The Poem That Will Not End - Talking With Joan Bransfield Graham

What happens when poetry takes over your life? Ryan O'Brian finds out when he spouts poetry and writes poems all day long!

While at recess he says:

I beg you, won’t you help me?
Please help me, be a friend.
Rescue me, I’m captured—
this poem will not end!

Then later in the evening while taking a bath he proclaimed:

My brain went into overdrive,

I started writing faster,
careening wild at breakneck speed—
a poetry disaster.

Early the next morning he laments:

I spent a restless night and thought,
Whatever can I do?
When I woke up, I found my pillows
covered with . . . haiku!

THE POEM THAT WILL NOT END: FUN WITH POETIC FORMS AND VOICES, written by Joan Bransfield Graham and illustrated by Krysten Brooker, is a fun-filled romp through the day in the life of a young boy who gets caught up in poetry.

While the rhyming text of the story keeps readers moving forward, it's the poems written in the illustrations that make you stop to soak in all the poetry goodness. You’ll find a villanelle, sonnet, acrostic, haiku, limerick, and many more forms. This triolet describes just how caught up Ryan is in writing poetry.

CAPTURED

|’m captured, won’t you help me find a way, 

to free me from this urgent need to write? 

|t follows me and hounds me night and day. 

|’m captured, won’t you help me find a way,

 to toss aside this curse—| want to play! 

You must admit . . . this is a scary sight. 

|’m captured, won’t you help me find a way, 

to free me from this urgent need to write?

All poems ©Joan Bransfield Graham. All rights reserved.

While reading this book I found myself thinking back to MATH CURSE, written by Jon Scieszka and illustrated by Lane Smith. In it, readers follow a nameless student who lives a day filled with math problems. This book is different in that Graham has given readers a boy with a name, a family, and an ordinary life filled with poetry. Kids will love the story, while teachers will love the fun poems and poetic forms that are introduced.

Reading this had me wanting to ask folks around me, "how do you use poetry in your own life?" I think that’s a great question to put to the very talented author of this book. Here are her thoughts about that and some more on her poetry writing process.

**********

How have you used poetry in your own life?
Joan:  I make my own cards with my original photos and poems.  Isn't poetry what we reach for in life's most important, emotional moments? But I think poetry is how you see the world. It expands our vision, helps us see higher, wider, deeper . . . longer.  It captures a moment in time. Sometimes life can take over your poetry. I found if I didn't make poetry an important part of my life, I wasn't the person I was meant to be. It can be a continuing challenge to fit everything in . . . a juggling act. While POEM is written in a humorous vein to let children see that poetry is FUN, I hope it also makes some small statement that we must embrace our creativity, our uniqueness, and weave it into our lives; we are all richer for it. Ryan O'Brian, in the end, does "make it work." I love how poetry connects us to ourselves, to each other, to the world. We have such a vibrant poetry community! Here's to celebrating each other's imagination, sharing a healthy, joyful creative "Fever," and staying connected. 

When was the main text/poem of the book composed? How did it start? 
Joan: Many years ago, and "It started with a rhythm,/ a rhythm and a rhyme." and I couldn't stop--I kept adding more ideas. The line "My mom called up, "Are you in bed?" is directly from my life. I was a "night owl" even as a child and was probably reading a book or writing poetry as late as I could. I never wrote on the mirror with toothpaste though.

Did you share your drafts of the poems before you finished the book? Is there an individual or a group of individuals with whom you regularly share work? 
Joan: Yes, I did. When I first moved to California, I met some wonderful poets (They were writing for adults.), and they are still dear friends. I'm in a terrific, helpful critique group of fellow SCBWI writers (I'm the only poet.), and we meet at my home once a month.  I'm also a founding member of the Children's Authors Network (CAN!)--a marvelous group of authors and illustrators, which includes poetry dynamos Janet Wong and April Halprin Wayland (also with Teaching Authors). If you click here, and then again on "Classroom Resources," http://canetwork.weebly.com/joan-bransfield-graham.html, you'll find my Teacher Ideas, across the curriculum, for POEM and other useful guides. As Co-coordinator of Ventura County for our SCBWI Central-Coastal California region, I help to plan a variety of events throughout the year for writers and artists in our area.  

How long do you let your poems “sit” before you let them go? Do you finish poems or abandon them?
Joan: As long as they need. Rather than "abandon" poems, I think of them as being in various stages of incubation. It does help to let a poem "cool" for a few days and then look at it anew with "fresh eyes." 

Do you have a favorite poem from the book? Or a poem that you loved that didn’t make it into the final manuscript? 
Joan: I'm fond of "Bike," the poem from yesterday's prompt. Couldn't "Bike" be a metaphor for poetry? When you "step on," you are in for a ride that can "take you anywhere." I hope "the road ahead" is filled with poetry for all your readers. Tricia, you are doing an incredible job of seeing to that for both the fans of your blog and your students! 

Would you like to share the details of any new poetry project(s) that you’re working on?
Joan: So many things! Lee Bennett Hopkins has a new book, MANGER, scheduled for Sept., 2014, and I am fortunate to have a "Rooster" poem included--in fact, I see my rooster is on the cover! I have many other poems in forthcoming anthologies. When a friend whose son teaches high school English mentioned his students wondered why they needed to study poetry, I started writing an article--FIVE REASONS TO GIVE CHILDREN THE GIFT OF POETRY. I'm not sure where I'll send that piece when it's finished, but I need to write it. I guess I'm Ryan O'Brian.

**********
I had the pleasure of interviewing Joan nearly 5 years ago for a National Poetry Month series. You can read more about her and her poetry at Poetry Makers - Joan Bransfield Graham.

THE POEM THAT WILL NOT END is a welcome addition to the world of children's poetry. I do hope you get a chance to enjoy it.

Thanks so much to Joan for inviting me on this blog tour. You can check out the other stops on this electronic journey at:
Monday, Jan. 27 - Poetry for Children
Tuesday, Jan. 28 - Tales from the Rushmore Kid
Wednesday, Jan. 29 - Double Olympic Poetry Challenge and Teaching Authors
Friday, Jan. 31 - Jama's Alphabet Soup

So now for the fun! If you'd like to win a copy of THE POEM THAT WILL NOT END, please enter below. A winner will be chosen on February 5th.

Monday Poetry Stretch - Climbing Rhyme

The form for this week's stretch is climbing rhyme.

Climbing Rhyme is a form of Burmese poetry containing a repeated sequence of 3 internally-rhymed lines consisting of 4 syllables each. Since Burmese is monosyllabic, this works well, but in English this might be difficult. Instead of 4 syllable lines, let's try writing in lines of 4 words. (If you're feeling brave, go ahead and try four syllables!)

