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Wow, after writing choosing my Progressive Poem line and sinking deep into Spring Break last week, it was hard to remember that April was still NPMing with a vengeance! I missed a few days because, you know, LIFE (although I am now pleased to report that our 16yo has chosen a new school which we hope will do more of the academic support that we've been doing ourselves & fie on my public school system for failing to serve his needs & thanks for listening)--but here we are again addressing all of the above.
It really mattered at the beginning of the month when I codified the
range of topics (also describable as "distraction moves") in the badge
you see here, because I've been playing with these four ideas all month. Below in this post you can find yesterday's poem, which plays with choice c). I've tried golden shovels, acrostics, lots of free verse forms, and some funky "silver shovels" where the striking line sits at the left margin. I've done some poetry play a la Mary Lee & Co with Metaphor Dice, the Random Word Generator, and the postings of other bloggers.
My topics have included our earth and the climate crisis; spring, obviously; the richly inspiring last name of a person I randomly met at school (and who was up for the amusement of being written about); and of course a little about my own states of being. In other words, this is all working out just as I didn't really plan it, my National Poetry Month UnProject. Just as well, because there's a fair amount of pain flying around.
achieve? I dig and strike and strike again, and struck
by words I speak, I spread this spring.
Now I'm late for school, where yesterday dandelions became "alien sheep grazing yellow in the grass," and though it be little, the power of poetry was fierce once again in the hearts of the children for whom we have to save this planet. Our host today is Carol at Beyond Literacy Link; graze on over to the goodness that grows.
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my genes wear me out. erring on the side of risk I always go too far. I'm lured in by a hundred wild ideas, ten good projects the tithe I pay on
any given day.
Here's one favorite of many for classroom use by Tom Chapin. This year urgency crept into the lesson. I think I scared some 2nd graders today. But we'll stay calm, BE COOL, and take action to bring down Earth's fever.
Have you heard? This pretty planet is dying, spinning hotly through space, and where You're used to seeing a garden, where You're hoping to find a harbor, instead
You're finding an unholy place of flood and fire, bare and burned.
Gentle blue chokes on giant islands of plastic; perilous winds spin us around. All through the long night of ignorance we waited, we wasted. Now can we do what it takes to be safe 'til the morning light?
Welcome to all, especially those who are following this year's Kidlitosphere
Progressive Poem, an annual April tradition begun in 2012 by Irene
Latham of Live Your Poem. One by one we bring a new line, developing the idea of the poem and spinning it in new directions. This year we're challenging ourselves to build a found poem out of song lines, as
suggested on April 1 by our kickoff poet Matt Forrest Esenwine. Read about this project and enjoy data on previous progressive poems HERE.
Well. I had been planning to pump up the action with some B-52's beachiness here, but by the time the poem reached me, Amy and Linda had suddenly, interestingly, taken a different tack:
"it's not easy to know
less than one minute old"
"WHO, WHO, WHO?!" I shouted inwardly. We've had an I, we've had a we, we've had a you, then another we, then an I, then a you again. But I wanted a line with we, you AND I together to the end, and I wanted a line with how--my thought was to find a line that would show that the relationship between these deep divers was new and untried (less than one minute old!), that it wouldn't be easy to know how the waltzing would go...
and the B-52's let me down! I tried "Rock Lobster," "Nude Beach" and "Dry County," "Roam" and "Song for a Future Generation," "Dirty Back Roads" and "Deadbeat Club," and none of them produced exactly what I was looking for (although I did spend a tremendous hour or so reliving the extreme lunatical lyrical glory that is the B-52's). Here's one I'd forgotten about, making me heartily wish I could work some cake into the scenario (you only need the middle 2-3 minutes of this 6-minute song to get the idea)...
So next I tried Natalie Merchant and the lovely "Milly and Molly and Maggie and May," which is an E.E. Cummings poem set to music, involves the ocean, and which also offers an ending assonance:
--which was cool, except that the emphasis was on small and alone, and still nothing happened. So then I tried Natalie's first outfit, 10,000 Maniacs, and an all-time favorite, "These Are Days," which gave me this line:
--nice, but a little cheesy without its abundant context, and which again did not feel as active or forward-moving as I wanted. So I turned to that other great export of Athens, Georgia: R.E.M. When you can figure out what Michael Stipe is singing (and sometimes even when you can't), you know it's definitely poetry.
I looked for some watery songs and and fell upon "Find the River," which is a folkier number of theirs and offered a line that didn't include its delicious "bergamot and vetiver" but which finally cements that WE and whizzes us along to the brink of something fabulous-- plus a rhyme. Plus "minute" and "years." Plus a light at the bottom of the deep? Please listen to this whole gorgeous song to get the full effect of the line!
KIDLITOSPHERE PROGRESSIVE POEM 2019 - DAY 19
Endless summer; I can see for miles... Fun, fun, fun - and the whole world smiles. No time for school - just time to play, we swim the laughin' sea each and every day.
You had only to rise, lean from your window, the curtain opens on a portrait of today. Kodachrome greens, dazzling blue, It's the chance of a lifetime,
make it last forever-ready? Set? Let's Go! Come, we'll take a walk, the sun is shining down, Not a cloud in the sky got the sun in my eyes. Tomorrow's here. It's called today.
