Poetry Friday: Nature Photos

My daughter has been taking our point and shoot camera to the back yard. It's not a huge yard, so I'm amazed at what she finds and photographs there.

This week, I'm sharing a few of her shots. I am working on a tanka in response to one of the photos.

If you're inspired to do so, write a short poem in response to one of these pictures. Or make it an assignment for your class.

Sage Tanka

by Laura Shovan

"Go pick soup greens!"

My daughter brings me handfuls,

Foggy sage leaves.

I wash, chop, do not see

At the center, two cupped hands.

I love the tanka form. The two lines beyond a haiku allow tanka poems to make an interesting turn. Here is my tanka lesson (and a frame sheet to help with writing).

For more information on tanka, visit the Academy of American Poets.

Here are two more of Miss J's nature shots for you to enjoy, or write to:

If you're trying this exercise with younger students, check out the book Haiku Hike (Scholastic). It's exactly what it sounds like -- written by kids, a great combination of outdoor exploration and poetic response.

Thanks to Carol at Carol's Corner for hosting Poetry Friday this week.

Weather Tanka

Here are two more tanka poems from Northfield Elementary third graders. Both happen to be about the weather. Not surprising -- that's all we've been talking about here in central Maryland.

You'll notice that Sean and Lowen paid attention to the form's rules. The upper poem in a tanka includes detailed observations. The lower poem expresses emotion.

See the previous post for my full tanka lesson.

Rain by Sean C.

Trapped inside my house,
I stared out the wet window.
Rain, the plainest taste.
It seemed to be prolonging...
I feel lonely as can be.

"Rain, the plainest taste" -- what a vivid and evocative image. The  next poem is also full of sensory images. I love how Lowen used onomatopoeia without explaining the meaning -- that allows me to picture what's happening in my imagination.


Snow
by Lowen D.

White covers the ground.
When my mom says, "School's out,"
it's cold and it hurts.
I love snow. Shh shh burr burr.
It's so fun to play in.

Thanks, once again, to my students at Northfield and their families. I enjoy sharing these wonderful poems with you -- but I couldn't do it without their permission and enthusiasm for poetry.

Amok in Tanka

If there's one thing third graders know how to do, it's fill the paper edge to edge.

That presents a challenge when we're writing poetry. The stillness, pause and "wait for it" drama you can create with a poetic line and line breaks -- not their natural skill set.


This week, we're trying Tanka. If you'd like to learn more about this ancient Japanese form, visit the Tanka Society of America. The form is popular with poets who favor the spareness of haiku, but want to extend beyond that moment-in-time image into metaphor or emotion.

My first attempt didn't go so well. The concept of five lines was difficult for some children to grasp, so the poems looked paragraphs.

I put my teaching cap on and created a frame. The new lesson works like this:

The children are in small groups of two or three (cooperative learning warm-up). I put a word up on the board: SNOW. We brainstorm all of the associations, feelings and images we can think of. No editing allowed! If I say "monster trucks," it goes on the brainstorming. Maybe my family goes to see the monster truck show every winter.

Next I give each group a word: bird, grass, shell, moon. They do the brainstorming activity on their own. We might share a few with the class after five minutes.

We spend about 15 minutes reading and discussing sample tanka. We try counting syllables, although I tell them the syllables needn't be exact. I explain the upper and lower poem -- a challenging concept that we can continue to work on in later drafts.

And here is the tanka frame, with a student's brainstorming and initial poem filled in.

Much better! I love how this student captures the mixed emotions a powerful animal can give us. Check back for more third grade tanka tomorrow. There is a lesson on teaching students how to create line breaks here.