The rhyme scheme for climbing rhyme is internal. That means the position of the rhyming word changes. The rhyme appears in the 4th word of line one, 3rd word of line 2, and 2nd word of line 3. The pattern continues as a new rhyme appears in the 4th word of line 3, the 3rd word of line 4, and the 2nd word of line 5. This continues on, giving a stair-step feel to the poem, hence the name climbing rhyme.

For those of you who need to see this visually, here it is. Each x stands for a word. The letters stand for rhyming words. Just remember the 4-3-2 pattern.
x x x a
x x a x
x a x b
x x b x
x b x c
x x c x
x c x x

I hope you'll join me this week in writing a climbing rhyme. Please share a link to your poem or the poem itself in the comments.

Monday Poetry Stretch - Anaphora

Anaphora is "the repetition of the same word or phrase in several successive clauses." Whitman uses anaphora in the poem Out of the Cradle Endlessly Rocking. Here is an excerpt.

Out of the cradle endlessly rocking,
Out of the mocking-bird's throat, the musical shuttle,
Out of the Ninth-month midnight,
Over the sterile sands and the fields beyond, where the child
leaving his bed wander'd alone, bareheaded, barefoot,
Down from the shower'd halo,
Up from the mystic play of shadows twining and twisting as
if they were alive,
Out from the patches of briers and blackberries,
From the memories of the bird that chanted to me,
From your memories sad brother, from the fitful risings and
fallings I heard,
From under that yellow half-moon late-risen and swollen as
if with tears,
From those beginning notes of yearning and love there in
the mist,
From the thousand responses of my heart never to cease,
From the myriad thence-arous'd words,
From the word stronger and more delicious than any,
From such as now they start the scene revisiting,
As a flock, twittering, rising, or overhead passing,
Borne hither, ere all eludes me, hurriedly,
A man, yet by these tears a little boy again,
Throwing myself on the sand, confronting the waves,
I, chanter of pains and joys, uniter of here and hereafter,
Taking all hints to use them, but swiftly leaping beyond them,
A reminiscence sing.

You can learn more about anaphora at Poets.org.

I hope you'll join me this week in writing a poem that uses anaphora. Please share a link to your poem or the poem itself in the comments.

The Ballad of Martin Luther King, Jr., 1963

On this day in which we honor and remember Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., I am pleased to share this poem by J. Patrick Lewis.

The Ballad of Martin Luther King, Jr., 1963

Ten thousands join ten thousands

Without goading police.

The singers sing, their anthems ring,

The speakers say their piece.

Around the world astonishment—

The ceremonies heard

Or seen on every continent,

And still to come: The Word.

Spectators waving handkerchiefs,

Small children, hearts to seize,

Will tell it taller years from now,

Grandchildren at their knees.

Blue sunshine worships morning,

No cloud would dare to rain

For in his jacket mercy

And in his pocket pain.

Equality his brother

And sisterhood his pride

Meet common sense, nonviolence,

The means he’s deified.

The afternoon is dying down,

The Reverend takes the stage.

George Washington spreads out the book,

Abe Lincoln turns the page.

He reads his notes religiously,

An old familiar theme.

“But please, Martin,” Mahalia yells,

“Tell ‘em about the dream!”

And first he puts away his speech

Then sweeps away the crowd:

The memory of his remarks

Peals like a thundercloud.

“The content of our character”

Personifies a sage.

One day in 1963

Belongs to every age.

Poem ©J. Patrick Lewis. All rights reserved.

If you are interested in more poems on civil rights heroes, check out When Thunder Comes: Poems for Civil Rights Leaders by J. Patrick Lewis. It includes an introductory sonnet and seventeen poems about both women and men who stood up against injustice of every kind. This is how the book begins.

The poor and dispossessed take up the drums

For civil rights—freedoms to think and speak,

Petition, pray, and vote. When thunder comes,

The civil righteous are finished being meek.

Why Sylvia Mendez bet against long odds,

How Harvey Milk turned hatred on its head,

Why Helen Zia railed against tin gods,

How Freedom Summer's soldiers faced the dread

Are tales of thunder that I hope to tell

From my thin bag of verse for you to hear

In miniature, like ringing a small bell,

And know a million bells can drown out fear.

For history was mute witness when such crimes

Discolored and discredited our times.

Poem ©J. Patrick Lewis. All rights reserved.

You can learn even more about this book in the Chronicle Books Blog post U.S. Children’s Poet Laureate J. Patrick Lewis Writes about Rights.

Poetry Friday - Animals

When William was in third grade (spring 2010) his teacher had the class copy and illustrate poems that "spoke" to them in their journals. This poem by Valerie Worth was one of his choices.

As I flipped through the journal this poem came from I found a short entry on the word brave. Here's a portion of what he wrote.

"My dog is brave during a short thunder storm. My dog is brave guarding her cookie."

As some of you may know, we lost our brave girl this week. Just two weeks after being diagnosed with cancer her quality of life began to diminish much more rapidly than any of us expected. I came home from class on Monday night and we made the decision to have her put to sleep the next morning. Though she was with us for 16 years, it felt like our time together was too short and that the end came much too quickly. We weren't ready to let her go, but it was undoubtedly the right thing to do.

The house is unimaginably quiet now, and I wince each morning as the urge to call her works its way up in my throat and I realize she isn't there to hear me. I've spent the last few days thinking of all the milestones she shared with us, including welcoming William to the family, an event that she wasn't particularly happy about!

I am grateful to Amy Ludwig VanDerwater for sharing a poem with me earlier this week that really resonated. That is the poem I'm sharing today. 

Animals

by Miller Williams

I think the death of domestic animals

mark the sea changes in our lives.

Think how things were, when things were different.

Read the poem in its entirety.

Sometimes I think I'm crazy for feeling so lost over the death of a dog, but then I remember that I'm not the only one to feel the loss of a devoted companion so keenly. If you haven't seen this little piece by Jimmy Stewart, take a few minutes to watch him read a poem about his dog Beau.

Before I wrap up I have one more poem to share.

Love That Dog
by Sharon Creech

Love that dog,
like a bird loves to fly
I said I love that dog
like a bird loves to fly
Love to call him in the morning
love to call him
"Hey there, Sky!"


Thanks for sticking with me through this long post. Do check out all the wonderful poetic things being shared and collected today by Keri at Keri Recommends. Happy poetry Friday friends.

