a little slice of earth: free verse poems by 2nd graders

No fancy introduction today;  just the glory of sensory poems
inspired by one "little slice of earth," composed by 7-8's!

the clover
      by Caleb

three leaves

smooth stem
clover blowing
in the wind
very fragile

purple flower

   by Eldana

purple bulbs

light scent

lemon orange

very peaceful

smooth and

hairie  soft

and greenie!

 

Black cracked stick     
                  by Eric

Its smooth wood

makes me slow
like a sloth, I hear
nothing. it’s peaceful like
a mouse.  all I smell 
is grassy dust.  that’s right.

 

clover

   by Max

clover   round    3

circles   soft   green

hole

  

plant 
    by Ines

green like
a pillow
long and
skinny
smells like
strawberries
a little blue
very good
for me!

purple poem

   by Xavier

a smooth stem

and

green and brown

quiet

air   purple flowers

green

leaves   the colors

                                are

                                green and purple

A Different Stick 

      by Patrick 

 

Browny
Broken
Dusty
Jagged
Grassy
Pointy
Cracked
    looks like 

         bamboo

dandelion 
    by Sophia

A hairy soft
dandelion
smells like
raspberries
looks like a lion
from the top.
Root is smooth and
smells like a soggy
wet dog!

Rocky Mountain
       by Elena

Gray and sparkly
rough and
bumpy     nothing
but  blank!
It’s just a thing
peaceful and quiet

Nothing to be
                                 heard but something
                                 to seek

 clover

     by Kathy

bright clover

light green

silent and fuzzy

smells vegetabley and

      cucumbery

Beautiful purple flower

    by Tyler

Purple flower smooth and
U purple flowe
R. green smooth leaves
Purple leaves smooth & soft
Like dog’s fur.
Elegant purple flower

  

Two Rocks

by Ziva

Piece by piece broken

and clean slowly chipping

away.  Clanking four

sounds, bink, chip, clip and pip. 

              white and light gray 

   building  together 

look like waves from an 

ocean’s weather.

 dandelion
       by Henry

fluffy dandelion

           white

       and green

           smells

       like vanilla

           and

      gasoline its

fluff is like

a lion’s mane

soft like fur

purple flowers
     by Arya

purpleflowers greenleaves wildbreeze

roots   leaves     slowly growing

wind  blowing    roots  growing

rain    pouring    sun  growing  

 

And there you have it!  I guess it's hard to bemoan my own slow pace of writing when I'm busy helping this happen.  Jama is helping us happen today by rounding up at Jama's Alphabet Soup.  See you there!
***************
MORNING ADDENDUM!  I forgot while wrangling all these poems and photos that my TLD Anthology Poem "A History of Your Voice" is featured at Michelle Kogan's Mother's Day blog post!  Please enjoy it, and a beach-day photo of me and my dear, delightful mother HERE!  In fact I will be with my mother and father this weekend helping them get ready for a move nearer to us--hooray!--and so my comments will be scarce, I'm afraid.  But thank you for yours!

2 by 2 in 2nd grand finale!!! npm18 #30

Dear Diamond Miners,

TA-DA!!!  YOU HAVE DONE IT!  First, you can now check your answer to this equation by counting the words in our poem:

(15 poets x 2 words) x 2 turns = __________

Second, you have collaborated and cooperated for ONE WHOLE MONTH to write a poem about...collaboration!

Last, in your poem, you have chosen juicy and powerful words that sound good to our ears and feel good in our mouths.  These words fit together nicely, kind of like Lego blocks!

Today's ten words are brought to us by Kathy, Ines, Caleb, Arya and Tyler, who really wanted the ending (and did an excellent job).

You can be quite proud of yourselves, and I hope you enjoyed it! 

Love, 
Ms. Mordhorst

P.S.  Blog visitors, the Diamond Miners love it when you leave comments directly for them. Thanks for all your encouragement!

*****************************************


Title TBD
    by the Diamond Miners
    April 2018

When we work
together
it feels fun 
and
difficult like Lego
pieces,
feels like struggling 
with
frustration and figuring
what 
to do. We
live like Legos,
pushing and building, 
pulling and flipping,
lifting and twisting.
We only have
to 
listen to our
friends 
when we build
Lego 
factories, stack together
every
day multicolored blocks
that
are very buildable.
All together!!!
😊

************************************
Words have been added to this poem by these wordsmiths, in order:
Round 1   Round 2
Ms. M      Ms. M
Ziva         Henry
Eric          Elena*
Eldana     Patrick
Henry      Ziva
Kathy      Eldana
Ines          Max
Elena       Xavier
Sophia     Sophia
Patrick      Eric
Xavier      Kathy
Arya         Ines
Tyler        Caleb
Caleb      Arya
Max         Tyler

sooo imperfect

Friends, by a timely miracle, I find myself to be a part of a book I wish I had had as an 8th grader.  It may already have been too late for me then, 12 going on 14, younger than everyone else, striving to be fine, better than fine, perfectly fine as I understood was expected of me.

It was a hard facade to maintain, especially when it came to math; how could I possibly work in base 2 or 5 if I had no systemic understanding of base 10?  Luckily, I was told by the authorities that it didn't matter: I was a poet, not a mathematician.  But the striver in me knew that in order to be fine, better than fine, perfectly fine, I ought to be able to calculate in base 5.

