30d30w: word 29

birthday  

secret whistles,
fiery code…

                     nothing.
happy wrapping
hides the empty

         cage.

something whispers:

furry coat

                thumping

sniffing whiskers  

subtle wishes,

buried hope…
                surprise!

eyes paws ears   leap

finally

Golly.  When I first cut and pasted this from my worksheet doc, I had added lick from both Buffy and Laura S. as word 29--I'm a sucker for alliteration (and who among us ain't?).  But then, as Laura notes, that does rather limit the critter, since I can't picture anything leaping and licking except a dog. 

This became suddenly problematic, for I am not a dog person.  Now, I know that many (most?) people are dog people, but for the purposes of this poem--and bearing in mind that there are really VERY many dog poems--I suddenly decided that finally works better.  It captures all that whistling and whispering and wishing and hoping, and while typically one whistles for a dog, I can see someone whistling for a lost mouse or ferret or rabbit as well.

Early yesterday both Mary Lee and Daisy independently wondered the same way about "fiery code," and it's coming up in other comments too.  Let me tell you why that worked (and is still working) for me, although I may yet see the need to revise.  To me, the peak birthday moment is that moment when the candles are all lit and everyone is singing and you're gathering breath and putting your face right next to the undeniably dangerous flames and making your wish and knowing that a) you must not tell your wish and b) you must blow all the candles out at once and c) if there are those rules then there might be other rules, like how you encode your wish might actually matter.

For me, the poem begins in that moment, when the birthday child can think of nothing but the cage that has stood empty for days, and how the special whistle has not worked, and how encoding the wish exactly right in the blowing of that fiery, dramatic moment might do the trick...and then nothing.  The moment is over and the presents received, and no amount of happy wrapping can overcome the sadness of that empty cage.  Maybe "hides" is the problem?

I'd be very curious about how that first stanza reads to everyone else--I was sure that you'd be suggesting changes to "subtle wishes,/buried hope," since for me the energy seems to drop there and I'm not sure we're getting enough out of those words.  Last call for revisions!

And just one more time, may I say how much I'm loving this deep work at the word level?  And one more time, how much I appreciate those who have dropped in to play along? 

30d30w: word 28

birthday  

secret whistles,
fiery code…

                   nothing.
happy wrapping
hides the empty

        cage.

something whispers:

furry coat

                thumping

sniffing whiskers

subtle wishes,

buried hope…
                 surprise!

eyespawsears leap

Here's our patient little poem without the questions marks, just to try that out...and Margaret's suggestion yesterday narrows down the animal, so to speak.  With only two words left, its species will be left unspecified (which is all right by me--ambiguity in a poem is, I think, often what allows it to speak directly to a wide range of listeners).  However, I'll admit I'd been thinking bunny or smaller, and "leap" is more of a cat or dog word.  I also liked Janet's bound, but that would be an even bigger beast, I believe, and harder to lose.  Or hide.  : )

Here's an interesting question:  must word 29 be an adverb now?  Or, if we accept that Word 30 is "lap," what else might work? 

30d30w: word 27

birthday  

secret whistles,
fiery code…

                     nothing.
happy wrapping
hides the empty

        cage.  

something whispers…

furry coat?

thumping?
sniffing whiskers?  

subtle wishes,

buried hope…
                surprise!

eyespawsears

Poetry Friday was a packed party this week, I think--hard to get through the crowd to this corner of the universe!  Thanks to Margaret, Petrina and Janet for stopping by to keep things going.  Those ears are pretty important right now. 

I'm thinking about a happy lap for the last word, and again, on the 29th, instead of suggesting the last word, how about you advise me about one revision that would polish up this poem for its final appearance?

30d30w: word 26 and a special challenge

Flickr Creative Commons photo by Mykl Roventine

 
birthday  

secret whistles,
fiery code…

              nothing.
happy wrapping
hides the empty

        cage.

 

something whispers…

furry coat?

thumping?

sniffing whiskers?

 subtle wishes,

buried hope…
                surprise!

eyespaws

For those who are just tuning in, welcome to the 30days30words cumulative, collaborative poem! To keep things simple for busy people this National Poetry Month, I posted a single word on April 1 and each day have invited all comers to suggest the next word in the poem. We have continued like this throughout April, one word at a time, and are nearing the conclusion of a poem of surprising form and function.  Please do go back and see how the poem has evolved through the faithful contributions of around a dozen thoughtful, playful collaborators!

 

It seems we must literally leap towards the conclusion now. All in a rush now the beloved missing (or new) birthday creature will leap into the poem, eyespawsandall, and I think I'll be selecting the last word myself (I might even know what it is, but we'll see!).

