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Shoe on wall with flowers

Flower Boot [15 words or less poems]

Wake up your poetry brains with 15 Words or Less (guidelines are here)! Good morning! I took this picture in Ireland, and though you can’t really tell, this shoe is hanging on a stone wall outside someone’s house. These flowers growing out of a hiking book make me think of:

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Thoughts

Inviting a Reader in

Teachers, I’m in the editing/revision process for my next book with Millbrook Press. Carol, my insightful editor, wondered if the book needed more of an opening to orient the reader. I wrote the book as a Things To Do If… poem (see some quick TTDI poems here and here and here), and if you go

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poetryaction for When the Wind Blows

Happy Poetry Friday! (Wondering what Poetry Friday is? Click here.) I saw an early version of Linda Booth Sweeney’s When the Wind Blows, and it was already a lovely, image-drenched story! It’s super exciting for me to see

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Giant Elk or Deer?

Fossil [15 words or less poems]

OK, I think I have the Comment settings figured out so that it’s easier to Comment now. I just thought nobody was coming by! And, today’s the last day of the 99-cent sale of the Kindle edition of Riddle-ku: Haiku for Very Close Reading. Wake up your poetry brains with 15 Words or Less (guidelines

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Pencil Riddle-ku

Pencil Riddle-ku

Hi, you guys! Since the Kindle edition (you don’t have to have a Kindle to read it, though) of Riddle-ku: Haiku for Very Close Reading, part of my 30 Painless Classroom Poems series, is on sale for 99 cents

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August Invitation Photopoem

Photopoem Summer Splashings Gallery

Have you guys seen what ELA consultant Carol Varsalona does each season at Beyond LiteracyLink? She puts out a call for photopoems, gathers them all up, and then creates a gallery online of everyone’s photopoems! I know she puts a ton of time into each one of these. Her Summer Splashings gallery went live last

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I'm a pencil crop, from Riddle-ku

A Forest Riddle-ku

Hiya, everyone. If you are a subscriber to the blog, you should have received an email notification about this post. My awesome web designer worked with WordPress Support yesterday and got everything straightened out. Thanks! And if you’re not a subscriber but you’d like to be, you can do that in the sidebar to the

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Giant spider by road (sculpture)

The Giant Spider [15 words or less poems]

Wake up your poetry brains with 15 Words or Less (guidelines are here)! Well, I think I’ve used this photo before, but I honestly can’t recall…and if I did, it was several years ago. So, I’m going to use it! This sculpture called Maman, by Louise Bourgeois, makes me think:

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poetryaction for Totally Secret Secret

Who could not love Bob Shea’s Ballet Cat and Sparkles the Pony? In The Totally Secret Secret, you will recognize real kid behavior and the negotiations of friendship. I can’t wait for the next one coming out in 2016. Anyway, I thought about the secrets we keep that we shouldn’t, the ones that reveal our

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poetryaction and bookalikes for Popcorn Astronauts

Popcorn Astronauts is full of zany and delightful poems about food, and it put me in mind of one of my favorite desserts, bomboloni from Biaggi’s. My sister Patty and I always go get it when she comes up to visit from Florida. And we each get our own order. (We don’t even order a

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