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Haiku: The Wordless Poem

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

for sale
a sparrow slips into the attic
trailing toilet paper

 

watching fireworks
from the car
chickenpox

 

screen door
song of the birds
cry of the cat

 

a sudden fall
of acorns—

chipmunk looks
at me

 

I’ve been focusing on haiku again, preparing submissions for Modern Haiku (deadline July 15) and Frogpond (deadline August 1). (Hint, hint…) I set these aside to post here because they were the most kid-friendly.

Haiku are sometimes called “wordless” poems. The idea is that the reader connects directly with the experience being depicted, not with the words of the poem. For me wordless also refers to all the words that might have been included but weren’t–words that the reader constructs for herself. We know from the words in the second haiku that somewhere there is a screen door, birds singing, and a cat crying but there are no words explaining that the cat is crying because she is on one side of the screen door and unable to hunt the birds happily singing on the other. According to Cor van den Heuvel, the poet Ogiwara Seisensui once described haiku as a circle–half provided by the poet and half provided by the reader. This is just the kind of active reading I hope to inspire in kids.

For more Poetry Friday visit Michelle Heidenrich Barnes at Today’s Little Ditty.

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Little Blue Egg

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I found
on the ground
a little blue egg.

On the egg
I found
a hole.

There is no bird
in the little blue egg.

I wonder
where
it’s gone.

 

In my favorite Calvin and Hobbes, Calvin digs a hole. He finds rocks, a root, and some grubs, announcing with delight, “There’s treasure everywhere!” I love that he thinks of these things as treasures, in part because I do too. These are exactly the kinds of treasures I look for when I go for walks. And every time I go out and look for them, I find them because Calvin’s right–there’s treasure everywhere.

When I was in Boyds Mill, PA for the Highlights Foundation workshop last week, I found this egg outside the door of my cabin.

I’ve broken some poetry “rules” with this poem. I’ve set up a bit of a pattern in the first two stanzas, but I don’t follow the pattern throughout. Also, though it’s a poem for young readers and has a strong meter, it doesn’t rhyme. I tried many drafts of this poem, following the usual rules, but I kept coming back to this version, which seems to sing the right song for this slightly sad and mysterious egg.

What treasures are outside your door?

For more Poetry Friday visit Betsy at Teaching Young Writers.

(c) Elizabeth Steinglass, 2013, all rights reserved

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Haiku for Kids, Questions for Bloggers

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pay dirt—
under the roses
a soccer ball

 

late at night—
a cricket sings
in the lizard’s cage

 

© Elizabeth Steinglass, 2013, all rights reserved

 

Ever since I started this blog, I’ve had two recurrent questions: Who is my audience? And why do I do it? It’s been a year and a half now, and I’m still not sure I have any good answers. Am I writing for poets, teachers, kids, friends? Is my goal to write more, share more, promote more, connect more?

I’m the kind of person who likes to talk through questions like these. So, fellow poet bloggers, I ask you:

1. Who is the audience for your blog?

2. Why do you blog?

I’d love to hear your thoughts in the comments below.

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March Madness–Round 2

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Last weekend I participated in the second round of Ed DeCaria’s March Madness Poetry Tournament. I had 36 hours to write a poem using the word exertion, a truly ugly word in my opinion. The first thing I did was sleep, giving me about 24 hours to actually write. I kept my notebook by my bed, and first thing in the morning I wrote the poem I entered in the tournament:

 

Hitting the Snooze Bar

I lie back down across my bed.
I pull the pillow over my head.
I desperately need these minutes of sleep
After the exertion of stopping that

BEEP!

 

That’s pretty much how it came out. I agonized a little over these minutes of sleep, ten minutes of sleep, more minutes of sleep. I went with these because it seemed to work well with need. I liked the poem, but it felt light to me. It’s a moment, familiar and funny, but not much more.

My next move was to consider possible rhymes. Assertion and coercion leaped to mind.

I also started thinking about sloths because sloths are known for their lack of exertion.

Thus I found myself writing this couplet:

 

Swaying Sloth

The swaying sloth makes no assertion—
Standing up entails too much exertion.