Monday Poetry Stretch - Pantoum

This week's stretch is a real S-T-R-E-T-C-H. The form I have decided to tackle is the pantoum. I have read a great deal about this form and found many variations. I am not going to try and do this one in rhyme, though you can if you want to attempt it. Are you ready? Here's the form.

The pantoum is a poem made up of stanzas of four lines where lines 2 and 4 of each stanza are repeated as lines 1 and 3 of the next stanza. The final stanza of a pantoum has an interesting twist. Lines 2 and 4 are the same as the 3rd and 1st of the first stanza, thereby using every line in the poem twice.

Here is an outline for a pantoum with 4 stanzas.
Line 1
Line 2
Line 3
Line 4

Line 2
Line 5
Line 4
Line 6

Line 5
Line 7
Line 6
Line 8

Line 7
Line 3Line 8
Line 1

Keep in mind that this form of poetry is of an indefinite length. It could be three stanzas, 4 stanzas or 20!
(Adapted from The Teachers & Writers Handbook of Poetic Forms.)

A fine example of a pantoum is this one by Randall Mann. It has 6 stanzas.

Pantoum

If there is a word in the lexicon of love,

it will not declare itself.

The nature of words is to fail

men who fall in love with men.

It will not declare itself,

the perfect word. Boyfriend seems ridiculous:

men who fall in love with men

deserve something a bit more formal.

Read the poem in its entirety.

I hope you'll join me this week in writing a pantoum. Please share a link to your poem or the poem itself in the comments.

Poetry Friday - How Much?

When William was young and I told him I loved him, he would ask "How much?" The replies began with "More than ..." and included phrases such as: all the tea in China, all the stars in the sky, and all the fish in ocean. After a while it became a game for us to see if we could come up with a new saying that represented something huge.

When I stumbled upon this poem by Carl Sandburg, I was reminded of this. William's almost 13 now, so he doesn't ask "How much?" very often anymore.

How Much?
By Carl Sandburg

How much do you love me, a million bushels?
Oh, a lot more than that, Oh, a lot more.

And tomorrow maybe only half a bushel?
Tomorrow maybe not even a half a bushel.

And is this your heart arithmetic?  
This is the way the wind measures the weather.


You can listen to Sandubrg read this poem at The Poetry Foundation.

Check out other poetic things being shared and collected today by Donna at Mainely Write. Happy Poetry Friday all!

Monday Poetry Stretch - Trimeric

Happy new year! After a short break for the holidays, the Monday Poetry Stretch is back and ready to take on another form.

The trimeric is a form that was invented by Dr. Charles A. Stone. Here's how he describes it.

Trimeric \tri-(meh)-rik\ n: a four stanza poem in which the first stanza has four lines and the last three stanzas have three lines each, with the first line of each repeating the respective line of the first stanza.  The sequence of lines, then, is abcd, b - -, c - -, d - -.

At first I thought this would be relatively easy because the first lines of stanzas 2, 3 and 4 are already written (seeing as how they use lines 2, 3 and 4 of the first stanza). Boy, was I wrong! That first four line stanza is so important! The lines must hang together, but they must also be able to stand on their own as introductions to the other stanzas. 

There are many examples on Dr. Stone's trimerics page. Here is one of my favorites.

UNSIGNED

by Dr. Charles A. Stone 

I sent her a secret message on her birthday,

though she thought it was an ordinary card

in an every day envelope

from the innocent boy next door. 

Though she thought it was an ordinary card

she taped it to the wall with others she had

received in her eleventh year.  Then, 

in an every day envelope,

she mailed a simple thank-you note

back to me, but she forgot to sign it. 

From the innocent boy next door

to the man I am today, I’ll never forget how hard

I cried because I had forgotten to add I love you. 

Published with the author’s permission.

I hope you'll join me this week in writing a trimeric. Please share a link to your poem or the poem itself in the comments.

Poetry Friday - Poems from CRICKET NEVER DOES

Knowing I would be hitting the road this holiday, I finished my shopping ages ago. This means that while everyone around me is whipped into a shopping frenzy, I can relax and browse. That's just what I was doing earlier this week (while procrastinating on my grading) when I stopped into my favorite used bookstore and treated myself to this little book.

CRICKET NEVER DOES: A COLLECTION OF HAIKU AND TANKA, by Mrya Cohn Livingston, is a seasonal collection of poems beginning with spring and ending with winter. Here's one of the winter poems.

Here we are, Winter,

just you and I in the snow,

freezing together

And because I love the book title, here's the poem those words come from.

Not wishing to stop

his chirping the whole night long,

Cricket never does

Check out other poetic things being shared and collected today by Buffy Silverman at Buffy's Blog. Happy Poetry Friday all! And best wishes to each of you for whatever holiday you celebrate this season.

Monday Poetry Stretch - Nonet

When I sit down to write I find I am more compelled by form than topic. It's also easier for me to wrestle with form than it is to compose on a specific topic. (I was the kid in English class that stared at my notebook page when told to "free write." Guidance and guidelines do wonders for me!)

That's why I like to tinker with forms in these challenges. This week I'd like to try the nonet. Here's a description of the form.

A nonet is a nine line poem. The first line containing nine syllables, the next line has eight syllables, the next line has seven syllables. That continues until the last line (the ninth line) which has one syllable. Nonets can be written about any subject. Rhyming is optional.

You can read more about this form and see a few examples at Poetry Dances - Nonet. 

I hope you'll join me this week in writing a nonet. Please share a link to your poem or the poem itself in the comments.

Poetry Friday - Superstition

On this Friday the 13th I am sharing a poem by Amy Lowell. This piece was published in 1919 in a volume entitled Pictures of the Floating World.

Superstition
by Amy Lowell

I have painted a picture of a ghost
Upon my kite,
And hung it on a tree.
Later, when I loose the string
And let it fly,
The people will cower
And hide their heads,
For fear of the God
Swimming in the clouds.

This poem and the book it was published in are in the public domain and have been digitized and made available by Google. You can read the entire volume simply by downloading a copy.

Check out other poetic things being shared and collected today by Tabatha at The Opposite of Indifference. Happy Poetry Friday all! 

Monday Poetry Stretch - Sijo

Last week the fall semester came to a close. We still have exams and final projects to wade through, but the light at the end of the tunnel grows brighter. It wasn't until Friday that I realized I had completely missed the Monday stretch! Not so this week . . .

I'm quite fond of the poems in Linda Sue Park's lovely book Tap Dancing on the Roof: Sijo Poems. Originating in Korea, sijo are poems divided into three or six lines. These poems frequently use word play in the form of metaphors, symbols and puns. Here is a description from AHApoetry.

