Amok in Spring Workshops

I'm offering two writing workshops for adults this spring. One is an ongoing class. The other is a full day workshop with author Edie Hemingway at her fab log cabin. With a campfire lunch! First, the class: I'm back at Baltimore's CityLit Project, this time at their home base, the Creative Alliance. You'll love this course description for Write Here, Write Now: Poetry Café: Small Plates to Tempt Your Writing Palate You don’t have to be a gourmet to enjoy good food. Sample a variety of poetic styles and forms in this workshop for beginners. The Poetry Café is dishing out model poems and writing exercises for you to try. Through reading and writing, you’ll discover new tastes and flavors to add to your own literary menu. Yummy! (I must be hungry.) My class is running 8 Thursday evenings beginning in late March. Visit CityLit's website for details and registration info. Those new to writing poetry are especially welcome. On to the workshop. To celebrate National Poetry Month, novelist Edie Hemingway and I are offering an all-day poetry workshop for writers of all genres. It's on Saturday, April 18. Spring Cleaning: Finding a Fresh Literary Vision Through Poetry The workshop includes a campfire lunch and four sessions. Edie (whose middle grade novel "The Road to Tater Hill" is coming out from Delacorte in September!!!) is doing sessions on poetic language and "disconnecting habitual ways of thinking and writing." I'll be doing a session on simple odes and leading haiku hike -- nature walk and writing. Both forms focus on calling the writer (and reader) to attention. Edie's place is a beautiful log cabin in Frederick, MD -- wooded, mountains. Plus, did I mention the campfire lunch? Visit Edie's website for info. This one has a maximum enrollment of 15 and we've got 10 signed up already, so get going! Children's authors -- I'll be posting info soon about the MD/DE/WV Society of Children's Book Writers and Illustrators conferences for 2009. The March 7, one day conference brochure is posted here. Registration deadline is 2/22, but if you want a critique send your stuff in sooner. (I'll be working registration and moderating the faculty panel discussion.) The regional SCBWI annual two-day shindig will be in mid-July. If you're a fan of the Purple Crayon website, you'll want to be at that conference (hint, hint). Hope to see you this spring!

Poetry Friday Takeover

Kids Rule!

The literature entries for PTA Reflections arrived yesterday. I’m judging the arts competition (literary portion only) at the state level this year, 128 entries K-12 in Maryland. One winner at each level goes on to compete nationally.

Looking at the stack of papers takes me back to my days teaching high school English.

Since I’ll be working on the entries, my kids are taking over today’s Poetry Friday post. Both have an original poem to share. One is a personification poem. The other is a metaphor poem. Enjoy!

The Runaway Cupcake By NinjaGirl, Grade 3 (Inspired by Calef Brown’s poem, “The Runaway Waffle”) Victaria bites Cupcake. Cupcake dashes out the door. Victaria jumps out of the seat, and runs right after her. Victaria runs and runs and runs. Cupcake never stops. Victaria starts to slow on down and goes to a coffee shop. So if you see a cupcake running down the street, you’ll know that it’s Victaria’s deliciously sweet treat.

My Family is a Snare Drum By DJRobMan, Grade 6 (English Assignment: Family Metaphor Poem) My family is a snare drum, Playing its own beat. All the parts work together To make loud, exciting music. My father is heads of the drum. There can’t be any music without the heads. Without the heads, The drum would just be metal, Incomplete. My mother is the stand Holding the snare drum up. The stand always supports the drum. It allows the sound to be clear. My sister is the rim of the snare drum, Strong, supportive, and confident, Keeping the drum together. If there was no rim, The drum would fall apart. My dog is the snares of the drum, Loud when it is on, Keeping the drum lively, Connected to the switcher and the rim. And I, I am the switcher, Switching tones By taking the snares on or off. Taking the drum from deep tom-tom To an active snare. These parts of a snare drum All work together To make loud, exciting music That makes my heart pound. "Pound?" My heart's about to burst, I'm so proud. While I get out my tissues, visit Suzanne at Adventures in Daily Living for more Poetry Friday offerings.

