Happy Poetry Friday! I am at the ITEM conference today chatting with media specialists and instructional technology folks (and seeing some writer friends, too). Hopefully, we will not be squabbling like the moon and sun are in my poems today! Last month, we Poetry 7 wrote found poems. This month, we tried a form I was unfamiliar with–the etheree. It’s an unrhymed poem with lines of ascending syllable counts from 1–10. Confession time. I was super excited to learn about this form, and I wrote a first draft of a pair of etheree, one regular, and one reverse (counting down from 10 to 1 syllable). And then September blew by.
So…here you have my first draft. Because I love space stuff and am working on picture book revisions about the moon, the moon and sun came to me right away and started griping about each other:>) I’m really happy with them, for a first draft. Oh, I’m lying. I did change something–the line “Stealing my light to glow through the night” started out as “Stealing Sun’s light to glow brightly at night.” But, ahem, that’s 10 syllables. Oops! Plus, I realized that Sun, as a character/narrator, should be saying “my” instead of “Sun’s.” Because the Sun, while irritable, is NOT an annoying character on a reality show talking about herself in third person.
The Sun and Moon Gripe a Little
(a pair of etherees)
I. Moon Says…
Sun.
Needy.
“Look at me!
Dance, planets! Spin!”
Live at her mercy.
Center of attention,
brightest star in the sky. Sigh.
Day’s drama queen of dawn and dusk.
So necessary. So exhausting.
Never hides her light under a bushel.
II. Sun Says…
“Ooooh, look at me, so pale and cool and calm.”
Stealing my light to glow through the night.
Thief of the silver stream, wearing
my hand-me-down gleaming gown.
Just a chunk of grey rock.
Rough chalky craters.
No star power.
No fierceness.
No fire.
Moon.
–Laura Purdie Salas, all rights reserved
I’ll be linking to the rest of the Poetry 7’s etherees as they go live.
Andi
Tanita
Tricia
Liz
Sara
Kelly
Here are the previous Poetry Sisters collaborations:
| September 2015 | Found poems |
| August 2015 | Classified haiku |
| July 2015 | Inspired by e.e. cummings’ poems |
| Jun 2015 | Odes |
| May 2015 | Pantoums |
| Apr 2015 | Raccontinos |
| Mar 2015 | Sestinas (Lord have mercy) |
| Feb 2015 | Villanelles on hidden things |
| Jan 2015 | Triolets on beginnings (And I posted an extra one here.) |
| Pre-2015 | Villanelles, a crown sonnet, rondeau redoubles, and pantoums |
And for more Poetry Friday fun, visit Heidi Mordhorst at My Juicy Little Universe for the Poetry Friday Roundup!
45 Responses
Wowie! What personalities these two have! Well done, you! I love the hand-me-down gleaming gown!
Thank you, Keri! That was one of the phrases that kind of tickled me:>)
I can’t get enough of sun and moon poems, Laura, “Never hides her light under a bushel.” These are wonderful.
Such a nice pairing–I love the voices! (They sound like siblings.)
Thanks, Kate. Having grown up with three older sisters, I do seem to have an affinity for bickering poems:>)
“my hand-me-down gleaming gown”
These are great, Laura! I look forward to the picture book someday too…
xo
Thanks, Amy–they were really fun to write! I want to write some more…trying to figure out what project they might fit into or even inspire. :>)
Wow! Love the conversation, or- confrontation!
Thanks, Cindy!
Bicker, bicker. Tell us how you really feel, you two.
Heehee–they pretty much lay it on the line, don’t they?
I like having opposite topics and reverse etherees — great idea! It seems the poor Moon gets the worst of it here…
Yeah, sun does kind of outshine the moon:>( Thanks, Tabatha!
These are just brilliant, Laura — I love the way your brain works. The sun and the moon seem like teen sisters, complaining about borrowed clothing (oh, that hand-me-down glowing gown is JUST perfect) and copping an attitude (No fierceness!) — I love these!
Thanks, Tanita. I know bickering from long personal experience as a child:>)
I love the way you laid these out, centered — they are so nice to look at, and to read. They go perfectly with Tricia’s Cat/Dog poems! I’m wholly charmed.
Thanks, Liz. I wanted to leave it kind of crescent-shaped, because I like the way that looks, but that felt kinda unfair to the sun…so I went with the sorta circle:>)
Etherees. New to me! Thank you for introducing/modeling. I, too, loved “hand-me-down gleaming gown” from stanza 2; loved–even more–“Day’s drama queen…” from stanza 1. Loved every word image, really. Brilliant. You’ve definitely inspired me to play with this poem form. …One point of interest, I agree that the celestial beings sound like sibling-rival sisters, even though we refer to the “man in the moon,” the moon strikes me as more feminine than masculine, particularly in her sun’s light receiving mode. …Thanks so much for a lively discourse! Thoroughly enjoyed it!
