National Poetry Month

Alright, folks. Now is as good a time as any to jump back on the poetry horse. It's the first day of April, so in addition to being a day where students try to put rubber mice on my desk and electrocute me with "broken" pens, it is the first day of National Poetry Month. It has also been one year (minus a few days) since I first started this blog and one year (plus a few days) since a good friend pushed me back into the poetry pool. This year, another good friend has challenged herself to write a poem every day this month, and I think I'm going to crash that party and attempt to do the same.

Looking through my notebook, there are lots of ideas and half-poems I could finish if I gave them the time and attention, so that's a good place to start. If my crazy life overwhelms me again, I am at least going to fall back on posting a new (to me) poem I like on here each day so that I'm reading more. I may live to regret these words 30 days from now.

Here's a start: Today was scheduled to be a Writer's Workshop day in my classroom, so I made today's topic poetry. I told the kids about National Poetry Month, told them my personal goal of a poem every day, and read a few poems out loud. Then, we (yes, WE this time; I got to write too!) wrote three poems, each based on a picture. I told them to start with something easy like an acrostic poem if they didn't think of themselves as much of a poet, but many of them went above and beyond with free verse, limericks, haiku, etc. That's characteristic of this group (which has been wonderful for me as a first-year teacher), but it's still refreshing whenever it happens. Overall, today was a resounding success, so if nothing else, I can fill this weekend's slots with these three quick poems.

The first picture:

The first poem:

Crabby

Speckled carpet beneath my toes
doesn't stick like wet sand.
A feeble lamp is no replacement
for an absent sun,
and the smell in here
is far from fresh sea salt.
Freely wandering the patch of beach
on my whiteboard...
I envy the crab.

April 1st, 2011