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NPM2022 Day 21: Dolphin Encounters

Here’s another poem that evolved from the oppositifying of a bit of a Taylor Mali poem. I shared the Mali passage, etc. here. Now, I don’t want to sound all high and mighty, because I love dolphins. Honestly, if I had a chance to swim with dolphins or kiss them at Sea World or whatever,

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NPM2022 Day 20: What the Rain Knows and a Cover Reveal!

Y’all might know that I love thunderstorms and rain. Today for National Poetry Month, I’m sharing one more rain sticky note poem (I shared two earlier this week here and here) AND a cover reveal! I have a picture book coming out in spring of 2023, and Elly MacKay is creating the absolutely stunning art

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NPM2022 Day 19: My Mom-in-Law Can Make Anything

Here’s today’s sticky note poem. This one started out with my reading some Taylor Mali poems for an upcoming poem. This one broke my heart, and I decided to oppositify the first few lines. I’m telling you, just trying to pick an opposite word for every noun is such an adventure in language. That in

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NPM2022 Day 18: Open curtains + lightning

And another equation poem from the storm.   Thanks for reading, and happy National Poetry Month! And if you ended up here by chance, fantastic! Here are a few links you might find helpful. Intro to what I’m doing this National Poetry Month ALL the sticky-note poems I’ve written so far To see each sticky-note

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NPM2022 Day 17: rain + night = ?

We had a lovely little thunderstorm last week at bedtime, and three poems came out of it. Here’s the first: I texted myself the thought that entered my head…I guess that’s draft 1? And wrote in my morning pages the next morning: Thanks for reading, and happy National Poetry Month! And if you ended up

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NPM2022 Day 16: Island Day

I’ve been having fun so far this month trying different poem springboards. Oppositify, the word association grid, N+7…Today’s sticky note poem came from a thought while I was fixing my lunch one day. I grouped three random things that I had out on the kitchen counter and took a photo. Then I used only words

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NPM2022 Day 15: Mean Words

Happy Poetry Friday! Here’s another sticky note poem inspired by an N+7 exercise. It came out of the same riddle-ku that Wednesday’s poem, “Mama Says” did. Below it, you’ll find some steps of my writing process on this one. Matt Forrest Esenwine has the roundup today. He’s got an interview up with fabulous poet Leslie

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NPM2022 Day 14: Wind: a Sky-High Designer

One more N+7 draft, the last one for now. But I really liked the poems that came out of this exercise. I didn’t love DOING the exercise–so tedious looking up nouns (especially when you don’t have a printed dictionary, ahem). But I liked the way it made me think differently and put unusual things together.

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NPM2022 Day 13: Mama Says #ClassroomConnections

Today, for Classroom Connections, I decided to use my Lion of the Sky poetry collection as a starting point for my sticky note poem. I picked a riddle-ku and used the N+7 exercise to swap out the nouns. (I used this online children’s dictionary, since I don’t have a print dictionary at hand.) Here’s the

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NPM2022 Day 12: Cold Aches

It’s another N+7 draft for you today. The one I’m sharing here and also the one on Thursday both came out of the same stanza that I shared yesterday.  Thanks for reading, and happy National Poetry Month! And if you ended up here by chance, fantastic! Here are a few links you might find helpful.

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NPM2022 Day 11: Travel Law #1

Today’s sticky note poem is the result of another exercise, called N+7 (read about it here). Again, I use it as a starting place. Not to write a poem but to give me a springboard into a poem. Below the image, you’ll see a stanza by J. Patrick Lewis, one of my very favorite poets.

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NPM2022 Day 10: Skyscraper Bones

Here’s another draft that grew out of an oppositify exercise. See a couple more here. I thought about pairing with art of a skyscraper being imploded or brought down with a wrecking ball…but somehow this image is what I wanted with it. Thanks for reading, and happy National Poetry Month! And if you ended up

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NPM2022 Day 9: Magic Rock

I love rocks, and they show up a lot in my poetry!  Here’s my drafting process. Thanks for reading, and happy National Poetry Month! And if you ended up here by chance, fantastic! Here are a few links you might find helpful. Intro to what I’m doing this National Poetry Month ALL the sticky-note poems

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NPM2022 Day 8: Thirsty Rocks

Happy Poetry Friday! Like yesterday’s poem (which I liked much better), this one resulted from that oppositify exercise of that same Robert Wallace poem. Janice at Salt City Verse has the roundup today! Yay, Janice! Thanks for reading, and happy National Poetry Month! And if you ended up here by chance, fantastic! Here are a

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NPM2022 Day 7: The Sun Is Never a Spoon

Tried an exercise with some poet friends where you take a poem and replace every noun with its opposite. And then you see if anything in that new nonsense poem sparks an idea for you. Here’s the draft I ended up with, followed by the oppositified poem :>) Thanks for reading, and happy National Poetry

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