More ancient than haiku, the Korean SIJO shares a common ancestry with haiku, tanka and similar Japanese genres. All evolved from more ancient Chinese patterns.

Sijo is traditionally composed in three lines of 14-16 syllables each, totaling between 44-46 syllables. A pause breaks each line approximately in the middle; it resembles a caesura but is not based on metrics.

And here is the description from the jacket flap of Park's book.

What is sijo?
A type of poem that originated in Korea.

But what is it?
A sijo has a fixed number of stressed syllables, usually divided into three or six lines.

Like haiku?
Kind of. But a sijo always has a surprise, an unexpected twist or joke, at the end.

The poems in the book are full of these wonderful surprises. One of my favorites is entitled Long Division. It is the poem that gives the book its title. Another favorite is Summer Storm. It is below.

Summer Storm

Lightning jerks the sky awake to take her photograph, flash!
Which draws grumbling complaints or even crashing tantrums from thunder--

He hates having his picture taken, so he always gets there late.

Now that you've read a sijo, you'll know that the challenge this week is to write one. Here is a brief summary of the advice Park gives at the end of her book.

Three line poems should contain about 14 to 16 syllables per line. Six line poems should contain 7 or 8 syllables per line.

The first line should contain a single image or idea. The second line should develop this further. The last line should contain the twist. 

Park writes:

I try to think of where the poem would logically go if I continued to develop the idea of the first two lines. Once I've figured that out, I write something that goes in the opposite direction--or at least "turns a corner."

I hope you'll join me this week in writing a sijo. Please share a link to your poem or the poem itself in the comments.

For Thanksgiving

Two poems for my readers . . . and wishes for a joyful Thanksgiving.

Autumn
By Emily Dickinson

The morns are meeker than they were,
The nuts are getting brown;
The berry's cheek is plumper,
The rose is out of town.

The maple wears a gayer scarf,
The field a scarlet gown.
Lest I should be old-fashioned,
I'll put a trinket on.


In Harvest
By Sophie Jewett

Mown meadows skirt the standing wheat;
I linger, for the hay is sweet,
New-cut and curing in the sun.
Like furrows, straight, the windrows run,
Fallen, gallant ranks that tossed and bent
When, yesterday, the west wind went
A-rioting through grass and grain.
To-day no least breath stirs the plain;
Only the hot air, quivering, yields
Illusive motion to the fields
Where not the slenderest tassel swings.

Read the poem in its entirety.

Monday Poetry Stretch - Thanksgiving

Well, this week is a no-brainer. Let's write about thanks, Thanksgiving, gratitude, or anything that resembles thankfulness.

For a bit of inspiration you might want to check out these links.
Thanksgiving Poems at Poets.org
The Cranberry Cantos at The Poetry Foundation

I hope you'll join me this week in writing a poem of thanks. Please share a link to your poem or the poem itself in the comments.

Poetry Friday - Thanksgiving

Back in 2009 the Poetry Seven took up the challenge to write together. Here were the rules.

• We each do a villanelle.
• In one of our repeating lines we use the word thanksgiving, in the other repeating line we use the word friend.
• No other rules, no other similarities. Just those two things.

The villanelle I wrote is a bit of an anthem and appropriate for the upcoming holiday, so I thought I'd share it again.

Dear friends, Thanksgiving!
For glorious oaks and sprawling trees
in winter, summer, fall and spring

For all things green and lush and living
that dance so lightly in the breeze
dear friends, Thanksgiving!

For spiders spinning webs of string
while swinging and dangling on a trapeze
through winter, summer, fall and spring

For sunflowers bold and bright and smiling,
climbing skyward with grace and ease
dear friends, Thanksgiving!

For birds that chirp and peep and sing
while visiting blossoms with bumblebees
through winter, summer, fall and spring

For poems, prose and words that sing
of beauty that brings us to our knees
Dear friends, Thanksgiving
in winter, summer, fall and spring!

Check out other poetic things being shared and collected today by Katya at Write. Sketch. Repeat.. Happy Poetry Friday all! 

Monday Poetry Stretch - Prose to Poem

I've been reading a lot of primary source documents for my class and am thinking about transforming a prose document into poetry. Let's consider this a form of a found poem. Take a letter, a speech, a passage from a favorite book, any portion of prose with some meaning, and use words from it to write a poem. (Note that if you use excerpts from poems by other authors that you will be writing a cento. You can read more about the cento at Poets.org.)

Here's a poem I wrote based on the words from the chapter Winter Animals in Walden: Or Life in the Woods by Henry David Thoreau.

Hills rose up around me
and in misty weather
loomed like fabulous creatures.

I walked freely
far from the village street,
where I heard the forlorn note 
of a hooting owl.

At length the jays arrived,
then the chickadees in flocks,
hammering away with their bills.

And once a sparrow
alighted upon my shoulder.
For a moment,
I was more distinguished
by that circumstance
than any epaulet
I could have worn.

I hope you'll join me this week in turning prose into poetry. Please share a link to your poem or the poem itself in the comments.

Poetry Friday - To Sleep

Here's what I need most in my life these days ...

To Sleep
by John Keats

O soft embalmer of the still midnight!
Shutting with careful fingers and benign
Our gloom-pleased eyes, embower'd from the light,
Enshaded in forgetfulness divine;
O soothest Sleep! if so it please thee, close,
In midst of this thine hymn, my willing eyes,
Or wait the amen, ere thy poppy throws
Around my bed its lulling charities;
Then save me, or the passed day will shine
Upon my pillow, breeding many woes;
Save me from curious conscience, that still lords
Its strength for darkness, burrowing like a mole;
Turn the key deftly in the oiled wards,
And seal the hushed casket of my soul.


Check out other poetic things being shared and collected today by Jama at Jama's Alphabet Soup. Happy Poetry Friday all!

Monday Poetry Stretch - Poems of Peace

In thinking about Veterans Day I read over some of the pieces linked at the Poetry Foundation's page on Veterans Day Poems, as well as some of the entries at The Sandbox. I have a great deal of respect for soldiers, the sacrifices they make, and the work they do. We wouldn't be who we are without them. That's why this week, I want to write about peace, something we should all be working towards.

I hope you'll join me this week in writing a poem for peace, or perhaps one for soldier. Please share a link to your poem or the poem itself in the comments.

2 Days Late for a Birthday Milestone

On November 6, 2006 (that was 7 years ago!), I launched this blog. Here's a picture of that post.

At that time I was still teaching our technology course and was looking to expand my work with students. 

I've come a LONG way since I started my first web site in the spring of 1995 (yes, you read that correctly). Back then my web pages were all written in HTML. Now this web stuff is so much easier.