Loved hearing your thoughts about this and the feedback–interesting about the masculine/feminine, too. Etherees are brand new to me, and I really like the form. I hope to play some more with this sometime soon.
Just double-checked my remembrance from 3 yrs. Latin (:), moon/“luna” is a feminine noun. Honestly never thought about that discrepancy w/“man” in the moon until I “spontaneously” wrote that in response to your Etherees. I definitely want to try that poem form –and every poem form that I possibly can…Hoping to see if there’s a niche/match in poetry for me. Signed up for the WordPress 2 wk. poetry “course.” Just as it was good for me to be challenged by your 15-word poem/prompt (which I soooooooooo enjoyed!), I hope to be challenged by other “assignments.” Take care and thanks again so much! God bless!
Poetry Friday and my 15 WOL poems and the entire poetry kidlitosphere is so welcoming–I’m glad you found us, and hope you enjoy the poetry course–not sure what it is, but I learn something from every poetry activity I do, so I’m sure you’ll grow from it!
Amen! I have been very humbled & grateful. The reception and affirmation has been very healing and very inspiring. Thank you, once again, for taking time to share your thoughts with me.…Growing: really important to me. Thanks for your well wishes, and thanks for prompting & modeling 15 WOL poems!
I love the two characters you’ve given us. Yes, hand-me-down gown is fabulous as is thief of the silver stream.
Thank you, Liz!
Oh, Sun. Oh, Moon. How you bicker, and yet, we who (literally) look up to you see you both as beautiful. Isn’t that just how it is? Wonderful work, Laura—-totally conversational and brash and fun. I can see this as Reader’s Theater, somehow.
P.S. I didn’t catch the shaping being a crescent in your first draft, but Sun sure would’ve! Good call.
Aw, thanks, Sara–and see my answer to Andi! :>)
These are SO COOL!! You have got the voice down absolutely. I could see (hear) it as a one act play or something…
Thanks, Andi–it WOULD be fun to have two kids perform this…maybe alternating lines to each other…
I love learning new forms. I’ll certainly pass this on to my students. Especially the idea of an argument. We will be reading The Day the Crayons Quit next week. A great tie in to that argument between yellow and orange. And like others, I love the hand-me-down-glowing gown.
I need to read that one. Arguments certainly seem like a natural fit for lots of kids:>) If we lure them in with the promise of arguments, and then get them to argue in wonderful, vivid language, it’s win-win! I got Shapes of Our Singing recently (recommended by Trisha Stohr-Hunt (I think rec to her by J. Patrick Lewis originally) and am excited to try some forms out of it!
Love the squabbling. And I’m also enamored of the sun and moon image you posted, too. Wonderful work!
Thanks, Kelly! I know–isn’t that pretty?
Wonderful job, Laura. Love that “drama queen of dawn and dusk” — !! And I love how even the forms are opposites (moon from small to big, then sun from big to small.) I’m going to give the etheree a try — thanks for posting this.
Can’t wait to see what you do with it, Julie. I think it’s a really fun form–so MUCH possibility, with just a couple of constraints to give me cage bars to beat against!
Such fun! Love your choice of “gripe.” So many other quarreling words, but that one seems just perfect. As if either of them can do anything about it at this point anyway!!!
I love that last comment, Mary Lee. I think that’s why gripe resonates? Because it’s so dang pointless! And, thanks:>) Hey…I think you and I and Janet are supposed to be collaborating on a poem very, very soon. We should touch base!
??? News to me! Tell me more…maybe in private so I don’t look like more than a dork than I already might be looking!
I’m crazy about the back-and-forth in these poems. I like this so much better than the cat and dog, in part because your voices seem so much more mature and I the reverse etheree actually seems a much better model.
My favorite parts are “Never hides her light under a bushel” and “No star power./No fierceness./No fire.”
These are so great. Well done!
Tricia, you are way too hard on your poems! Thanks for the kind feedback:)
Beautiful. Fun. Fantastic. I love these etherees!
Thanks–these were an absolute BLAST to write. Must do more.
Wow. Love these, Laura, especially Sun’s gripes about Moon. I think etherees will be good for 2nd graders–straight up count, no need for rhyme, and a nice shape. And it’s always fun to make someone speak!
Thanks, Heidi–if they’re good syllable counters, that’ll be fun. I was thinking of different twists (maybe for older students), like line 6 must have a metaphor. Use alliteration in line 8. Etc. no enhanced lines–I wish I had given myself that last one:) Have fun!
Laura, what a fun form! I love your poems, especially that “hand-me-down gleaming gown.”
Thanks, Catherine:)