We Got the Beat: Fibonacci Poems Part 2

Happy Poetry Friday!

I am in residence at Northfield Elementary this month. We started the visit with Fibonacci poems. Today, I am sharing Part 2 of the lesson. You will find Part 1 here, with some student poems.

Fibs were invented, as a poetic form, by Poetry Friday blogger Gregory K. Pincus (GottaBook). The blogosphere went kind of crazy for them, enough so that the New York Times featured Gregory and the Fib trend.

Even though the form is only four years old, there are e-zines devoted to Fibonacci poems: Fibetry,  The Fib Review. Here are some Fibs I liked at The Science Creative Quarterly.

Yesterday, I shared Robert Bly's poem "Conversation with a Mouse" with the students. This helped me introduce the idea that a poem can move from very small (a mouse's nest) to extremely large (the Milky Way galaxy) in just a few lines.

From Atlas of the Universe. The Milky Way's shape
follows the Fibonacci pattern.

Next, we read some of  Sarah C. Campbell's book Growing Patterns as I introduced the math concept behind the Fibonacci sequence. We also looked at examples of the pattern in nature.

We're almost ready to write. I adapted Gregory's blog post on Fibonacci poems to create a handout.

We read a few sample Fibs. Since I am asking the students to write about something science-related, I used the fib "Moon." This was written at Patrick Henry Elementary school with my friend, Karren Alenier as the resident poet.

…….....................MOON

 …….....................Bright
 ……...................And shiny
…….................Seen at night
……...............Different phases
............The many whitish gray craters
Looking like a sweet old man smiling happily down

Thanks to Karren for permission to post the poem. You'll find more Fibonacci info at poet Karren Alenier's blog.

Next, we wrote a Fib as a whole class. I created a form for this step. It looks something like:

Give it a try -- grow a Fib poem.

A Fib is 6 lines long (longer, if you wish) and only has 20 syllables.

1:

1:

2:

3:

5:

8:

Keep going?

13:

21:

34:

As we worked, I reviewed the math with the class. (0 = blank line, line 1 has 1 beat, add 0+1=1 so line 2 has 1 beat, add 1+2=3, 2=3=5, and so on -- always adding the syllables in the two previous lines to figure out the number of beats in the next line.)

A lot of us were counting on fingers and tapping on desks while we did this.

Ms. Pruitt's class has been studying pendulums. I like the rocking feeling in their class Fib.

a

pen-

dulum

makes round trips

gravity pulling

swinging back and forth, on and on

From wikipedia

Ms. Hoge's class was ambitious, taking their scientific poem to eight lines.

Space

Stars

Shining

Everywhere

Millions and millions

The sun is a very big star

The Earth is lone little spot in the Solar System

The same matter form the stars helps make up part of human beings, like Mrs. Hoge's class!

The class soon figured out that the initial five lines of the poem have a minimal feel -- the economy of language we talk so much about in poetry. From there, the lines become expansive. The poem begins to feel like a jigsaw puzzle, fitting all the pieces together and squeezing in extra syllables to get the right number of beats.

Last, the children wrote their own Fibs.

Amaiya B's Fib

Seed

ground

growing

now little

going to grow big

growing big and pretty petals

now a big, pretty flower with a long, leafy stem

My seeds blow away now through the air. I wonder where they go, far or right next to me.

Gavin F's Fib

rain

is

a type

of weather,

it's all wet outside

walking in mud getting shoes dirty

Ellis K's Fib

Trees

leaves

branches

falling leaves

roots drinking water

animals live inside of trees

I am swinging on a rope swing from its long branches

green, yellow, red and brown leaves falling down and people jumping into piles of leaves

Shelby K's Fib

trees

grow

blowing

fruit blossoms

redwood, maple

calms my nerves and fun to climb up

From apartmenttherapy.com
Have you ever tried growing an avocado by
placing the seed in water?

Thank you to the families of these students for allowing me to share their wonderful poems.

You'll find links to more Poetry Friday posts at Elaine's blog, Wild Rose Reader.