Pantone Poetry Friday: 2014 Poetry Project

Happy Poetry Friday, Writerly Friends. I am announcing a Pantone® Poetry Project giveaway today! But first...

Do not listen to the calendar. It cannot be February 21 already. In actuality, it is Day 19 of the Pantone® Poetry Project. If you're new to Author Amok or the project, you can read all about it at this post.

Next, stop by Karen Edmisten's blog for all the Poetry Friday links and a lovely poem from Richard Wilbur.

Today, we have two paint colors to inspire us, Orange Pepper and Soothing Sea.

Day 19 Orange Pepper
Pantone ®  16-1164

Day 19 Soothing Sea
Pantone ®  12-5209

In a moment of laziness Just for fun, I decided to try using an online form for today's poem. Diamantes are a perfect poetic form for plugging-in -- kind of like poetry Mad Libs.

A Poetry MadLib from the Poetry Foundation.
Find the whole article here.

My moment of inspiration came when I found this diamante form, which called for starting and ending on opposites.

Wait a minute -- could a hot, spicy orange pepper and a soothing sea be considered opposites? You bet.

Pantone Diamante
by Laura Shovan

pepper

orange, spicy

crunches, heats, burns

shiny glisten, smooth curves

sprays, froths, floats

salty, soothing

sea

Poetry Friday blogger Linda Baie has contributed regularly to the Pantone Project. This is one of those days where each poet's response to the colors is wildly different.

Orange Pepper, Please

by Linda Baie (Teacher Dance)

My feline sweetheart,

tabby orange, Pepper-named,

purring and lap-sitting

belies her name.

Linda Baie © All Rights Reserved

This orange and white tabby looks
like our long-ago sweet boy, Nutmeg.
Photo: MSCPA

And Diane Mayr of Random Noodling is in with a delicious haiku.

in from the cold 
--red and orange peppers 
roasting

Did you picture peppers, but also a roaring fire place? I did.

Margaret Simon (Reflections on the Teche) used this writing prompt to find her way in to today's color poem: 

• Wear it: Imagine you are putting on an article of clothing in this color. What happens when you walk out your front door?

I bought a tangerine purse--

orange pepper for my shoulder.

My daughter said I looked like I was carrying a satsuma.

The mailman asked if I had anything toxic or potentially hazardous.

But you said, 

"Hey, I see sunshine on your shoulder.

Let's walk together."

by Margaret Simon

Donna Smith of Mainely Write closes us out today. Like me, she saw Orange Pepper and Soothing Sea as potential opposites. I love the form her Orange Pepper takes.

orange pepper
buoys bobbing
marking traps
below
waves lapping
slapping my boat
I pause before
hauling
staring into the
soothing sea

by Donna Smith

Feel free to leave an Orange Pepper poem or a Soothing Sea sonnet in the comments. I will post it as soon as possible.

There will be no Pantone Poetry posts this weekend.

1) Saturday is my birthday.
2) I will be in New York for SCBWI. Therefore
3) I'm taking a few days off from blogging.

Will you be at the conference? I'll be the girl in the party hat.

One of my favorite pages in all
of children's literature is from
Go, Dog. Go! by P.D. Eastman

Why should I be the only one to celebrate on my birthday? You've all been such fabulous collaborators and comrades during the Pantone® Poetry Project. I think YOU deserve a gift.

I'm giving away prizes to the five authors who share the most written responses to our daily colors. Each of you will receive a set of five Pantone Postcards -- good for writing inspiration. The author who checks in most often with a poem, AKA The Winner, will earn a Pantone® Writerly Notebook, with my compliments.

This notebook, in all its colorful
glory, could be yours!

While I'm enjoying the City that Never Sleeps with a few thousand of my kids' lit buddies, you'll have extra days to write in response to the Day 20 colors. They are:

Day 20 Silver Bullet
Pantone ®  17-3933

And, fitting for the city that inspired "Rhapsody in Blue" ...

Day 20 Rhapsody
Pantone ®  16-3817