I haven't been around much as of late, but am trying hard to reconnect with the community that first embraced me and brought me into the blogging fold. I am so grateful for all the wonderful people I've connected with, many of whom I've had the pleasure of meeting in real life.

So, I'm wishing myself a belated happy birthday while thanking you all from the bottom of my heart. I'm so grateful every time you stop by.

Poetry Friday - For the Chipmunk in My Yard

I've long been a reader of and subscriber to American Life in Poetry. American Life in Poetry is a free weekly column for newspapers and online publications featuring a poem by a contemporary American poet and a brief introduction to the poem by Ted Kooser. The sole mission of this project is to promote poetry.

If you subscribe, each week you get a lovely little gift of poetry in your inbox. What could be better? If you stop by online, you can print out a PDF of your favorite columns.

Here's one of my favorite fall selections from this project.

For the Chipmunk in My Yard 
by Robert Gibb

I think he knows I’m alive, having come down
The three steps of the back porch
And given me a good once over. All afternoon
He’s been moving back and forth,
Gathering odd bits of walnut shells and twigs,
While all about him the great fields tumble

Read the poem in its entirety.

Check out other poetic things being shared and collected today by Diane at Random Noodling. Happy Poetry Friday all!

Monday Poetry Stretch - Cinquain

Poets.org defines the cinquain in this fashion.

The cinquain, also known as a quintain or quintet, is a poem or stanza composed of five lines. Examples of cinquains can be found in many European languages, and the origin of the form dates back to medieval French poetry. 

The most common cinquains in English follow a rhyme scheme of ababb, abaab or abccb. 

I'll admit that the first part of this definition was unfamiliar to me. It was only this second part that I recognized.

Adelaide Crapsey, an early twentieth-century poet, used a form of 22 syllables distributed among the five lines in a 2, 4, 6, 8, and 2 pattern, respectively. Her poems share a similarity with the Japanese tanka, another five-line form, in their focus on imagery and the natural world.

This is the form that is taught in schools alongside haiku and diamante, though I'm not fond of the didactic approach generally taken, which consists of listing words related to a topic (adjectives, action verbs, etc.) .

If you are looking for some guidance, Kenn Nesbitt has a nice page on how to write a cinquain.

For a bit of inspiration, here's an example by Adelaide Crapsey.

Snow

Look up…
From bleakening hills
Blows down the light, first breath
Of wintry wind…look up, and scent
The snow!


I hope you'll join me this week in writing a cinquain (or two). Please share a link to your poem or the poem itself in the comments.

Poetry Friday - November Night and Triad

I've been reviewing poetic forms while selecting topics for my Monday Poetry Stretch series. Since cinquain will be coming up soon, I thought I'd share a few examples today.

November Night

by Adelaide Crapsey

Listen.

With faint dry sound,

Like steps of passing ghosts,

The leaves, frost-crisp'd, break from the trees

And fall.

You might know Adelaide Crapsey as the inventor of the cinquain. Even though she authored fewer than 100 poems, her work is spare, yet powerful. Writing through illness and her impending death, much of her work touches on death and dying. Here's an example of one of those poems.

Triad

by Adelaide Crapsey

These be

Three silent things:

The falling snow…the hour

Before the dawn…the mouth of one

Just dead.

You can learn more about Crapsey at The Poetry Foundation. If you want to read more of her poetry (she did write more than cinquains), take a look at Verse by Adelaide Crapsey.

Check out other poetic things being shared and collected today by Linda at Teacher Dance. Happy Poetry Friday all!

Happy Halloween - A Bit 'O Shakespeare

Macbeth: Act 4, Scene 1

A dark cave. In the middle, a boiling cauldron.
Thunder. Enter the three Witches.

First Witch 
Thrice the brinded cat hath mew'd.

Second Witch 
Thrice and once the hedge-pig whined.

Third Witch 
Harpier cries "'Tis time, 'tis time."

First Witch 
Round about the cauldron go;
In the poison'd entrails throw.
Toad, that under cold stone
Days and nights has thirty-one
Swelter'd venom sleeping got,
Boil thou first i' the charmed pot.

All
Double, double, toil and trouble;
Fire burn, and cauldron bubble.

Second Witch 
Fillet of a fenny snake,
In the cauldron boil and bake;
Eye of newt and toe of frog,
Wool of bat and tongue of dog,
Adder's fork and blind-worm's sting,
Lizard's leg and howlet's wing,
For a charm of powerful trouble,
Like a hell-broth boil and bubble.

All
Double, double, toil and trouble;
Fire burn and cauldron bubble.

Third Witch 
Scale of dragon, tooth of wolf,
Witches' mummy, maw and gulf
Of the ravin'd salt-sea shark,
Root of hemlock digg'd i' the dark,
Liver of blaspheming Jew,
Gall of goat, and slips of yew
Silver'd in the moon's eclipse,
Nose of Turk and Tartar's lips,
Finger of birth-strangled babe
Ditch-deliver'd by a drab,
Make the gruel thick and slab:
Add thereto a tiger's chaudron,
For the ingredients of our cauldron.

All
Double, double, toil and trouble;
Fire burn and cauldron bubble.

Second Witch 
Cool it with a baboon's blood,
Then the charm is firm and good.

Monday Poetry Stretch - 13 Ways of Looking at Fall

This weekend I was savoring Wallace Steven's wonderful poem, Thirteen Ways of Looking at a Blackbird. I began to think that looking at fall in this way might be an interesting thing to do. Now, you don't need to come up with 13 stanzas of your own. Perhaps we could write this as a modified renga, each contributing a verse or two.

Here are the stanzas I'm starting with (I think).

Why is autumn

fall?

Is it cooling temperatures?

Dampening spirits

as summer fades away?

Could it be as simple

as dropping leaves?

II

Ripe, round, juicy

delights picked 

and turned into

steaming, cinnamon slathered pies

 

However you want to approach it, the challenge this week is to write a few stanzas (or more!) about fall. Please share a link to your poem or the poem itself in the comments.

Poetry Friday - Zero by Eve Merriam

In honor of the holiday just 6 short days away, I'm sharing a poem in the spirit of the season.
I love the 1987 publication Halloween ABC, written by Eve Merriam and illustrated by Lane Smith. However, I must say that I am even fonder of the 2002 revised and retitled edition Spooky ABC. Besides the absolutely pitch-perfect poems and illustrations, one of the most interesting things about the book is the section at the end entitled "The Awful Truth Behind The Making Of Spooky ABC." In it, Lane Smith describes how the first book and revised edition came about. This section also includes images that were created for the first book, but ultimately dropped because Merriam's poems suggested other illustrations. For example, vampire was lost to viper, tree to trap, and cat to crawler. (I do LOVE the cat illustration, as well as the one for invisible. I wish you could see them!)