So, dear players, I have a special challenge for you on April 29. Instead of suggesting the final word, I invite you to suggest a revision, an edit, a change that you believe will improve the whole poem. I've certainly felt at several points along the way that I may have made a misstep in my selections or formatting, or that my head overruled my heart or vice versa.  I bet YOU can help me and "birthday" finish with a flourish. Thank you!

 

30d30w: word 23

birthday 

secret whistles,
fiery code…

              nothing.
happy wrapping
hides the empty

         cage. 

something whispers…

furry coat?

thumping, sniffing?

whiskers! 

subtle wishes,

buried hope…

Wow, hope(s) got THREE votes yesterday!  As Joy says, "It's your poem; go for it," but it's our poem too, so I bow to the majority preference, though you see I had to singularize it to align it better with "code" and "coat."  However, if I may exert (again) a little editorial influence, after all that abstractness, the next word is going to need to be a nice, muscular, active gerund.  It's time to get this creature into the birthday hands!  Only seven more words left!

30w30d: word 19

birthday  

secret whistles,
fiery code…

              nothing.
happy wrapping
hides the empty

        cage. 

something whispers…

furry coat? thumping?

sniffing whiskers?

It was very kind of Amy to supply another set of whiskers, since Daisy was too busy watching Glee to even notice how apologetic I was about not choosing her word.  But now she's got what she wanted, and I've got what I need for the middle stanza, and we can now return to our regularly scheduled poem of organic integrity and authentic surprises.  I'm not entirely sure about the question marks--there could still be punctuational movement over the bridge...

In other news, after working all week to meet poems by Langston Hughes, Lilian Moore, Arnold Adoff and Beatrice Schenk de Regniers and learn what poets do, the Mighty Minnows will compose their own poems today!  I look forward to sharing these bonus poems over the weekend.

30d30w: word 18

birthday  

secret whistles,
fiery code…

              nothing.
happy wrapping
hides the empty

         cage. 

something whispers…

furry coat,

thumping,

sniffing

Naturally, because I overslept, today has been maybe the hardest yet.  My compulsions (previously detailed; thank you Tabatha for snappy) are battling my sense of sense, and also I'm getting pressure from within the organization to choose a certain contributor's word!  So I'm going to call this stanza a seven-word bridge, kinda like in a pop song, and send both thanks to Amy for sniffing and telepathic vibes to certain contributors to Keep Those Whiskers Coming.

30d30w: word 17

birthday  

secret whistles,
fiery code…

              nothing.
happy wrapping
hides the empty

         cage. 

something whispers…

furry coat,

              thumping

Hee hee...nothing/something/thumping! Thanks, Buffy.

It COULD still be a dog, but since one of my earliest relationships with a character was with Thumper, I don't know.  I really tried hard to go with Diane's excellent grinning, but it doesn't seem time yet for the Liver of the Poem (see Irene Latham's advice) to pull himself out of his empty birthday doldrums and start putting 2 and 2 together.  He--and I'm realizing that I've been picturing a boy since about Word 5--needs more clues.  Of course, someone or something else could do the grinning as well (although I don't believe that rabbits grin).  But neighbors and siblings do....

I hope everybody's still having fun here--I sure am.  And don't forget to go see the progress of the Progressive Poem over at  No Water River today--fun by the line instead of by the word!

30d30w: word 16

birthday  

secret whistles,
fiery code…

              nothing.
happy wrapping
hides the empty
         cage. 

something whispers—

furry coat,

As I do in my own composition (for better or worse), I've now settled the stanza length and pattern, and although this is free verse, I'm compelled to stick with it until the end.  Then, ordinarily, I'd do an immediate redraft allowing changes to the form which has developed organically.  In this case, I won't have the authority to revise like that, so it's all the more important to get it "right" the first time.  I thank you all for your suggestions, especially Savvy Wit and Verse visitors, and Matt and Daisy for nose and catch, which both had special merits, but I've gone with Tabatha's coat because of my matchy-match compulsion.  (Yes, it also drives my home decor and fashion choices, even though I'm aware that matchy-match is out.)

So we have a 6-line stanza with 11 words, times two is 22, leaving 8 words for some kind of concluding stanza?  Or we could alternate 6 lines/4 lines.  Hmmmmm....

30d30w: word 15 / mjlu visits Savvy Verse and Wit

Back in March, Serena from Savvy Verse and Wit called on fellow bloggers to participate in her month-long blog tour by profiling a poet or poem. I don't know Serena well, but the variety of folks and their posts who signed up is very interesting. Welcome, SVandW followers!

