Happy National Poetry Month 2023! Curious about what I’m doing? Want to play along? Read more here.
[Heads-up: If you’re visiting regularly, please know that the bold, blue text is what I’m writing fresh each day. The black text is the same each day:>) ]
April has been a whirlwind so far! I’m working on challenging edits for two picture books, plus some freelance work, plus keeping up with National Poetry Month. Whew. I’m awfully glad I picked a project this year that celebrates messiness and odd connections, as there’s no way I could be polishing anything! And this month is about to get whirlwind-ier, because my sister arrives tomorrow from Florida! She comes every year (usually in the summer), and I am so excited for some sister time!
The book connection I have with bulls is probably all wrong. But J. Patrick Lewis’ Black Swan, White Crow is a favorite haiku collection. It’s almost 30 years old and I can still feel the bison poem set in winter. It was a presence hovering as I tried to make a quick bull poem here!
What words will we be digging through today?
And here’s the card that we might pull our topic from:
So some possible topics are:
- flying
- Arctic
- red
- fantastic
- fox
Will you join in? Would love to see what you come up with!
- Intro to what I’m doing this National Poetry Month
- ALL the Digging for Poems drafts I’ve written this month
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- What is National Poetry Month?
- My previous National Poetry Month projects:
8 Responses
Laura the poem and the book connection amaze me … you did capture the toughness of the bull with the thought that he would claim the storm (made me think of Paul Bunyan and Babe the Blue Ox and Thunder Rose, although I don’t remember if there is a bull in that story- but there is a storm). Another book with a bull is Bully. What a lot of connections your poem created today!
Here’s my poem.„ I couldn’t have made it with the magnet words because of the repetition… but it just called for repetition when I chose the word double as the topic… and with my trip to the Highlights Foundation coming up and the glorious sunny day we had for Easter yesterday putting us in a summer mood, here it is:
Double
Summer summer
Travel travel
Adventure adventure
More more!!
Yes to Babe. Since I’m in Minnesota, land of Paul Bunyan, your comment totally resonated with me. Ooh, I don’t know Bully. And trying to find a book titled Bully online isn’t easy. Do you know the author? How fun your poem is. Again, I’m astonished at the different poems that emerge from the same mud. Spectacular. Enjoy your Highlights trip!
Oh, Laura, that bull’s wet grunts are so visible! And stormy. Well played!
Diane, love your Double Double poem. Yeah for summer!
I wrote about a bull today too.
Bull
Grunt, tough,
feel him guard
more with adventure
storms in your
afraiding
Denise, those last two lines grip me! I’m not even sure what they mean, but they evoke this feeling of foreboding. Love the ‑ing on afraid!
Here’s my April 9 poem:
Trees Remember
Tough and lovely
never mean.
Happy darkness,
this time and space.
Shadow power.
I sit and dream.
This is beautiful, Janet. I love the peaceful shadow power of trees…
I see a change ahead for this poem and in the next drafts I will allow myself to adjust without being totally restricted by the magnet words, but will try to stay with the essence and the shortness !!
Thanks, Laura. I know you are busy and hope you time with your sister is wonderful
So a new title is what I have to figure out!!
Tough and lovely
never mean.
Shadow power,
I sit and dream.
Happy darkness
this time and space.
Trees remember.
Lovely, Janet! Trees do remember…and they don’t judge. I love trees…