Poetry Friday: A Little Poem

“Meet me on the carpet with your poetry notebook,” I said yesterday.

We do poetry every Thursday. Usually.
But last week was Thanksgiving
and the prior week was NCTE.

I ‘ve missed reading poetry with my students.
I wondered, have they?
I could have skipped it this week.
With all the holiday crazy interruptions,
it would have been easy.
There is no time.
But
I had the perfect poem.
I thought.
Would they?

“Yay! Poetry!” I heard someone say.

It made my day.
I didn’t know,
I couldn’t tell,
if they cared.
I guess they do.

When they all gathered, I said, “When I was in Atlanta, a poet named Amy Ludwig VanDerwater shared this poem with us. I thought you’d like it.”

We read.
We talked.
We wrote.

Yay! Poetry!

Happy Friday and thank you, Bridget, for hosting Poetry Friday roundup this week at wee words for wee ones.

 

 

Poetry Friday: Naming It

Yesterday I sat in Cowin Auditorium at Teachers College and listened to Naomi Shihab Nye.

Love flowed from her to us and back again. We are her tribe. She spoke, and we held on. The power of writing lifts us up and fills us with what we know to be true.

Nye offered four pieces of sound writerly advice:

1. Be a fan of writers, artists, musicians, the weird gardner down the street. This  gives you fuel, it gives you energy to go on.

2. Believe in the tiny increments of time, they stack up and allow you to build.

3. Share your work

4. Have rituals, they promote confidence

In the spirit of this, hello Poetry Friday. No apologies necessary. The ritual begins.

Naming

allows identity.

Writing

allows memory.

It gives us a place

to be heard

and know we matter.

With that power

we think

and become more.

We find the form,

the shape

and name it.

We exist.

©Julieanne Harmatz

Thank you, Carol, at Carol’s Corner for hosting this week.