Welcome, and happy Poetry Friday! (Wondering what Poetry Friday is? Click here.) I’m so happy you’ve dropped by. Whether you’re a regular participant in the Poetry Friday world, or you ended up here from a search or a link, please know that we’re a welcoming community! Read, comment, think, share, and enjoy!
Lovely news! Finding Family was named an Honor Book for the Star of the North Award! This award, administered by Minnesota Youth Reading Awards, is a children’s choice award. Librarians choose a list of 10 finalists (which come from any published picture books, not just Minnesota-created ones). Then the following school year, schools around Minnesota read the finalist books, and students vote on their favorites. I am SO thrilled!
And I wanted to do a round-up of my April skinny poems. A few folks have asked, so here was my process. I ordered some blank bookmarks and did little ink splashes on them. Then I put together a little Zentangle kit, and a template for skinny poems (printed out a bunch of copies). I knew I’d be traveling one week in April, and I ended up unexpectedly traveling another week. Thank goodness I’d done some prep work to make this project as simple and portable as possible.
During April, some days, I wrote several skinny poems. Other days, I wrote none. Some days, I decorated one ink splash with Zentangle doodling. Other days, I did two, or three, or none. Same for the actual blog posts too. My vision of writing a poem and decorating the bookmark for it and creating a post each day did NOT become a reality! And usually, the doodling was done on a few and I’d look through the poems I had and just match them up somehow. So the doodles were not inspired by the individual poems. Also, some days, I brainstormed thoughts and words and such–other days, I just went straight in for the poem.
It was somewhat random, and yet…I did create 30 poems and 30 (minimally) Zentangled bookmarks. Here they are. Oh, I had some bigger papers too, but I only used one of them. While it was tough to make the first and last longer lines of a skinny fit on the bookmark, the bigger papers were too intimidating to fill.
You can see all my poems for this month here.
And a few reflections upon reading these all once again.
- Most of them are pretty terrible–a true practice, not a finished creation. And that’s okay. I often spent only 5 minutes on the skinny.
- There are a few I really like! And, 3/30 isn’t a bad ratio.
- The skinny is a great form for a reversal…a surprise ending. I only managed this a couple of times. Something to shoot for.
- The form can’t hold narrative very well. It’s just too abbreviated for that. Descriptions and ponderings were more successful.
- I’m tired of daily posting and am glad the month is done!
- I’m really glad that I did this. I feel like the practice and consistency of creating, even when it was on the fly, in random order, or whatever, was good for my poetry muscles.
- It’ll be a while before I write a skinny again :>D
Okay, those are my insights, such as they are. Happy May! And for loads of terrific poetry, don’t miss the Poetry Friday Roundup with the multi-talented Mary Lee Hahn, poetry wrangler, stitcher, poet, and art adventurer. Yes, this is a last-minute switch to the hosting line-up :>)
13 Responses
Thanks so much for sharing this post. I love learning about all of it — the freedom to work small, the format of your skinny poems, the bookmark and artwork. What a gift and inspiration.
So proud of you! *high five* You picked a very challenging project and came through it with stronger creative muscles and beautiful bookmarks! I am a fan of hibiscus so that poem is one of my favorites. xo
Thanks, Tabatha. By the end of the month, it was FINALLY starting to sink in what I could and couldn’t do in a skinny. That one was one of my faves too :>)
Your bookmarks are beautiful, and you accomplished a lot during a very busy month. I haven’t tried a skinny poem yet, but after reading yours, I want to.
Congrats on your Star of the North Honor award!! And hooray for meeting your NPM skinnies challenge. Love the idea of putting them on bookmarks!!
Thanks, Jama–of course, when I had that impulse, I thought my poems and doodles would come out better. :>D Now they’re just more paper to toss.
Congratulations on the book honor — woo hoooo! And as I was out of the loop for most of April for Seth’s wedding, I missed a lot of goodness. Love your project, and I especially love your frank sharing of insights at the end of it! Lots of creativity. :0)
I really want to learn how to doodle better — those are a crowning touch with each of your bookmarks. I love that you have these whole complex projects plan, but you’re flexible enough to let them go.
And, jeez, I’m exhausted with the daily posting, too. Roll on, May.
Congratulations to Finding Family! Student choice awards are the best! I enjoyed your skinny poems all month, Laura. I used the skinny as a prompt for my poetry group, and it was fun to write, but more complex than it seems. Now I want to learn the art of Zendoodling. Yours are lovely!
Like Tanita, I’m as much in awe of your doodles as I am your poems! You were smart to make your project so portable.
Yay for the recognition for FINDING FAMILY!!!! I love that you made your poetry project so portable. It’s brilliant. Rose gave the Nevermores a skinny as our prompt this week (inspired by you) and I really enjoyed trying several of them!
Fun to see all your bookmark skinny poems together Laura! My writing for April was similar to yours, somedays I’d write a handful of poems and then somedays I would miss one. I think I came pretty close to 30, I didn’t post all because I didn’t like all of them. and Kudos to you for posting every day! And more Kudos for “Finding Family” being named an Honor Book, Congrats!!!
I think this project is fabulous and the bookmarks beautiful, though I’m sure you have your favorites. You may find more are favorites with time after recovering from all the effort. 🙂