Here at my juicy little universe, we're playing a National Poetry Month game for busy people--
the 30days30words cumulative, collaborative poem!  I posted a single word on Monday, April 1, and each day have invited all comers to suggest the next word in the poem. We'll continue like this throughout April, one word at a time, until I've selected 30 words in total and we have a finished poem of some surprising form and function. I hope many of you will stop back again to offer suggestions and see how the poem builds!  Here it is today, with its new 15th word.

birthday  

secret whistles,
fiery code…

              nothing.
happy wrapping
hides the empty

        cage. 

something whispers

furry

Today's word comes from Petrina, who seems to have been inspired by the development of "birthday" and posted on facebook that her family is now home to Chippy the hamster and Finny the fish.  What choice did I have, after "fiery" in Stanza 1, Line 2, if not furry?  (Okay, I was tempted by fairy, but the fairy can come in later as the something whispering.)  I think I know what the next word should be, and she or he who suggests it gets special mention for reading my mind--but you have surprised me before and may well do again, so I'm ready to switch gears.

Thanks once again for joining in, everyone!

30d30w: word 14 and another bonus poem!

birthday  

secret whistles,
fiery code…

              nothing.
happy wrapping
hides the empty

         cage. 

something whispers

Nice!  Both Liz and Matt suggested whispers, so both the popular vote and the demands of pattern made it easy to choose.  See how line 2 of the second stanza now matches line 1 of the first stanza?
But is it the something from the empty cage doing the whispering, or is the lead coming from somewhere else, somewhere within?

And now, our second bonus poem.  I tried a new twist on an old technique in my classroom. First we chose a letter--P for Poetry or F for Friday? F won the vote (narrowly) and thus was conceived the Mighty Minnows' F-Word Poem. Each child suggested a word beginning with f, I wrote each child's word on an index card, and one by one we made our choices and taped them on chart paper.  In the composition process it became a dramatic (and quite fanciful) story poem, and we discovered we needed some repeated and extra words for it to make any kind of syntactic sense. 

Fly, flamingo fairy!
Fan fast!
Fly four, five, five hundred feet
from the fat fire!
Fluffy-feathered flower-fish
finishes flip-flop force field.
Flamingo fairy is fine on Friday.



Not sure the "new twist" worked, exactly...However, I will say that the Minnows did a pretty great job supplying juicy, powerful and interesting words.  I think spending last week with Piggy in the Puddle helped. ; )

30d30w: word 13

birthday

 secret whistles,
fiery code…

              nothing.
happy wrapping
hides the empty
         cage.

something

This is so interesting!  I was pretty sure that the inhabitant of the cage had passed on to the spirit plane, but your suggestions--and what a lot of good ones--tell me otherwise.  You don't want death; you want escape, intrigue, search and surprise!  (Do we shy away from death when writing for young people, or lately in this world must we dwell on it too much?)

Okay, we'll go there, but despite all the fuller words you suggested, I'm going with Dori's something. It tenses against the big "nothing" of the first stanza and waits open and ready for clues, allowing a sense of anticipation and hope to build.

The icon above is to remind us all that Irene's Progressive Poem stops here tomorrow--a double dose of collaboration! 

30d30w: word twelve! mystery revealed! but just a little...

Flickr Creative Commons photo by Mykl Roventine

 

birthday

secret whistles,
fiery code…

              nothing.
happy wrapping
hides the empty
        cage.

Okay, boys and girls--we have reached that turning point that some of you have been longing for!  I would have had fewer choices than any day yet for Word Twelve (NPMF Syndrome developing, perhaps?  Surely you've heard of National Poetry Month Fatigue Syndrome?), BUT both Laura S. and Buffy spewed forth a slew of choices along with the prank snakes, and now Buffy has focused the birthday sadness for me with her word cage.   Yes, a cage sits under that happy wrapping paper, and now we know that those secret whistles and fiery coded wishes achieve nothing for a good but grave reason.

Curiously, that one single word both focuses the first stanza of the poem (somehow I already know that we've completed the first stanza) AND presses us to move on to the second act.  During the stanza break there will be heartfelt sighing and crying, but we don't need to say that out loud.  The image of the empty cage hanging there in white space conveys that powerfully. Instead, the first word of the second stanza will spin us out of sadness to face us in a new direction.  Bring it on, people--the lucky 13th word!  (Have I mentioned how much fun this is?)

Diane has the Poetry Friday round-up today at Random Noodling.  Do come back later when I hope to have posted the next Mighty Minnows poem from my kindergarten collaborators!

30d30w: word eleven

birthday

 

secret whistles,
fiery code…

              nothing.
happy wrapping
hides the empty

In a rush today, but I'll take one minute to calculate some PoeMetrics a la Ed DeCaria:  our poem is now more than 33% complete!  (That's as much math as you'll get out of me today.)  Thanks to all the enthusiastic participants who keep coming by to play by offering words, and especially to Ruth for today's word, empty.  I had (not for the first time) the urge to select a clump of three words and empty red confetti all over this poor sad birthday, so do feel free to REsuggest red and confetti (or indeed pistachios) again tomorrow!