 

The couplet has more going on than the snooze bar poem, but dare I enter a couplet? It’s so minimal! Also, no one I showed it to seemed to get the double meaning of the swaying and the standing up. I felt I needed something more.

So, for hours and hours, between kids’ activities, meals, chores, etc., I worked on this poem:

 

Sloth’s Weekly Exertion

 

Languorous sloth lives a life of ease,
Hanging around in rain forest trees,
Nibbling on leaves between long naps,
Moving so slowly nobody sees.

Yet, once a week the sloth must creep
Down to the ground to find some relief.
Exhausted by her great exertion,
She climbs back up and goes to sleep.

 

I really liked the first stanza, but the second one bothered me. I didn’t like the rhyme, and it didn’t seem to match the first stanza.

I kept at it, and hours later I wrote this draft:

 

Sloth’s Weekly Exertion

 

Languorous sloth lives a life of ease,
Hanging around in rain forest trees,
Nibbling on leaves between long naps,
Moving so slowly nobody sees.

But even a sloth can’t hold it forever,
So down the tree he must endeavor.
Exhausted by his great exertion,
He creeps back up to sleep whenever.

 

I still didn’t like it. It just didn’t seem to polish up nice and shiny the way I wanted it to, so I threw it back in the drawer and went with the snooze bar poem. Though the snooze bar poem doesn’t do as much, it does seem to do it well.

I was trounced by Dave Crawley and his clever poem about clichés. I am out, but the madness continues! There are many more poems to enjoy and votes to cast.

For more Poetry Friday visit Greg at GottaBook.

I’m going on vacation next week and I’m not taking any electronics! See you in April.

(c) 2013, Elizabeth Steinglass, all rights reserved

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Limericks

 

 

There was an old man with a hat.
The hat had a hole for a bat.
When the bat flew away,
The man cried, “Please stay!”
How I hate to wear a cold hat.”

 

There was an old man with a slug.
He wanted to give it a hug.
The slug cried, “Oh no!
You must let me go!
Your hugs are too snug for a slug.”

 

There once was a boy with a frog.
What he’d wanted to get was a dog.
The boy ordered, “Sit!”
The frog had a fit,
And burped, “First, you must get me a log!”

 

(c) 2013 Elizabeth Steinglass, all rights reserved

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Oh my poor family, for I have dedicated this week to the limerick. Once I started, I found it nearly impossible to stop. I can still hear the anapests galloping in my head. As you probably know, a limerick is a five-line poem in which the first, second, and fifth lines rhyme and use the following pattern of accents—da DUM, da da DUM, da da DUM. Lines three and four also rhyme and follow this pattern of accents—da DUM, da da DUM. (Alternatively, lines three and four can be combined into one line with an internal rhyme, which is how Edward Lear wrote them.) In some limericks the last word of the last line repeats the last word in either line one or line two. Though traditional, this repetition seems to offend some of today’s readers.

 

My favorite limerick is from Edward Lear’s Book of Nonsense:

There was an Old Man with a beard
Who said, “It is just as I feared!–
Two Owls and a Hen,
Four Larks and a Wren,
Have all built their nests in my beard!”

 

To me this poem seems a perfect example of the kind of innocent silliness kids (and grown-ups) enjoy. But as a poet, what I really admire is Lear’s simple language and what appears to be an effortless use of the form. After a week of writing limericks, I’m guessing that what seems effortless is actually the result of great effort, great talent, and good fortune. Compared to the example above, many limericks act like contortionists, twisting themselves uncomfortably to fit the form. It’s the rare limerick that glides across the tightrope with grace and ease.

For more information about the limerick, visit Poets.org.

For more Poetry Friday, visit Julie Larios at The Drift Record.

(c) 2013, Elizabeth Steinglass

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Two Silly Poems

petits fours by Erica

 

The Sparrow at the Store

I saw a sparrow at the grocery store.
I offered to show him the way to the door.
“Thanks,” he said, “but there’s one thing more.
Do you know where they keep the petits four?”

 

 


 

The Secret of the Cat

What’s the secret
Of the domesticated cat?
She understands you perfectly,
But doesn’t care to chat.