Gonna get me a piece o' the sky. I wanna fly like an eagle, to the sea and there's a tiger in my veins. Oh, won't you come with me waltzing the waves, diving the deep? It's not easy to know less than one minute old we're closer now than light years to go
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Gosh, I hope that gives Buffy something to go on! Below is the complete list of contributors and lines, and I close with mighty thanks to Irene for making this thang happen every year, and to Amy for hosting today at The Poem Farm. Happy spring holy days to all to celebrate!
NEW!!! You asked for it and now it exists--THE PLAYLIST!
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Found Lines:
L1 The Who, 'I Can See for Miles' / The Beach Boys, 'Endless Summer'
L2 The Beach Boys, 'Fun, Fun, Fun'/Dean Martin, "When You're Smiling"
L3 The Jamies, "Summertime, Summertime'
L4 The Doors, 'Summer's Almost Gone' / Led Zeppelin, 'Good Times, Bad Times'
L5 Ray Bradbury, 'Dandelion Wine'
L6 Joni Mitchell, "Chelsea Morning"
L7 Paul Simon, "Kodachrome," "Dazzling Blue"
L8 Dan Fogelberg, "Run for the Roses"
L9 Spice Girls, "Wannabe"/Will Smith, "Gettin' Jiggy Wit It"
L10 The Beatles, "Good Day Sunshine"
L11 The Carpenters, "Top of the World"
L12 Lin-Manuel Miranda, "Underneath the Lovely London Sky" from MARY POPPINS
L13 Carole King, "Hi-de-ho (That Sweet Roll)"
L14 Steve Miller, "Fly Like An Eagle"
L15 Don Felder, "Wild Life"
L16 Nowlenn Leroy, "Song of the Sea" (lullaby)
L17 Sara Bareilles, "She Used to Be Mine" from WAITRESS
L18 Stevie Wonder, "Isn't She Lovely"
L19 R.E.M., "Find the River"
And you can see the list of Poem Line Contributors in the right sidebar!
You don't notice it at first
so close to an ordinary circle it appears, until you give it
a fraction more attention
hear the slight vibration
of magnetic poles around the edges.
This is no ordinary circle--
no, not even a regular heptadecagon
with its subtle bending song
of seventeen sides.
This figure will confound you
with complexity, will hit you
with the force of a ceremonial mace,
leave you quavering, semi-shaking
in your shoes, all the hairs on
your head risen in amazement at the
surprising dimensions of seventeen-and-a-
There's a whirlwind of poetry play going on around the Kidlitosphere this month, and we do all need more play in our lives. Margaret has been using some of the toys with her students: Metaphor Dice, paint chips, Magnetic Poetry, Haikubes. However, reading her April 10 post, a line caught my eye and became my plaything. I hope Margaret doesn't mind.
The Poet Evolves
Gathering words from
the air
not using any toys
Gathering toys from
the words
Not using any air
Gathering air from
the toys
not using any words
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In conclusion, evolution is overrated. 😏
Scroll down and see some of my other efforts from this unProject this week. Then go gather some words from the air over at Live Your Poem with Irene, and don't miss Margaret's contribution to the Progressive Poem at Reflections on the Teche.
Get a grip, kid--
it's an unwritten rule of
the planet outside your head
that to withdraw is to lose it.
It only persists in the flexible
copper wirings and firings of
your beautiful brain. Use it.
In January I settled on One Difficult Truth to try to keep in mind for the year, rather than One Little Word. This truth is briefly best expressed as "Life is gorgeous AND bitter" or "this excruciating, beautiful life"--take your pick. The point is the paradox.
Instructions on Not Giving Up | Ada Limón
More than the fuchsia funnels breaking out
of the crabapple tree, more than the neighbor’s
almost obscene display of cherry limbs shoving
their cotton candy-colored blossoms to the slate
sky of Spring rains, it’s the greening of the trees
that really gets to me. When all the shock of white
and taffy, the world’s baubles and trinkets, leave
the pavement strewn with the confetti of aftermath,
the leaves come. Patient, plodding, a green skin
growing over whatever winter did to us, a return
to the strange idea of continuous living despite
the mess of us, the hurt, the empty. Fine then,
I’ll take it, the tree seems to say, a new slick leaf
unfurling like a fist to an open palm, I’ll take it all.
It would appear that Ada specializes in these sorts of poems, just based on the titles of her collections: "Ada Limón is the author of Lucky Wreck (2006), This Big Fake World (2006), Sharks in the Rivers (2010), and Bright Dead Things (2015)."
"...a green skin growing over whatever winter did to us..."
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Yes, it's that time again, where I attempt to encapsulate in single letters the unique and nuanced growth and progress of each child, across multiple measures and along a timeline of nine weeks: report card time.
I've tried to streamline it for myself with summaries like
and for kids and families I've tried to help "standards-based" make some sense with
A= got it! B= getting it! C= learning it with help D= working toward it...but not there yet
but let's face it--kids aren't numbers, and they aren't letters either. I might feel different if there were still a place for comments in the online gradebook, even though it would be more work, but no--we have abdicated professional responsibility for showing our knowing of students with words in favor of a lighter paperworkload. There is no place on the grid for words; only numbers and letters.
And truth be told, every kid is all of the above all at the same time.
lift a lime, a loaf of bread steal a scarf, a spool of thread nick a nail, a bolt, a screw all these things belong to you-- because you saw them, touched them, smelled them then you listened as you held them, now they live inside your head, sneak into stories you can spread
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As usual, this National Poetry Month, I will be delighted to join in the collaborative effort that is the Kidlitosphere Progressive Poem. With one new line each day, it's a feast of suspense and fun. Check out the first two lines with the third from Kimberly hot on their heels...