Audubon Poetic Resources

I know posted a goodbye to Frere Flamingo, but it's hard to let go. In December and January, we travelled to six classrooms together! He's one popular bird.

Matthew Smith, one of the other poets working on "Totally Ekphrastic: Picturing America through Poetry," recommended some grown-up poetry related to John James Audubon's work.

Claudia Emerson's book Late Wife includes an Audubon poem. Robert Penn Warren has a book entitled "Audubon: A Vision." I'm sure there are more Audubon related books and poems out there (please comment with any you know.) What a fascinating person.

I'll be reading poetry related to Audubon, because it's hard to let go.

Here is a selection from the Warren book:

Love and Knowledge

Their footless dance

Is of the beautiful liability of their nature.

Their eyes are round, boldly convex, bright as a jewel,

And merciless. They do not know

Compassion, and if they did,

We should not be worthy of it. They fly

In air that glitters like fluent crystal

Read the rest of the poem here.

Trust me, it's worth following the link. Kids are fascinated that Audubon killed his subjects in order to study, then pose them. You'll be amazed at what Warren does with this fact in his poem.

Writing Exercise: A Tasty Treat

Recommended for: All ages, all genres

On Poetry Friday, I shared Laura Purdie's Salas' poem "Come in, Come in!" about a snake enjoying its dinner.

Food is evocative. Eating involves all five senses (taste, smell, touch, hearing, seeing). But food also connects us to memory. That's what makes food such a good writing prompt.

Writing Exercise: Food Glorious Food!

Step 1: Wake up your senses.

Take an object. "Experience" it with all five senses. I use baby powder with students (more on that later). Yes, we taste a tiny bit. If it wasn't safe, we wouldn't use it on babies.

Step 2: Write about it.

For each of your five senses, write a simile. Example..."The baby powder tastes like Violet Gum." The kind my English grandmother chewed. I'm suddenly awash in her smell, how her hugs felt, the soft curls of her hair.

Now, we're getting somewhere.

Step 3: Read a model poem.

You can find wonderful food poems for kids in, "Food Fight" (ed. Rosen, sadly out of print but you can still find it). However -- we're going a little deeper in this prompt.

Just as the taste of baby powder grabbed my hand and took me for a jog down memory lane, we're trying to connect a food to something more. A memorable incident. A person.

My favorite model poem for this exercise is by Sandra Cisneros:

Good Hotdogs

for Kiki

Fifty cents apiece To eat our lunch We'd run Straight from school Instead of home Two blocks Then the store That smelled like steam You ordered Because you had the money Two hotdogs and two pops for here Everything on the hotdogs Except pickle lily Dash those hotdogs Into buns and splash on All that good stuff Yellow mustard and onions And french fries piled on top all Rolled up in a piece of wax Paper for us to hold hot In our hands

Read the rest of the model poem here.

Kids as young as third grade love hunting through the poem for clues about who Cisneros means by "us." The last lines of the poem "you humming and me swinging my legs" sends the reader off with a tactile image of contentedness.

Step 4: Write!

Write about a favorite (or hated) food. Use all five senses. Include who you were with, where you were and what was going on around you.

A memorable moment for me: at a third grade Poets' Tea, one student read a poem about his grandmother making oatmeal for his breakfast. Grandma, Mom, teachers -- we all started tearing up. Turns out, Grandma wasn't much into cooking. Our young poet captured making oatmeal as an act of love.

Another student (different school) wrote about eating cake at her birthday party and learning for the first time that a favorite friend was her cousin.

And one I've saved for years: a boy writing about rough-housing with his cousins at a family reunion, only to be drawn to the kitchen by a delicious smell. When they opened the pot on the stove, the family was cooking a goat's head. (He said the meat was as good as it smelled.)

Have fun playing with your food!