NPM 2015: What Are You Wearing, Tabatha Yeatts?

Find the official NPM 2015 poster
at the Academy of American Poets

It's the first Friday of National Poetry Month. You know what that means ... a super celebratory Poetry Friday. 

This week's round-up is at Amy Ludwig VanDerwater's The Poem Farm. Want more? Jama Rattigan has a list of kids' lit National Poetry Month projects and celebrations at Alphabet Soup.

All this month, guest bloggers are putting on their finery here at Author Amok. We're doing a month-long feature on poetry about clothes. In addition to the guest posts, every Friday in April I'll post a round-up of original clothing poems. (Send those via email to laurashovan at gmail dot com or leave them in the comments). You'll find a writing prompt at the bottom of this post.

Meet today's guest blogger, poet Tabatha Yeatts. 

Thanks for having me on Author Amok, Laura! I'm sharing poems by the inimitable Greg Pincus. "Greg Pincus" is an interesting poet, don't you think? I mean, have you ever wondered how a man who is always in such a rush that he's "gottabook" somehow manages to write poems on every topic imaginable? Or how "Pincus" abbreviates to "K."? Or how a person who claims to be an "adult" gets into the head of kids so easily? Well, what do you expect from a man who fibs every chance he gets?

“Is this really Greg Pincus?”

Here are some of Greg’s weatherproof, tailor-made, pre-shrunk clothing poems:

My Method For Tying Shoes
by Greg Pincus

Keep your "Bunny Ears" and "loop-de-loops" -
I'll tie shoes with the method I've got.
Oh, sure, it's a mess
Yet there's often success...
So I call it the "Probably Knot."

I Put Each Carrot In a Suit
by Greg Pincus

I put each carrot in a suit.
The lettuce in a scarf (how cute!).
Tomatoes? Ribbons in their hair.
The celery's in underwear.
Sneakers for the kidney beans.
The cucumber's in new blue jeans.
The avocado wore a dress.
The onion's in a tux (oh, yes!).
The jicama's in high-heeled shoes.
The mushroom? Any belt I choose.
The apple is a naked guy.
The olive's in a shirt and tie.
I put the radish in a vest.
There, I think the salad's dressed.

My Favorite Shirt

By Greg Pincus

This shirt is great - the best I’ve worn.

Who cares if it’s all frayed and torn

Or that it’s old, and I’ve been growing

And when I stretch my belly’s showing?

The words it showed in blue and red

Are gone (though I know what they said).

I know it’s stained. That’s good for me:

Each splotch contains a memory.

I love this shirt with all my heart.

I’ll wear it 'til it falls apart.

So wash it, please, with love and caring...

To make it last for one more wearing.

Hat Head

By Gregory K.

I've got hat head really bad.

You say I shouldn't care?

Well, maybe hat head's fine for you,

But me? I have no hair!

Tabatha is a mysterious figure whose home may or may not have a secret room with a tea fountain. There's a rumor she trained under Madam Pomfrey. She probably didn't raise a Golden Snidget from a snidgling. She has been known to write poems about "imaginary" places. You'll find her blogging at The Opposite of Indifference.

Thanks for visiting, Tabatha. Greg, I will never look at my apple the same way again.

ICYMI: In this series...

Introductory Post

Jane Elkin looks in her childhood closet. Poems by Mark Irwin and Ron Koertge.

*Your suggested clothing poem prompt for Friday, April 3: Storage.

Where and how do you keep your clothes? Do they hang in your closet, organized by color? Are they crumpled on the bedroom floor? Are you an organized packer, or do you toss things into a suitcase and hope for the best. I still remember the name of the long-ago camp counselor (Janice) who taught us how to roll our clothes up tight to maximize space.

Send your poems any time. I'll post original work throughout the weekend.

Earlier this week, guest blogger Jane Elkin shared some poems where clothing was a metaphor for a parent/child relationship. That theme appears again in the Paul Hopper sent in. It's by Marc Kelly Smith. Thanks, Paul. I love how Smith uses repetition and plain language to add power to the poem.

My Father's Coat
by Marc Kelly Smith

I'm wearing my father's coat. He has died. I didn't like him, But I wear the coat. I'm wearing the coat of my father, Who is dead. I didn't like him, But I wear the coat just the same. A younger man, stopping me on the street, Has asked, "Where did you get a coat like that?" I answer that it was my father's Who is now gone, passed away. The younger man shuts up. It's not that I'm trying now to be proud of my father. I didn't like him. He was a narrow man. There was more of everything he should have done. More of what he should have tried to understand. The coat fit him well. It fits me now. I didn't love him, But I wear the coat.

Read the rest at SlamPapi.com.

Parrish Lantern left the gift of a poem this morning. I'll have to learn more about French poet Valerie Rouzeau.

I put on my walking shoes

by Valérie Rouzeau 

I put on my walking shoes 
I had shown you with the soles retreaded 
from old tires.
In pilgrim boats I floated to you
petals stuck to the leather as proofs
of my wishes on the way.

If anyone can find a link to the rest of the poem, please let me know and I will post it.

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.