves up a helping of bilingual rice pudding at Alphabet Soup.

*Ruth connects with Shakespeare across the centuries at There Is No Such Thing As a Godforsaken Town.

*Diane comes to us threefold as usual: with X J Kennedy at Random Noodling, with fireflies at Kurious Kitty, and a word from John Fowles at Kurious K's Kwotes.

*David does the henhouse hop at Fomagrams.

Your host will return around 2:00 to continue the round-up, ....and here I am.

*Dori has yet another end-of-school poem at Dori Reads--why does my last day still feel rather far away?

*Robyn has a birthday post for Bob Dylan at her homebase.

*Elaine shares a fax from the Seven Dwarves to Snow White at Wild Rose Reader! And another fairy tale poem at Blue Rose Girls.

*Steven has a beachcomber poem inspired by his daughter at Crackles of Speech.

*Laura has student poems about food--always a fine inspiration--at Author Amok.

*Blythe continues to explore allusion with her own Lost World poem.

*Sheri has a forest walk poem from Kristine O'Connell George at her blog today.

*Barbara marks Memorial Day with a William Stafford poem at The Write Sisters.

*Carol offers a snippet of Sondheim at Rasco from RIF.

*Shelley has another installation of Dust Bowl Poems to share.

*Janet Squires reviews A Child's Introduction to Poetry at All About the Books.

*Ms. Mac has first graders' animal poems at Check It Out.

*Lastly, I'm terribly sorry but I accidentally deleted one of the later comments without even registering its provenance--if you're missing, do please let me know!

Happy holiday weekend, everyone! And many thanks to the poets and parents of Mr. Gamard's class....