Blog
Statue [15 words or less]
Photo: Laura Purdie Salas Wake up your poetry brains with 15 Words or Less (guidelines here)! Here’s a pic I snapped in Vegas last spring. It makes me think of: 1)?a’deck of cards 2)?gila monsters and how their bacteria-laden saliva is what kills their prey 3) standup paddleboarding And here’s my?first draft: Conqueror I?rule over
Camp Read-a-Lot in Rochester, Minnesota
Last Tuesday, I presented to Camp Read-a-Lot in Rochester, MN. We had about 30 educators for a day of learning and talking about great nonfiction and poetry books. Here are some highlights (you can click on any thumbnail to view a bigger pic). Thank you, SELCO (Southeastern Libraries Cooperating), for organizing such a wonderful event!
Shooting Star [15 words or less]
Photo: Laura Purdie Salas Wake up your poetry brains with 15 Words or Less (guidelines here)! Here’s a little prop from our?Minnesota Brass show this season, Supernova!?It makes me think of: 1)?a shooting star 2)?a squid 3) New Year’s Eve And here’s my?first draft: Comet I arc above Stars applaud my sparkling wake of dust
Hands [15 words or less]
Photo: Laura Purdie Salas Wake up your poetry brains with 15 Words or Less (guidelines here)! Our drum corps, Minnesota Brass, rehearsed at a middle school over the weekend, and this interesting sculpture was hanging in the corner. It makes me think of: 1)?a dandelion 2)?Freddy Krueger (there’s a scene in particular in reminds me
Fungus [15 words or less]
Wake up your poetry brains with 15 Words or Less (guidelines here)! Here’s a picture I took during my nature-poetry-writing workshop in Bemidji, MN, earlier this summer.?This image makes me think of: 1)?cauliflower 2)?Alice in Wonderland 3) s’mores! And here’s my?first draft: When I Eat S’mores, I Taste…? smoky ghost stories, crisp Superior winds, crunchy,
Go Fly a Kite, by Laura Purdie Salas [Poetry Friday]
Today’s poem comes from the fabulous Poetry Friday Anthology for Science, edited by Sylvia Vardell and Janet Wong. This latest offering in their Poetry Friday Anthology series is chock-full of poems exploring everything from physics to scientific methods to nature to machines to scientists. There’s a teacher’s edition, and then grade by grade student editions–with
Metal Woman [15 words or less]
Wake up your poetry brains with 15 Words or Less (guidelines here)! Here’s a forgotten photo I found on my phone . This is a sculpture in an art gallery in one of the skyways in downtown Minneapolis.?This image makes me think of: 1)?the Jetsons 2)?how would you shower if you were made of metal?
Hoofing It [15 words or less]
Wake up your poetry brains with 15 Words or Less (guidelines here)! Happy Thursday, and if you’re visiting as a result of Mary Lee Hahn’s kind shoutout at nErDcamp MI, welcome! We love having new people drop by and give this a try–or use it with their students, even if they never post. On the
Hallway Beacon [15 words or less]
Wake up your poetry brains with 15 Words or Less (guidelines here)! Surprising nature images are my favorite poetry prompt, but?everyday stuff works, too! Here’s?our upstairs hall light.?The image makes me think of: 1)?an invisible creature watching (one eye is the light; the other eye is the reflection of the light on the hall wall)
Tree Eyes [15 words or less]
Photo: Laura Purdie Salas Wake up your poetry brains with 15 Words or Less (guidelines here)! OK, I’m aware I have done too many tree pictures for 15 Words or Less, and I’ve sworn off them. But…but I had to share this! I went for a walk Sunday morning with my daughter and came across
Lichen [15 words or less]
Photo: Laura Salas Wake up your poetry brains with 15 Words or Less (guidelines here)! I had such a great time at the Bemidji Library Book Festival! I led a two-hour nature-poetry writing workshop and did a storytime presentation. At the nature-poetry session, we took yarn circles and spread them around outside and carefully observed
Turtle [15 words or less]
Photo: Laura Salas Wake up your poetry brains with 15 Words or Less (guidelines here)! Look at what Patty,?my sister visiting from Fla., spotted as we walked Captain Jack (who totally ignored it). Here’s what this turtle makes me think of: 1)?moving boxes (which they don’t have to go get from grocery stores) 2)?room cleaning
Grassy [15 words or less]
Photo: Laura Salas Wake up your poetry brains with 15 Words or Less (guidelines here)! I took this picture at drum corps rehearsal last week. The little medians inside a parking lot had this tall grass that made it look like a miniature meadow! 1)?ocean waves (of course) 2)?tiny snow-covered evergreens 3) archery at camp
Library Storytime!
I had a blast recently doing an evening storytime at the Mounds View Public Library here in Minnesota.?A group of kids ages 2–6 and I?whirled like a tornado, swung like monkeys, buzzed like bees, measured out wingspans and other animal size-related things, read Water Can Be…, and generally just made lots of noise and had
When Pencils Get Emotional [Writing a Mask Poem with Emotion]
Last week,?I did?Young Authors Conferences all week with 4th-8th graders. I’ll be doing a poetry workshop I tried out in March, and the kids and I had lots of fun with it. The theme of the conference is making unforgettable characters, so we wrote mask poems as everyday objects. But then we rewrote them from
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Are You Looking For?
Go to my Poetry page for:
- National Poetry Month projects through the years
- Small Reads Roundups (poems grouped by topic)
- Introductions to several favorite poetry forms