30d30w: word ten and bonus poem!

birthday

      secret whistles,
fiery code…

                   nothing.   
happy wrapping
            hides the

My apologies to Mary Lee, who has suggested ever so many juicy, powerful words for this poem and generally in life--and now I'm choosing her the!  You can see that I'm trying out a revised format, and if I thought this was a tricky exercise early on because of the indistinctness of the baby poem, it's MUCH trickier now that it's a bit more grown up and I begin to have my own aspirations for its future.  So perhaps choosing the is a stalling maneuver while I (we?) gather our thoughts and reflect...or while I remind myself not to think too hard!  At the very least, it sounds good...

And now here's the bonus poem.  Monday is Outdoor Education for me and my Mighty Minnows, and with giddy warm weather finally arrived we went out yesterday to enjoy bare arms and spring and to make our own word-by-word collaborative poem.  We rehearsed inside a bit--"What juicy, powerful words would fit into a poem about spring?"--but when we got outside it was purely spontaneous.  "Who's got the first word?" I asked.  With confidence Katja suggested flowers and we were off!  Of course there was coaching along the way ("What are the summer leaves DOING right now?") but each child really selected his or her word and they all own the completed poem, which they decorated all around with chalk when it was finished.  Crazy poetry fun!

30d30w: word nine

Flickr Creative Commons photo by Mykl Roventine

 

birthday  
 

secret whistles
fiery code

nothing happy

wrapping hides

 

I'm backing off the punctuation, etc. for today--yesterday's v.1 and v.2 got about equal votes--and focusing on the word instead.  I've chosen Linda's hides because there are still quite a few days and words to go and it doesn't seem time yet to reveal any surprises.  I also like the way "hides" fits into a rhythm that just reading the two-word lines creates, and the h of "hides" together with the h of "happy."

 

I did wish there was a word that combined the senses of crinkling and hiding--I think the poem could benefit now from some more "sensory details," as we say in the classroom.



30w30d: word eight

birthday

secret whistles,
fiery code--

nothing happy.

wrapping

 

-or-

birthday

secret whistles,
fiery code--

               --nothing.

happy wrapping

Well, check this out.  I feel pretty sure about choosing Margaret's excellent word, wrapping (SO many possibilities there!), but much less sure about what to do with it.  Along with your word today you can say whether you prefer v.1 or v.2.  It would seem that either way, "birthday" has become the title.  I don't think there's any going back from that...or is there???

 

And thanks, faithful players!  Did you notice that for the first time two of you suggested the same Word Eight, except?  Interesting, right?  Is it that you don't want nothing to be happy?  Well, life is like that sometimes.  But the wrapping can be happy, if you like v. 2!

30d30w: word seven

Flickr Creative Commons photo by Mykl Roventine

birthday

secret whistles
fiery code

nothing happy

Today's word is suggested by my "walking friend" Petrina and her son Super M, age approximately 5.  While I'm blogging at a fairly sophisticated adult level, I'd like the poem to point definitively towards Super M and his fellow early readers, and for that audience no word fits birthday better than happy.  And yet, to challenge them, so far there's "nothing happy."  Why not?  What's going wrong with the secret whistles and fiery code?  Or do we just have to wait a bit, be more patient, to understand the whispers of the birthday universe?

You'll notice that I've now attributed the delicious photo that has become the logo of the 30days30words project.  Mary Lee of A Year of Reading put her internet media savvy to work and writes this:

"I found your image, Heidi, and here's how I did it: Like you, Google searches got me nowhere. I have the Google search app on my phone, but have never tried Google Goggles, so I thought I'd give it a whirl. Basically, through Google Goggles you take a photo of something and Mr. Google searches his (Ms. Google searches HER?) visual memory of things that look like that and gives you possible links to check. Bingo! I found the page (in Italian) and followed that person's link to the image back to Flickr. Lucky you -- this picture has a Creative Commons license." 

Mary Lee explains that I can provide attribution by adding a caption that says something like "Flickr Creative Commons photo by..." and link back to the source page.   Mary Lee also recommends the politeness that our mothers taught us:  "I always like to leave a "thanks for making this Creative Commons" note in the comments of CC photos I use from Flickr with a link back to my post and a little explanation of how I used the image. I've gotten a few of those notes on my Flickr account and it's nice to know how your images are being used!"

When I right-clicked Mykl's photo, up came a label saying "This photo has some rights reserved," and when I clicked some rights reserved I got a very nice summary of how this work may be used by others.  Also, I think I made a new friend.  Mykl's sets and series of photos are just right up my alley.