Goodness, I’ve been grumpy. I hope it’s just the weather and the gray skies. I thought I’d use this week’s post to try to improve my mood. I got out my Ogden Nash poems. They always do the trick. Then I decided to write some of my own silly animal poems. I’ve posted yesterday’s work above. I hope it brings a little warmth to your winter.

 

For more Poetry Friday, go to Teaching Authors.

(c) 2013 Elizabeth Ehrenfest Steinglass, all rights reserved

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Poetry Friday: Houdini

All day long
He hides
From view,
In the darkness
Under beds,
In the corners
Children dread.
Then at night
He skims
The walls,
The shadow
Of a cat
Long gone.

Three of the best things about visiting Grandma are her two large dogs and her cat, Houdini. Unfortunately, Houdini doesn’t seem to enjoy our visits. He hides day and night, so seeing him is a special treat.

For more Poetry Friday visit Matt at Radio, Rhythm & Rhyme.

(c) 2013 Elizabeth Ehrenfest Steinglass, all rights reserved

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The Snail’s Lament

 

You might think
This mobile home’s
A perfect fit
For those who roam,
But this big wheel
Tends to sag,
So, actually,
It’s more of a drag.

I confess I have this fantasy that somewhere there’s a writer who is so amazing, he or she doesn’t have to revise. But I know in my heart of hearts that this perfect first-draft writer doesn’t exist. Everyone revises. Revising is part of writing. It’s necessary, and sometimes it’s even fun. It can be a process involving play, exploration, and discovery. I like looking back at what I’ve written to see what I’ve said, what seems to want to be said, and then revising to say it more clearly or artfully. As someone who enjoys revising and as an observer of kid-writers who tie themselves in knots trying to write perfectly the first time, I’ve been wanting to share some of my revisions. So below is the first part of what happened between finding the snail and this week’s poem. This is straight from my notebook:

Maybe you think
It’s so convenient
To have a mobile home?
Actually, if it has no wheels
It’s actually kind of a drag.
Drag sag wag brag tag flag bag gag hag jag lag nag rag stag
Actually it’s hard to wag
And since it’s heavy
It’s more of a drag.
Actually
it tends to sag
and it’s hard to wag
So having a shell
Is honestly,
More of a drag.
And it has no wheels
So it’s more of a drag.
You might think
I have cause to brag
I think you can see that my first attempt wasn’t so much about writing a good poem as it was about getting an idea going—discovering a seed that I could tend and grow. I also think you can see that I found that seed there right in the first five lines—the snail’s point of view, the misconception, and the word drag. Where did these ideas come from? The snail. This poem started when I leaned over to get a good look at the little guy, and I was struck by how hard he seemed to be working to drag that shell around.
I think you can also see that I pretty quickly settled on the word drag because of its double meaning. Once I decided to go with drag, I had the voice of the poem, and I had the beginning of the rhyme scheme. I then started exploring different options that rhyme with drag, like wag and brag. You can see that after a bit of experimenting, I went back to some words I had early on—mobile home, wheel, and sag. Once I had these pieces, the rest came together without too much trouble.
When I look back at my process, I think maybe I don’t need that fantasy of the perfect first-draft writer. I think maybe that perfect first-draft writer is missing all the fun.
For more Poetry Friday see Robyn Hood Black at Read, Write, Howl.

(c) 2012 Elizabeth Ehrenfest Steinglass, all rights reserved

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The Hungry Giraffe

photo by Hans Stieglitz

Dining up high
On leaves in the sky
With the clouds
Near your eyes and the
Swifts sweeping by
Is fine, until you find your mouth is
Dry and the water
Enveloping your toes.

I’m still reading The National Geographic Book of Animal Poems. Every day. Just like a kid. This week I stopped short when I got to the two acrostic poems by Avis Harley. They use such wonderful and fun language. One thing I appreciate about them is that the vertical words are not the animal’s name; they’re about the animal, another part of the poem, another expression of the animal’s essence. The poem above is my response to Harley’s poem about giraffes which is titled “Above All” and is from her book African Acrostics.

For more Poetry Friday see Amy Ludwig VanDerwater at The Poem Farm.

(c) 2012 Elizabeth Ehrenfest Steinglass, all rights reserved

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