Poetry Friday Writing Exercise

Writing Exercise (Recommended for All Ages) Narrative Poems Poems can tell a story just as well as fiction can. A poem is a great form for capturing a quick episode (like the Galway Kinnell poem, “The Sow Piglet’s Escape” http://writersalmanac.publicradio.org/index.php?date=2005/02/01) or a even swash-buckling epic like “The Highwayman.” http://web.cecs.pdx.edu/~trent/ochs/lyrics/highwayman-orig.html Let’s stick with the theme of loss, which comes up in both poems. Write a narrative poem about something you lost. It can be a pet, a friend, your glasses. Did you find it again? Think about showing (not telling) how you feel about the thing you lost. Another poem on this theme to share with kids is (frequent Dodge Festival reader) Naomi Shihab Nye’s “The Lost Parrot.” (I was not able to find it online, but it is in her collection, Words Under the Words.)

Amok in Poetry I

It’s Poetry Friday. I’m getting ready for my biennial trip home to New Jersey for the Geraldine R. Dodge Poetry Festival http://www.dodgepoetry.org/ The four-day event is at Waterloo Village in northwestern NJ. The Village is the kind of place elementary schoolers studying colonial times go on field trips. It has a church, a weaver’s hut, a blacksmith’s building along its walking paths. There are trees, sheep, and a lovely stream. The scenery is beautiful. The poetry is amazing. Even the food is great. After about an hour, you feel pulled up by Blake’s Golden Thread. A few years ago, I asked poet & children’s author Lucille Clifton what draws so many people to the festival (It’s the largest in the country, with over 60 poets reading.) She said, “Because poetry speaks to something in us that so wants to be filled. It speaks to the great hunger of the soul . . .. I think that this [event] feeds that.” Clifton has been a “Featured Poet” at every festival but the first, 1986. That was my first festival. I was 17, a high school senior and wannabe writer. I have a sensory memory of that first festival. It was a cold morning. I crowded into a little white church, sitting in the pews with my fellow high schoolers. Galway Kinnell was the reader. His deep voice resonated in the woodsy-smelling church. Sun started to shine on us from windows near the ceiling. I remember Kinnell reading his narrative poem: “The Sow Piglet’s Escape.” http://writersalmanac.publicradio.org/index.php?date=2005/02/01 I had never been to a poetry reading before. It was like starting solid foods with caviar. Missed a few festivals during college, but I returned in 1994 as a first year high school English teacher, did a stint on the festival staff, and haven’t missed a Dodge weekend since. More on the poets I’ve heard and met next week. For more information on the Dodge Festival, go to this link: http://www.dodgepoetry.org/ If you are a teacher or student, there’s still time to register for FREE attendance on 9/25 and 9/26. Those days are open to the public, as are 9/27 and 9/28.

Writing Exercise: Mining for Details

This Week’s Writing Exercise (Recommended for Middle School through Adult) Whether you’re writing a ‘tween protagonist or a snooping senior at a retirement home (Eileen!), interviewing people who are living that experience is a gold-mine for realistic details. Ask your kid, your mother, your rabbi, whoever… “What are the top ten things I don’t know about being a middle schooler/senior/rabbi?” You can ask yourself the same question. The top ten things I remember about middle school include a 10-person blacktop/recess conversation about maxi-pads and getting a horrifically bruised arm doing archery in P.E. (Do they still do archery?)

Amok in Middle School: Mining for Details

My middle schooler today -- a crazy 'tween. Same kid in 2006 (first day of school) -- maybe he hasn't changed that much.

Middle school is the educational equivalent of Dante’s Purgatory. Walk into a middle school, and you’ll see why kids this age are called ‘tweens. They are between dependence on adults and the independence of high school. They have the unruly, boisterous bodies of elementary schoolers, but look like young adults. They waiver between self-restraint and craziness. Middle school hallways are wild. That’s the world my 11-year-old now navigates every day. Because I’m a mother and a middle-grade author, I’ve been mining his experience (with permission) for future use. Here are some details about his first week. Feel free to borrow with embellishments. His top 10, “What I’ll remember about my first week of middle school” list is: 10. Friends: kids my son knows from sports, even his preschool playgroup, are now his classmates.

9. Colorful APs: the assistant principal proudly told us that she’s fond of wearing bright, clashing colors. Like the hot pink suit and day-glo orange nail polish she had on at orientation.

8. Lockers: cramming between people at break time makes life at middle school feel hectic.

7. Décor: the geography teacher decorates his room with European football team scarves. Cool!

6. P.E.: boys and girls have different locker rooms. Who knew?

5. More lockers: the craziest “pimp my locker” item he’s seen is a door covered in happy-birthday wrapping paper. I spotted a mini disco-ball.

4. Supplies: the required $100 graphing calculators have not been used in class yet, but they are seeing a lot of action at lunch (they come loaded with games).

3. Quirky teachers: the reading teacher was in the military and enjoyed telling the class that she’s licensed to use a hand grenade and an M-16. She also has pet rats. Scary? Nope. She’s one of the nicest teachers, according to my son.

2. Just plain weird: there is a pink plastic letter K stuck to the ceiling of the band room. No one knows how it got there.

1. And the number one, most exciting thing about middle school…the cafeteria cash register.

I couldn't make this stuff up. I doubt anyone could. But these are the kinds of details that make children's novels great reads. Some “new kid at school” books: the latest Allie Finkle (MG), by Meg Cabot (I haven’t read it yet, but my daughter and I loved the first); the Chocolate War (YA), by Robert Cormier; Looking for Alaska (YA), John Green; for younger readers -- the first Junie B. Jones book.