Today I'm sharing the poem for the letter Z.

Zero
by Eve Merriam

Round blank
Round blank
Only bubbles
mark where it sank.

What was the secret,
what was the prize?
Nothing but hollow
holes for eyes.

Where did it come from,
and where did it go?
No one alive
will ever know.

Check out other poetic things being shared today at Live Your Poem. Wish Irene a happy 1000th post while you're there. Happy Poetry Friday all!

Monday Poetry Stretch - Rictameter

Created in 1990 by two cousins, rictameter is a nine line poetry form in which the 1st and last lines are the same. The syllable count is 2/4/6/8/10/8/6/4/2.

You can learn more about this relatively young form at Wikipedia, or read some examples at Shadow Poetry.

I hope you'll join me this week in writing a poem in the form of rictameter. Please share a link to your poem or the poem itself in the comments.

Poetry Friday - Mortimer Minute

I hope Mortimer isn't too angry that I finished off the last of the fresh celery greens last night while making a pot of yummy vegetable soup. I promise to head to the farmer's market tomorrow to get him something green and leafy if he promises to stick around!

I've been absent from Poetry Friday for quite a while now, so Laura Purdie Salas thought this might be a way to get me back into the swing of things. I think she just might be right! Like Laura, I'm not much of a meme girl, but this one was too much fun to pass up.

So, without further ado, I'm jumping into the Children's Poetry Blog Hop head first. Many thanks to Laura for the invite!

Here’s how to hop “Mortimer Minute” style!

• Answer 3 questions. Pick one question from the previous Hopper. Add two of your own. Keep it short, please! This is a Blog Hop, not a Blog Long Jump. This is The Mortimer Minute—not The Mortimer Millennium!
• Invite friends. Invite 1-3 bloggers who love children’s poetry to follow you. They can be writers, teachers, librarians, or just plain old poetry lovers.
• Say thank you. In your own post, link to The Previous Hopper. Then keep The Mortimer Minute going — let us know who your Hoppers are and when they plan to post their own Mortimer Minute.

Mortimer's got some friends waiting, so let's go!

Photo by Camilo Gonzalez

Mortimer: Is there a children’s poem that you wish you had written?

Mortimer, you really can't expect me to pick just one! There are so many that I love for so many different reasons. Since growing up next door to a dairy farm, I've always had a fondness for cows. This means that I wish I had written just one of the many cow-themed poems penned by Alice Schertle. Here's one of my favorites.

Taradiddle

She landed hard,

they say,

and afterward was slightly lame.

For several days

the curious came to stare,

and many hoped

that she would dare

to try the trick again.

They went away dissatisfied.

She never tried

to jump again,

but gazed for hours at the moon.

They never found the dish and spoon.

Poem ©Alice Schertle. All rights reserved.

Mortimer: Do you have a favorite poetry book from childhood?

I certainly do! It's called THE PEDALING MAN AND OTHER POEMS and is written by Russell Hoban. Here's a photo of my well-worn and much beloved book. It was published in 1968. I'm not sure when I got it, but I remember it well. Growing up near the Erie Canal, Genesee River, and Lake Ontario I was very familiar with water, but it was this poem of Hoban's that captivated me. 

Old Man Ocean

by Russell Hoban

Old Man Ocean, how do you pound

Smooth glass rough, rough stones round?

     Time and the tide and the wild waves rolling,

     Night and the wind and the long gray dawn.

Old Man Ocean, what do you tell,

What do you sing in the empty shell?

     Fog and the storm and the long bell tolling,

     Bones in the deep and brave men gone.

Mortimer: If you could host a dinner party and invite three poets, who would you choose?
Oh Mortimer, that question is just so unfair. Since I'm a rule-breaker, I'll give you two answers. If I could dine with the dead, my choices would be Emily Dickinson, Robert Frost, and Walt Whitman. Of folks writing poetry today, I'd choose J. Patrick Lewis, Helen Frost, and Avis Harley. (Yes, I left out some AMAZING poets, but I'm going to gloat for just a moment and tell you that I have shared meals with some of them!)

That's it for me and my Mortimer Minute. Next week the the Children's Poetry Blog Hop continues with Robyn Hood Black, an author and poet I had the honor of sharing many fabulous meals with while attending a Highlights Foundation workshop.

Robyn is the author of Sir Mike (Scholastic) and Wolves (Intervisual Books) and writes poetry, fiction, and nonfiction. Her poetry appears in The Poetry Friday Anthology and The Poetry Friday Anthology for Middle School (Sylvia Vardell and Janet Wong, Pomelo Books), in Georgia Heard's anthology of found poems, The Arrow Finds Its Mark (Roaring Brook), and in leading haiku journals. Her fiction has appeared in Highlights and her poetry has been featured in Ladybug and Hopscotch. She also creates "art for your literary side" through her business, artsyletters.

Check out other poetic things being shared today at Merely Day by Day. Happy Poetry Friday all!

Monday Poetry Stretch - Kyrielle

I seem to be stuck on repeating forms these days. There is something challenging about fitting the same line(s) into a poem and making it work.

A kyrielle is a French from that was originally used by Troubadours. In the original French kyrielle, lines had eight syllables. Written in English, the lines are usually iambic tetrameters. The distinctive feature of a kyrielle is the refrain in which the final line of every stanza is the same. The name of the form comes from the word kyrie, a form of prayer in which the phrase "Lord have mercy" (kyrie eleison) is repeated.

A kyrielle can be any length as long as it is written in 4 line stanzas of iambic tetrameters. A kyrielle also has a rhyme scheme. Two popular forms are aabB/ccbB/ddbB etc. or abaB/cbcB/dbdB etc., where B is the repeated refrain.

Here is an example of the form.

Kyrielle
by John Payne

A lark in the mesh of the tangled vine,
A bee that drowns in the flower-cup's wine,
A fly in sunshine,--such is the man.
All things must end, as all began.

A little pain, a little pleasure,
A little heaping up of treasure;
Then no more gazing upon the sun.
All things must end that have begun.

Where is the time for hope or doubt?
A puff of the wind, and life is out;
A turn of the wheel, and rest is won.
All things must end that have begun.

Golden morning and purple night,
Life that fails with the failing light;
Death is the only deathless one.
All things must end that have begun.

Ending waits on the brief beginning;
Is the prize worth the stress of winning?
E'en in the dawning day is done.
All things must end that have begun.

