npm 29: and now for something not at all completely different!

 Greetings, Poetry Friday friends!  Today,  for the last Friday of National Poetry Month, I'm changing gears--but only a wee bit. I've been trying to write more narratively the stories of humans--especially women--who are helping humans solve the climate crisis.

But here is truly All We Can Save, the next generation, the foundation of our future. Here are the PreK Pandas learning about the miracle of seeds and writing collaborative poems about our garden. 

We have not read BEHOLD OUR MAGICAL GARDEN by Allan Wolf, but we will, and we have read DANIEL FINDS A POEM and WONDER WALKERS by Micha Archer, THANK YOU EARTH by April Pulley Sayre, and A NEW GREEN DAY by Antoinette Portis.

I was going to type our poems up all fancy, but maybe you'll enjoy seeing our process.

1) A small group visit to the garden to notice colors, shapes, textures, and elements of the garden.

2) Sticky notes: "What words do we need to write a poem about our garden?  Write the first letter here." Then I write the rest, mostly upside down.🙃

3) Rehearse words, often with signs or gestures.

4) Next, "Who has the first word?  What goes with that word?  Which order sounds better, 'smooth, soft' or  'soft, smooth'?"

5) Build poem together and read and reread, repeating each line twice.

6) Share with the class and make any changes that reading aloud make us notice. 

 

planting brown 

flower seeds

soft green

plants growing up

taller

by Lyanna, Vincent, 

Mateo, Nina

 

Beautiful

green stalk

smooth soft leaves

sunflower nasturtium

water brown soil

by Emely, Ismat, Mariela, Molly

garden soil

hard seeds

water soft

green roots

flowers corn

 

by Carter, Fernanda, 
Matthew, Noella

 

 

 

 

Panda Flowers

dirt       water

seeds     plants

green green

yellow growing

by Michael, Kelsey, Christian

planta verde

flor suave

semillas en la tierra

agua para las plantas

 

por Allison, 

Santiago, Hector

 

Flower Magic

 

stem       beans

flower    leaf

crinkly green

dirty roots

by Josie, Jewels, 

Ava, Bella

 

A Poem about the Garden

Una Poema sobre el Jardin

 

water black seeds

stem          leaves

sunflower flower

rain from the sky

by Matthew, Gabriel, 

Brandon, Kaylee

 

 

sunflower growing

water black seeds

maíz plants

green triangle leaf

 

by Andrew, Helen, 

Kairi, Adish

 

 

And now, to close, a bonus poem spoken by Carter on the playground.  He said, "How about a flower?" and I said, "THAT sounds like a good poem!  How about a....?" and off he went. (He might have meant fins instead of fur, but we're going with it.) Carter is 57 months old.

How About A...

How about a flower?

How about a sunflower, following the sun?

How about a rose, shining in the sky?

How about a plant, spreading out its leaves? 

How about a fish, feeling all its fur?

by Carter (a spoken word poem)

 

Our host today is Jone Rush MacCulloch, who is beginning our day with a fine poem from IMPERFECT II.  I'll be closing the month tomorrow with another look at this brilliant anthology edited by Tabatha Yeatts.

  

🌍🌎🌏🌍🌎🌏🌍🌎🌏🌍🌎🌏🌍🌎🌏🌍🌎🌏🌍🌎🌏🌍🌎

My project for NPM 2022:

 

This month I'm making "human stories to move human beings.  Human stories are more powerful for inciting action than counting carbon or detailing melting glaciers." (Favianna Rodriguez, from her essay "Harnessing Cultural Power," in ALL WE CAN SAVE.)

 

1 A tribute to those who keep writing poetry in the face of climate calamity

2 Gratitude for those who take the time to fix things

3 A musical listing of not nearly all the women featured in this book

4 An observation of those considering climate-friendly human habitats

5 A comparison of beaver wisdom with human attempts to control water & fire

6 A reading of the intro to THE OVERSTORY: listening to trees 

7 A celebration of how young children still understand that they are animals on the planet 

8, 9,10 A trumpet in 3 emails about the power of women to lead change on a grand scale  

11 An exhortation to little girls to step in line behind those women who are leading on policy    

12 A view of our intelligent, anxious human story about survival gone mad, and a new narrative   

14 A pause to take a breath  

15 A consideration (again) of the special challenge of Being Human on the planet   

18 A tribute to Mayapples and the multiplicity of climate organizations out there doing the work  

19 A sashay down the catwalk in a superhero supermodel cape 

22 An Earth Day exhortation: D.E.A.R. Time (don't be me, be WE)  

23 On the feeling of being "a hearth of spiders"  

24 On the feeling of spiderwalking this new world