Sunday, April 3, 2011

April is Poetry Month - DUH!

What kind of habitual rhymer forgets poetry month?  I'm going to use being in Las Vegas when April began as my excuse.  It's lame - I know!  In honor of Poetry Month, I'll post a new poem everyday - starting today.  I'll also include fun poem-writing ideas I've found in various places.  So, my poem for April 3rd is called a Book Spine Poem.  April Halprin Wayland mentioned it in today's blog post at Teaching Authors.  She got the idea from Travis Jonker, an elementary school librarian and he wrote about it on the Association for Library Service to Children (ALSC) blog.  I copied this off the blog: 


How do you create your own?  Here are my tips for kids and teens:
1. Check out last year’s book spine poem gallery for inspiration.
2. Once you’re in the library, start looking at titles to see what strikes you. Arrange and rearrange in your head. The best part of this type of poetry is the fact that you don’t know where you’ll end up.
3. Have a pencil and paper with you to write down titles that stand out – you can go back to them later.
4. Don’t be afraid to use the library catalog to search for titles with exact words or phrases that you want.


As promised, here's a book spine poem I wrote tonight:


What am I doing here
Lost in the cosmos?
Beginning to see the light
With a little help from my friends - 
Heroes!

Give it a try and, when you do, post it here for others to read!  



Happy Poetry Month!!