Water Poems

I live on an island, surrounded by water.

So it's not surprising that I want to devote our last week of National Poetry Month to water poetry.


Water is life-giving. It's also beautiful, and wet, and wild and wonderful, which is why so many poets use water images. 

Water also turns into ice, like in "Woman Skating" by Margaret Atwood:

With arms wide the skater

turns, leaving her breath like a diver's

trail of bubbles.

Seeing the ice 

as what is is, water. 

Here's "Water Music" by Robert Creeley, with its dark mood:

The words are a beautiful music.

The words bounce like in water.

Water music,

loud in the clearing

off the boats,

birds, leaves.

They look for a place

to sit and eat-

no meaning,

no point. 

And here's the start of the fun, silly "Duck's Ditty" by Kenneth Grahame: 

All along the backwater,

Through the rushes tall,

Ducks are a-dabbling,

Up tails all! 

What is YOUR water poem? Is it about the ocean? A lake? A stream? An icy pond? Or a duck? 

Find your own images and let yourself get wet with water words!

Onomatopoeia for Earth Day

It's perfect that Earth Day falls in April, which is National Poetry Month.

This Earth Day, I want to combine two things I love: animals and onomatopoeia. 

In case you haven't heard of this wonderful word, onomatopoeia (pronounced ah-no-mah-to-PEE-ah) refers to a word that's formed from the sound it makes.

sizzle, crunch, cuckoo, tick-tock, fizz

Can you think of more? 



Animal sounds have great onomatopoeia:

oink, meow, chirp, hiss, ribbit, croak, squeak, quack

To celebrate Earth Day, let's write a poem using animal onomatopoeia. Here's mine:

Croaking and Squawking

The crow croaks at the mouse

Who squeaks at the sheep

Who bleats at the cat

Who mews at the dog

Who yowls at the pig

Who oinks at the raven

Who caws at the parrot

Who squawks at me that it's time to eat. 

Try making your own poetry animals "talk" with onomatopoeia.

Recite your poem out loud on Earth Day, or read it to your pets. For extra zing, add your own sound effects!

Rhymed Couplets

It's the second week of National Poetry Month. Hurray for poetry!

And hurray for William Shakespeare! I'm reading Shakespeare's play, A Midsummer Night's Dream, a story about fairies, love, and confusion in the forest.

One of the joys of reading Shakespeare is his language. Sometimes he uses blank verse (poetry that doesn't rhyme). Sometimes he uses prose (not poetry). And sometimes he uses rhymed couplets, which are wonderful to read aloud.

One story in A Midsummer Night's Dream is about Oberon, the King of the Fairies, and Titania, his Queen. 

In these rhymed couplets, Oberon tells Puck to place some magical "juice" from a flower on the sleeping Titania's eyes. When Titania wakes up, she will fall in love with the first being she sees.

In rhymed couplets, Oberon begins: 

I know a bank where the wild thyme blows,

Where oxlips and the nodding violet grows,

Quite overcanopied with luscious woodbine,

With sweet muskroses and with eglantine.

There sleeps Titania sometime of the night,

Lulled in these flowers with dances and delight.

And there the snake throws her enameled skin,

Weed wide enough to wrap a fairy in. 

Read it out loud. Can you hear and feel the rhyme? The rhyme scheme is what we call:

a
a
b
b
c
c
d
d

We say "couplets" because the first two lines rhyme, the next two lines rhyme, and so on.

Blows means to burst into flower. Oxlips, woodbine, and eglantine are types of flowers. Weed means clothing. But even if we don't know the meaning of these words, it doesn't matter. The rhyme and the sense of the poem carry us away.

Want to try your own? Write a short poem in rhyming couplets. It doesn't have to be about fairies and magical juice. It can be about anything you want. 

Rhyming is fun. If you get stuck trying to find a rhyme, go to one of the rhyming dictionaries online.

Now excuse me while I start my poem in rhyming couplets:

a      I love my stapler, so sleek and gray,
a      I always hate to put it away. 
b      It chomps, it bites, it holds together
b      Anything, in any weather. 

It's not Shakespeare, but as I said, rhyming couplets can be about whatever we want! 

National Poetry Month 2015

April is National Poetry Month! 

On Yellow Pencils, that means all poetry, all month.

Not a poet, you say? Not a problem. Even if we write fiction or nonfiction, writing a poem lets us play with words. And we all love words, right?

Let's start with nonsense. Being silly is always a good way to get into poetry. I'm in the mood to write an acrostic poem using the word "nonsense." How about you? 

Natty was batty
Oony was loony
Nilly was silly
Sadie was a-fraidy
Elso was nutso
Nad was mad
Soupy was loopy and
Elaine was insane. 

Your nonsense acrostic can rhyme or not. The only "rule" is, Have fun. Welcome to National Poetry Month!