forward...stretCH!

This is Day 2 of our Forward...MarCH CHallenge.  By the end of MarCH I will have written 20 new poems for CHildren, and you will have added who knows how many more! 

Our word today is "stretCH" and I'd like to take this opportunity to thank Tricia at The Miss Rumphius Effect for faithfully offering a Monday Poetry StretCH most weeks to all who would partake.  CHeck it out --we're having scallops this week!

(removed)

HM 2015
all rights reserved

And now for a really good laugh...

StretCH yourself today and leave your "stretch" poem in the comments or send it by email!  I'd love to add yours to the MarCH CHallenge board (and remember, there's a prize for the StretCHiest MarCHer!).

First to join in today is Charles Waters, who ought to go out sans Dan now and then!

MAUREEN

I stretch my neck to be seen by Maureen

So she’ll notice me at last.

Got a fresh haircut, new contact lenses,

Worn out clothes are in the past.

She catches my eye, smiles, gives me a wave

I wave back fast as I can

Until she busts out laughing with her friends

She waved to my best friend Dan.

(c) Charles Waters 2015 all rights reserved.

Diane offers this tiny number--is it her stretch?  or her cat's?

6:45 alarm
a very un-lady-like
stretch

Donna surprises with this one about letting your insides show through writing.  I love the title.

Little-By-Inch

I wrote for myself
And some to the sky;
I wrote as if no one should
Hear me walk by.
Little by inch,
My thoughts opened wider
Till someone exclaimed,
“We can see what's inside her!”
No one was laughing,
They didn’t leave,
Everyone stayed there;
I heard myself heave
a sigh of relief,
And then I wrote more
and started a stretch
that opened a door -
A door that will only
close at the end when -
my “Once upon” time
with flourish of pen
concludes with “happily”,
“ever” and “after”
And signs off "Sincerely,
Word-happy Crafter".

Donna Smith

And from Mary Lee, a big question about little, faraway things:

PERSPECTIVE

Orion's arms and legs and sword
stretch clear across the sky.

Yet if I hold my thumb to him
he seems to be that high.

Why?


©Mary Lee Hahn, 2015  

Joy joins in with a hint of spring:

johnny-jump-ups stretch
smiling faces toward the wind
jumping up and down.   

 Thanks to all  for playing! 

OIK: nothing to see here

No one said anything ticklish in Room 144 this week.


Well, they did--lots of things--but it would be so burdensome to explain the context that the lightness of the tickle would be spoiled.  And anyway, having embarked suddenly on MyPoPerDayMo (My Poem Per Day Month) on November 1, I now have a good handful of poems to pick from and post.

Here's #8, thanks to Tricia Stohr-Hunt's Monday Poetry Stretch at The Miss Rumphius Effect suggesting that we write a commemorative poem (happy bloggiversary, Tricia!). I ended up commemorating my favorite part of our classroom day.


2:27 pm

Each afternoon at this moment
if I could
I would kneel facing Mesopotamia,
touch my forehead to the clay soil
and honor the broad-shouldered,
tip-toeing gods of writing.

Instead at this moment
because I must
I bend facing Kindergartenia,
touch my hand to the fresh toil
and honor the tender-voiced,
heart-shouting words of writers.


Heidi Mordhorst 2011
all rights reserved

new year's intention

Happy New Year. My intention (less unforgivingly binding than a resolution) is to post twice a week as briefly as possible: to float lightly through the Kidlitosphere without compromising the Charterschoolapposphere.

Today's Poetry Stretch at The Miss Rumphius Effect is to write a shadorma, a six-line form with a prescribed syllable count of 3.5.3.3.7.5. The word "shadorma" made me hungry.
And sleepy.

shadorma

sleep sizzles
aromatically
on the spit
of night. carve
juicy slices onto white
sheets of pita bed.