But what if I had had Imperfect?  This anthology of poems about mistakes for middle schoolers, collected and edited by my friend Tabatha Yeatts, might have relieved me.  Instead of walking around cracked and "patched together unattractively with metal staples," I might have discovered kintsugi.  I might have found opportunities to acknowledge and mend my breaks beautifully.  You'd see my "precious scars" made of liquid silver, my pottery bowl full instead of leaking, leaking all the time.

Which poems might have spoken to me?  Surely the opening poem by Ruth Hersey, "Syllabus for Eighth Grade," would have let me know that falling off your chair was to be expected, that it would be normal to

experience rejection,
heartbreak,
elation,
humiliation:
some days, all before lunch.

I would have looked for tissues on the teacher's desk, and if there were none, perhaps I would have realized that something was wrong.

I might have learned that silliness, that "sweet syrup that helps us swallow the bitter pills of life," can helpfully include laughing, especially at yourself.  "Make a Mistake, For Goodness' Sake" by Charles Ghigna might have helped there, full of exhortations to be "wild and woolly...honest and fair," to

Just be yourself. Take care of your health
And don't listen to people like me.

And Margarita Engle would have helped me understand a little earlier in life that "since I'm smart" and brave enough to "ride a crowded bus all the way to downtown Havana," it doesn't mean I have any wisdom.  Better to let Perro the dog

...eat simple dishes
like boiled rice
with raw crickets
his favorite
treats.

And finally, perhaps having the anthology Imperfect would have demonstrated that we don't lose anything in making a sincere apology for our mistakes.  Michelle Heidenrich Barnes knows it:

closed door
between me and you
knocking

Humility heals whether the door opens or not.  I'm grateful to Tabatha for collecting the work of dear friends like Linda Mitchell (whose diamante sinuously converts "Mistake" into opportunity) and Catherine Flynn (whose "The Laws of Motion" captures perfectly he way middle school society works) and many others.  I'm enjoying returning to classic poets like Amy Lowell and Carl Sandburg.

I close, glorying in imperfection, with a familiar, mysterious favorite of mine, by Antonio Machado, which reveals how not-quite-certain I am that it's really okay to be broken-and-repaired:

Last night as I was sleeping,
I dreamt---marvelous error!---
that I had a beehive 
here inside my heart.
And the golden bees
were making white combs
and sweet honey
from my old failures.

I guess that's because, as Ruth Hersey concludes,

nobody has ever mastered
the art of being thirteen
going on fourteen.
Or any other age, really.
We're all just figuring it out as we go along.


The round-up today is with Irene at Live Your Poem, where you can catch up with her ekphrastic project (ugly word for a beautiful thing) and with the Progressive Poem.  Also, thanks for checking out the progress of my 2nd-graders' own progressive poem in the previous posts.  We're flagging a little in the home stretch and would love to have your encouraging comments!

2 by 2 in 2nd npm18 #26

Dear Diamond Miners,

Just like we have stacked layers of recycled Trader Joe's bags with  layers of scrap paper and tissue, we also stacked our Preamble to the Kids' Constitution onto the Constitution of the United States. Eric chose the words "stacking together," which makes a lot of sense! Our poem is nearing its end now...

     

Who will add their words next?

Love, 
Ms. Mordhorst

P.S.  Blog visitors, the Diamond Miners love it when you leave comments directly for them. Thanks for all your encouragement!

*****************************************
BRAINSTORMING 
work hard, seems like, to think, we love, to have, we could
apart and together, pulling and pushing, turning and flipping, stacking and building and modeling
***********************************************

When we work  
together
it feels fun 
and
difficult like Lego
pieces,
feels like struggling 
with
frustration and figuring
what 
to do. We
live like Legos,
pushing and building, 
pulling and flipping,
lifting and twisting.
We only have
to 
listen to our
friends 
when we build
Lego 
factories, stack together

************************************
Words have been added to this poem by these wordsmiths, in order:
Round 1   Round 2
Ms. M      Ms. M
Ziva         Henry
Eric          Elena*
Eldana     Patrick
Henry      Ziva
Kathy      Eldana
Ines          Max
Elena       Xavier
Sophia     Sophia
Patrick      Eric
Xavier    
Arya        
Tyler       
Caleb    
Max        

2 by 2 in 2nd npm18 #25

Dear Diamond Miners,

Here I stand, O Noble Class,
to help your poem come to pass.
Whisper words of Lego blocks
That I your teacher may unlock.



 
Sophia decided to whisper more about Lego blocks on Tuesday--and not just a few blocks but big, complex Lego FACTORIES!  Being part of a group of friends--or a class--is a little bit like working in a factory.  Think about how we are collaborating to make our Earth Day poster...is that like a factory?

 Who will add their words today?
Love, 
Ms. Mordhorst

P.S.  Blog visitors, the Diamond Miners love it when you leave comments directly for them. Thanks for all your encouragement!

*****************************************
BRAINSTORMING 
work hard, seems like, to think, we love, to have, we could
apart and together, pulling and pushing, turning and flipping, stacking and building and modeling
***********************************************

When we work  
together
it feels fun 
and
difficult like Lego
pieces,
feels like struggling 
with
frustration and figuring
what 
to do. We
live like Legos,
pushing and building, 
pulling and flipping,
lifting and twisting.
We only have
to 
listen to our
friends 
when we build
Lego factories,

************************************
Words have been added to this poem by these wordsmiths, in order:
Round 1   Round 2
Ms. M      Ms. M
Ziva         Henry
Eric          Elena*
Eldana     Patrick
Henry      Ziva
Kathy      Eldana
Ines          Max
Elena       Xavier
Sophia     Sophia
Patrick
Xavier
Arya
Tyler
Caleb
Max