Weary waiting and weary striving,
Glad outsetting and sad arriving;
What is it worth when the goal is won?
All things must end that have begun.

Speedily fades the morning glitter;
Love grows irksome and wine grows bitter.
Two are parted from what was one.
All things must end that have begun.

Toil and pain and the evening rest;
Joy is weary and sleep is best;
Fair and softly the day is done.
All things must end that have begun.

If you want to learn more about the kyrielle you can read this Wikipedia entry or the article Kyrielle: The Kyrie Reformed.

I hope you'll join me this week in writing a kyrielle. Please share a link to your poem or the poem itself in the comments.

Poetry Friday - She Runs

Laura Salas has done a spectacular job in her poetry Friday introduction describing the Poetry Seven's recent foray into writing pantoums. The only requirement was the form and that we use the line “I’ve got better things to do than survive,” from Ani DiFranco’s song Swandive. I have the album this song is on, so I did not listen to it while I was writing for fear that my poem might too closely resemble the song.

I wish I could explain in some eloquent manner how this poem came to be. It actually began to form while I was walking to work and watching the many people jogging past me. I started thinking about how much I despise running and how sometimes in life it's a struggle to finish the course I've set for myself. With the song lyric in mind, a desire to make the poem rhyme and move a bit like a runner, this is what I came up with. I did take some liberties with the lyric, but you can still see a bit of it in here.

Thanks to my poetry sisters for holding my feet to the fire and encouraging me not only to write, but to share.

She Runs

This day I am alive
up and racing with the sun
I’ll do better than survive
though I’ve only just begun

Up and racing with the sun
breathing morning’s sweet bouquet
I’ve only just begun
to watch the pavement slip away

Breathing morning’s sweet bouquet
clock the miles beneath my feet
watching pavement slip away
down a sleepy, city street

Clock the miles beneath my feet
breathing hard and fading fast
down a sleepy, city street
more mile markers passed

Breathing hard and fading fast
I’ll do better than survive
last mile marker passed
this day I am alive!


I hope you visit the other Poetry Seven blogs today and see how crazy talented these women are and how very different poems revolving around the same line can be. Here's where you'll find them.

Tanita S. Davis - The Mother Load
Kelly Fineman - On My List
Sara Lewis Holmes
Laura Purdie Salas - Buckled Bricks
Liz Garton Scanlon - And This, and This and  The Food Movement (2 poems!)
Andromeda Jazmon Sibley - Moth Sisters

While you're at Laura's place, don't forget to check out the rest of the Poetry Friday entries being shared this week. Happy poetry Friday all!

Monday Poetry Stretch - Rondel/Roundel

A rondel is a variation of the roundeau. In the book A Kick in the Head: An Everyday Guide to Poetic Forms, Paul Janeczko calls it a roundel and defines it this way.

A roundel is a three-stanza poem of 11 lines. The stanzas have four, three, and four lines in them and a rhyme scheme of abab bab abab. Ah, but there's more. Line 4 is repeated as line 11 -- not an easy trick!

The roundel in the book, entitled A Silver Trapeze, was written by Alice Schertle, a woman who once said "Writing poetry is difficult, absorbing, frustrating, satisfying, maddening, intriguing – and I love all of it!" I am so with her!

Here is a roundel about a roundel.

The Roundel
By Algernon Charles Swinburne

A roundel is wrought as a ring or a starbright sphere,
With craft of delight and with cunning of sound unsought,
That the heart of the hearer may smile if to pleasure his ear
A roundel is wrought.

Its jewel of music is carven of all or of aught--
Love, laughter, or mourning--remembrance of rapture or fear--
That fancy may fashion to hang in the ear of thought.

As a bird's quick song runs round, and the hearts in us hear
Pause answer to pause, and again the same strain caught,
So moves the device whence, round as a pearl or tear,
A roundel is wrought.

Will you join me this week in writing a roundel? Please share a link to your poem or the poem itself in the comments.

Tuesday Poetry Stretch - Triolet

It may be "Five O'Clock Somewhere," but it's certainly not Monday anywhere. Sorry for being a bit late on this one.

Since I've been playing around with the pantoum, I want to try another strict verse form this week. I've only written a few triolets, largely because the form scares the heck out of me. A triolet is an eight line poem with a tightly rhymed structure and repeated lines. Here is the form.

line 1 - A
line 2 - B
line 3 - A
line 4 - line 1 repeated
line 5 - A
line 6 - B
line 7 - line 1 repeated
line 8 - line 2 repeated

You can read an example and learn more about this form at Poets.org.

Here is a triolet I particularly like. It comes from the book Fly With Poetry: An ABC of Poetry, written and illustrated by Avis Harley.

Phosphorescence
by Avis Harley

Have you ever swum in a sea
alive with silver light
sprinkled from a galaxy?
Have you ever swum in a sea
littered with glitter graffiti
scribbled on liquid night?
Have you ever swum in a sea
alive with silver light?

Another terrific triolet can be found in Paul Janeczko's A Kick in the Head: An Everyday Guide to Poetic Forms. Written by Alice Schertle, the poem is entitled The Cow's Complaint.

Will you write a triolet with me this week? Please share a link to your poem or the poem itself in the comments.

Rigged Game by Dylan Garity

No one will ever convince me that teaching isn't the hardest job in the world. Here's Dylan Garity's take on teaching and why it's a "rigged game."

Monday Poetry Stretch - Cleaning House

Last week my mother entered a nursing home. I've just returned to Virginia after spending several days looking through the accumulation of 84 years, trying to decide what to keep and what to let go. It's not an easy process. When my father died 4 years ago my mother significantly down-sized, leaving our family home for a much smaller space. Despite it's smaller size, there is still much to consider.

While cleaning house I came across a newspaper clipping regarding a late night automobile accident my father was in. That was a story I never heard as a child! There are the pictures and letters, of course, but sometimes the stories my mother told we more precious than the objects themselves.

This is all a terribly hard business. It makes me want pare down my own possessions and reminds me that the things are not as important as the people.

I don't have a form in mind this week, but I think writing about cleaning house is where I'm going. Won't you join me? Please share a link to your poem or the poem itself in the comments.

Monday Poetry Stretch - Bouts-Rimés

A bouts-rimés poem is created by one person's making up a list of rhymed words and giving it to another person, who in turn writes the lines that end with those rhymes, in the same order they were given.

You can read more at Wikipedia and learn a bit about the history of this form.

For today's stretch I asked a friend to generate a word list for me. (These all came from a poem of note, so kudos to you if you can name it.)

