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Where do you live?
Is it a big city or a tiny town? Do you live on a farm or in a high-rise building? Do you live on a busy corner or high up a hill?
To continue celebrating National Poetry Month, let's write about our place.
Think about where you live. What do you like about it? What don't you like? What makes it different from any other place? How do you get there? By train, car, boat, bus, or elevator?
First write down some images that come to mind. Use all your 5 senses: what do you see, hear, smell, taste, touch in your mind when you think about the place where you live?
Include details that make your place unique.
Now take those details and images and put them into your poem, telling the reader--as only you can--about the place where you live.
I live on an island. Here's my poem.
An Island in the Morning
The ferry honks three times:
I'm coming in!
The heron lifts its wings:
I'm hungry!
The salt air stings the nose:
I smell like fish!
The dock stretches into the harbor:
Tie your boats up here!
The mountain shows off:
I'm a giant ice-cream cone!
The rocky beach makes walking hard:
I'm slippery and wet!
The grocery store opens its doors:
I hear the morning gossip!
A bus rumbles down the main street:
I take commuters to the ferry!
The ferry honks one time:
I'm going out!
What do you want to say about your place?
Tomorrow is Earth Day!
And we're still celebrating National Poetry Month.
Have you noticed, a lot of poems about nature or Earth are serious?
They don't have to be.
I'm mixing my love of nature with my love of silliness. Here's my silly poem about Earth (with thanks to the poet Joyce Kilmer, author of "Trees"--who was a guy, by the way).
I think that I shall never see
A poem as lovely as a tree.
I think that I shall never view
A poem as lovely as a gnu.
I think that I shall never spy
A poem as lovely as a fly.
I think that I shall never glimpse
A poem as lovely as two chimps.
I think I'll never scrutinize
A poem as lovely as the skies.
But now I'll end this poem, you see
Cause nothing's better than a tree!
How about your Earth Day poem?
Be silly, fun, and full of mirth
To celebrate our Planet Earth!
Not only is this National Poetry Month. It's also National Library Week.
Put the two together, and what do you get? No, not a mixed-up calendar. You get a poem about a library!
Do you have a library at school or in your town? What do you love about it? Is it the big windows? The shelves of books? The rows of computers? The helpful library workers? The storytimes?
We can celebrate our library with an acrostic poem. That's a poem in which the letters of a word (like "library") give us the first line.
Here's my library acrostic. Have fun creating your own!
Lots and lots and lots of
Interesting
Books.
Real stories and made-up stories
About animals, action, and adventure.
Read!
Your library has the perfect book to carry you away.
Happy National Poetry Month! All month long, we'll celebrate poems.
Even if you think you're not a poet, join in and try writing one.
Reading and writing poems lets us play with language.
We'll start out with imaginary pets. Do you have a real pet? Chances are it's a dog, cat, goldfish, or gerbil.
It's probably not a Nightlight Bird, like on the cover of this wonderful book by Richard Michelson.
Here's one of his imaginary pets:
Nightlight Bird
I used to need a nightlight
when it was time for bed
until we got a red-eyed
Nightlight Bird instead.
I don't need any batteries
or bulbs or plugs or sockets.
I just keep Nightlight Bird seed
in my pajama pockets.
My bird won't scare a burglar.
She's slow and pigeon-toed,
but if she senses danger
Bird blinks and sends Morse Code.
But best of all, when Nightlight
starts her late-night stare
the shadows in my room run
away and disappear.
Some other poems in this fun book are the Buscatcher, the Leftover Eater, and the Talkback Bat.
Your turn! What kind of imaginary pet would YOU love to have? Write a poem about it. It doesn't need to rhyme.
When you're done, add a drawing. The illustrations in Animals That Ought To Be are by the wonderful Leonard Baskin.
I bet your illustration will be just as wonderful.
Have fun creating and drawing your imaginary pet!
Our blog is called Yellow Pencils, so shouldn't we write about…pencils???
Even with computers, smartphones, tablets, and all the other devices out there, the humble pencil is an incredible writing tool.
Think about it.
- There's always one handy.
- It doesn't need a battery or electricity.
- If someone takes yours, you can always find another one.
- Best of all, it usually comes with an eraser at the end, perfect for us writers to make changes or revisions.
So let's pay tribute to the humble pencil.
Write a poem about your favorite pencil. Or create a story about a talking pencil. Or rewrite a folktale with pencils in the starring roles. Cinderpencil? Hansel and Pencil? Goldilocks and the Three Pencils?
Use your imagination! And of course, write your story with a pencil. I'm biased toward yellow, but any color will do!
Description and setting.
Boring, right? The parts we skip over?
Wrong! At least, not if description and setting are written in an interesting way.
So, how to do that?
Here's an exercise:
Pick a character from this list:
- a homeless person who carries a pet tarantula
- a waitress who's a millionaire
- a hippie who joins the army
- a guitar-playing banana
- a reporter for a vegetarian magazine
Then pick a setting from this list:
- a suburb in the clouds
- a water theme park
- a shopping mall in the middle of the night
- an underground hideout
- a coffee shop that used to be a firehouse
Let's say we pick the guitar-playing banana and an underground hideout.
How can we describe both with some revealing details? Don't worry what the story's "about." Just a little description about the character and setting.
Bob the Banana strummed his guitar. It was way too big for him, since he was only seven inches tall. Plus it was hard to hold the guitar with no hands. He couldn't play loudly because the underground hideout had flimsy walls. They were damp, too. Bob had lived here for 5 years, which is a very long time for a banana. He had to admit, he was starting to smell.
What do we know about guitar-playing Bob? He's seven inches tall, he has no hands, and he smells. What do we know about the underground hideout? The walls are damp and flimsy, not soundproof.
Now, with these revealing details about character and setting, we can go on to ask questions.
Why does Bob love to play the guitar?
Why has he been living in an underground hideout for 5 years?
Who is he hiding from?
We're on our way to a story! All because we explored description and setting. Try it. And don't forget to eat your bananas.
Winter ends this Thursday, March 20th. Happy Spring!
Nature's waiting to burst out with new sounds and smells. Grass is growing. Buds are budding. Leaves are leafing.
All sorts of living creatures are happy spring has finally arrived.
I think this caterpillar is.
And so is this tree frog.
To celebrate spring, write a story about these two friends. Or maybe they're not friends.
Stories need conflict, right? What could be the problem between these two? How will they solve their problem or conflict?
Write "The Caterpillar and the Tree Frog," or give your story its own, unique title. Don't forget to include sounds, smells, and "feels."
Spring is about being alive, so bring your story to life!