Here is your word list.

night, light, sky, cry, rain, lane, feet, street

I hope you'll write with me this week. Please share a link to your poem or the poem itself in the comments. 

Monday Poetry Stretch - Haiku

I'm quite fond of haiku, though I find it hard to write well. (Actually, I find many forms difficult to master!) When thinking of writing haiku I often return to J. Patrick Lewis' book Black Swan/White Crow, illustrated by Christopher Manson. In the introduction, Lewis describes the form and encourages readers to write their own haiku.

To write a haiku, you might go for a walk in a city park, a meadow, the zoo. Put all your senses on full alert. Watch. Listen. Imagine that what you are seeing or smelling or hearing has never been seen, smelled, or heard before--and may never be again. Now take a picture of it--but only with your words.

The best haiku make you think and wonder for a longer than it takes to say them. I've always loved that last line.

Here's one of the haiku from the book I still think about, especially when I'm at the beach.

Frantic sandpiper

high tides erasing

her footnotes

Poem ©J. Patrick Lewis. All rights reserved.

I hope you'll write some haiku with me this week. I'm thinking a lot about summer's demise and the beginning of fall, so that's where my poems seem to be going. Please share a link to your poem or the poem itself in the comments. 

Monday Poetry Stretch - School Supplies

Some folks are already back at school (myself included), but many begin in earnest tomorrow. After a bit of back-to-school shopping yesterday and some (I'm not too proud to say it) salivating over the shiny new items in the office supply aisle, I can't stop thinking about about my obsession for school supplies.

One of my favorite poems about a school supply item is this one by Daniel J. Langton.

School
by Daniel J. Langton 

I was sent home the first day
with a note: Danny needs a ruler.
My father nodded, nothing seemed so apt.
School is for rules, countries need rulers,
graphs need graphing, the world is straight ahead. 

Read the poem in its entirety.

I hope you'll write a little something about a school supply item this week. Please share a link to your poem or the poem itself in the comments. In the meantime, I'll be dreaming about those colored pencils.

Monday Poetry Stretch - Labor

In a speech given at Barratt Junior High School in Philadelphia on October 26, 1967, Martin Luther King, Jr. asked students "What Is Your Life's Blueprint?". In this speech he said the following about work.

If it falls your lot to be a street sweeper, sweep streets like Michelangelo painted pictures, sweep streets like Beethoven composed music, sweep streets like Leontyne Price sings before the Metropolitan Opera. Sweep streets like Shakespeare wrote poetry. Sweep streets so well that all the hosts of heaven and earth will have to pause and say: Here lived a great street sweeper who swept his job well. If you can't be a pine at the top of the hill, be a shrub in the valley. Be be the best little shrub on the side of the hill.

With Labor Day just one week away, I thought this would be a good time to celebrate those who work day in and day out, without fanfare, without accolades, and often, without notice. I'd like to celebrate those who do the jobs that few of us are inclined to do. I can't imagine where we would be without them.

I hope you'll write about labor this week. Please share a link to your poem or the poem itself in the comments.

Monday Poetry Stretch - Lune

One can find many variations on haiku these days. Often these forms attempt to find a syllabic pattern that is more appropriate to English than Japanese. Today's poetry stretch takes the form of one of these variations.

The lune is a haiku variation invented and named by poet Robert Kelly. The lune, so called because of how the right edge is bowed like a crescent moon, is a thirteen syllable form arranged in three lines of 5 / 3/ 5 respectively.
(Adapted from The Teachers & Writers Handbook of Poetic Forms.)

You can try your hand at writing an instant lune or read some examples by Robert Kelly here.

I wrote these lunes to get us started.

Lune #1
wings beating, whirring
you float there
sipping sweet nectar

Can you guess what I was watching when I wrote this?

Lune #2
watermelon days
rush headlong
toward pencils, books, desks

I suppose none of us can escape this one. I, for one, can't wait!

So, do you want to play? What kind of lunes will you write? Please share a link to your poem or the poem itself in the comments. 

Monday Poetry Stretch - Snowball

It will be in the nineties today, but I'll be keeping cool writing snowball poetry. Here's an introduction.

The OULIPO is a form created in 1960 by a writer and mathematician. The form is designed to examine verse written under strict constraints. There are many constraint forms. Snowball is one of these forms.

• Snowball: A poem in which each line is a single word, and each successive word is one letter longer. This form could also start with one word with each line growing by one word.

You can read more about this form at Wikipedia and Poets.org. The official site is here, but alas, I do not read French. (However, the Google language tools are somewhat helpful.)

There is an interesting article entitled Snowballs and Other Numerate Acts of Textuality that has a nice introduction to the form. YOu can find this snowball poem by John Newman there.

I am now post haste (sort of) posting new topic to discuss. do you enjoy constraints? does word play give headeaches? are you confused? This is a snowball, A poetic form which was created by those who group themselves with the name of Oulipo. Every line contains one Additional letter. U like?

I hope you'll join me in writing a snowball poem this week. Please share a link to your poem or the poem itself in the comments. Have fun with this one!

Monday Poetry Stretch - Tanka

Tanka is a form of Japanese poetry that has been practiced for more than 1000 years. Tanka are composed of 31 syllables in a 5/7/5/7/7 format. Most tanka focus on a single event of some significance.

In her article Tanka as Diary, Amelia Fielden writes:

Tanka, meaning ‘short song’, is a 1300 year old Japanese form of lyric poetry. Non-rhyming, it is composed in Japanese in five phrases of 5/7/5/7/7 syllables.

In English, tanka are normally written in five lines, also without (contrived) rhyme, but in a flexible short/long/short/long/long rhythm. Due to dissimilarities between the two languages, it is preferable not to apply the thirty-one syllable standard of the Japanese poems, to tanka in English. Around twenty-one plus/minus syllables in English produces an approximate equivalent of the essentially fragmentary tanka form, and its lightness. To achieve a “perfect twenty-one”, one could write five lines in 3/5/3/5/5 syllables. If the resulting tanka sounds natural, then that’s fine. However, the syllable counting does not need to be so rigid. Though no line should be longer than seven syllables, and one should try to maintain the short/long/short/long/long rhythm, variations such as 2/4/3/5/5 or 4/6/3/6/7 or 3/6/4/5/6 syllable patterns can all make good tanka.

Tanka Online has a wonderful Quick Start Guide to Writing Tanka. Finally, Atlas Poetica has a terrific post entitled 25 Tanka for Children. The educator's note at the bottom has very useful advice for writing tanka.

Will you write some tanka with us this week? What will you write about? Please share a link to your poem or the poem itself in the comments.