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Soccer Book Spine Poems

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Soccer Team Upset

Football Mad
Strikers
Shoot to Win
Glory!

Keeper
Reading the Game
Thinking Outside the Box
Stars!

 

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How Soccer Explains the World

Kick,
Striker Boy.
Kick the Balls.
Shoot to Win
Glory.
Dream On,
Young Blood.
The World is a Ball.

 

Two of our family obsessions are soccer and books, so I’ve been meaning to try a soccer book spine poem for a while. I think they’re a fun reminder that one can love both sports and books.

For more Poetry Friday visit Irene Latham at Live Your Poem.

(c) Elizabeth Steinglass, 2013, all rights reserved

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2013 Kidlitosphere Progressive Poem

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For the second year running, Irene Latham, of the blog Live Your Poem, has organized a unique celebration of National Poetry Month. Each day a poet contributes one line to a slowly unfolding poem. Today, on the 16th day of the month, I am honored to contribute one more line.

 

When you listen to your footsteps
the words become music and
the rhythm that you’re rapping gets your fingers tapping, too.
Your pen starts dancing across the page
a private pirouette, a solitary samba until
smiling, you’re beguiling as your love comes shining through.

Pause a moment in your dreaming, hear the whispers
of the words, one dancer to another, saying
Listen, that’s our cue! Mind your meter. Find your rhyme.
Ignore the trepidation while you jitterbug and jive.
Arm in arm, toe to toe, words begin to wiggle and flow
as your heart starts singing let your mind keep swinging

From life’s trapeze, like a clown on the breeze.
Swinging upside down, throw and catch new sounds–
Take a risk, try a trick; break a sweat: safety net?
Don’t check! You’re soaring and exploring

 

Here’s the month’s calendar so you can follow along:

April

1  Amy Ludwig VanDerwater

2  Joy Acey

3  Matt Forrest Esenwine

4  Jone MacCulloch

5  Doraine Bennett

6  Gayle Krause

7  Janet Fagal

8  Julie Larios

9  Carrie Finison

10  Linda Baie

11  Margaret Simon

12  Linda Kulp

13  Catherine Johnson

14  Heidi Mordhorst

15  Mary Lee Hahn

16  Liz Steinglass

17  Renee LaTulippe

18  Penny Klostermann

19  Irene Latham

20  Buffy Silverman

21  Tabatha Yeatts

22  Laura Shovan

23  Joanna Marple

24  Katya Czaja

25  Diane Mayr

26  Robyn Hood Black

27  Ruth Hersey

28  Laura Purdie Salas

29  Denise Mortensen

30  April Halprin Wayland

 

 

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Why Haiku?

Cherry Blossoms by Tina dela Rosa

Cherry Blossoms by Tina dela Rosa

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

plank bridge—
clinging for their lives
ivy vines

Basho

 

the harvest moon
I stroll round the pond
till the night is through

Basho

 

storm—chestnuts
race along
the bamboo porch

Shiki

 

The more time I spend reading and writing haiku, the more I am convinced of their incredible depth and of their value in today’s world.

Haiku are an ideal form for everyone–especially kids.

 

Why?

1. Haiku focus on a single intense moment in the present. Our current culture pushes us to rush from one thing to the next, while thinking about a multitude of other things. Haiku provide an opportunity to slow down, pay attention to now, and closely observe the world in front of us.

2. Haiku focus on the natural world and on our connections to the natural world. Yesterday we had record-breaking heat in Washington, DC after a strangely cool spring. Each day presents new evidence that we have damaged our planet. Now more than ever, we need to attend to the natural world and our connections to it.

3. Haiku require readers to actively participate in making meaning. Readers use the images from the poems to paint pictures in their heads. These pictures often include sounds, smells, textures, and tastes. Readers must infer the signficance of the images and their connections. Though haiku images are concrete and their words often plain, haiku are complex and their readers cannot be passive.

Unfortunately, I think most of us learn a very simple definition of haiku—a nature poem of 17 syllables in three lines—that misses its essential characteristics. There are many fabulous discussions of haiku written by more experienced students and writers, but instead of sending you away, I will give you my current understanding.

 

What are the essential characteristics of haiku?

1. Haiku are short. They are one moment, expressed in one breath. The Japanese poets who developed the form believed one breath was best expressed in 17 onji or sound symbols. Some poets who write haiku in English write them in 17 syllables. However onji are not exactly parallel to syllables, and to many 17 syllables feels like more than one breath. For this reason, many poets of haiku in English write poems of fewer syllables.

2. Haiku are traditionally three lines. Typically, one line (the first or third) presents a natural context: a plank bridge, the harvest moon, a storm. The other two lines describe something more: ivy vines clinging, a stroll round a pond, chestnuts racing along a porch. Sometimes the second line of the more includes a turn or surprise, such as a stroll round a pond that lasts the whole night. By connecting the two parts of the haiku, the reader experiences a moment of discovery or aha. Some haiku poets accomplish this in one line or four, using the line breaks as a tool of expression.

3. Haiku provide direct experience. They are written in the present tense. They do not use metaphor, simile, personification, or rhyme because that would interfere with the direct experience.

4. Haiku are about the interrelatedness of humans and nature. Often the human is there only as an attentive observer. Other times the human is represented implicitly by a verb requiring human action, such as lighting the lanterns. The human can also be represented by a pronoun such as I or me or my.

5. Haiku is not just a form of poetry. It is a way of being in the world.

 

I hope I’ve convinced you to give it a try. As with most things, it’s harder than it looks and worth the effort.

 

For more information:

The Haiku Society of America has a page of educational resources, which includes an introduction to haiku.

Jane Reichhold’s Bare Bones School of Haiku provides 14 lessons on haiku and how to write them.

Robyn Hood Black has written many beautiful haiku. On her website she provides a list of haiku resources and lesson plans for K-2 and grades 3 and up.

Diane Mayr posts lots of haiku “stickies” and other delectables on her blog Random Noodling.

Finally, this week I typed “haiku” into itunes search and discovered Haiku Chronicles podcasts. What a find! They have over 25 episodes dedicated to all things haiku. They delve into the history of the form in Japan and in the US. Some include old recordings of poets discussing and reading haiku. In the 8th episode Anita Virgil provides her 9 questions for judging haiku. She says most don’t make it past question 2!

 

For more Poetry Friday, visit, yes, Diane Mayr’s Random Noodling!

Come back on Tuesday, April 16th to see the 2013 Kidlitosphere Progressive Poem progress.

 

(c) 2013, Elizabeth Steinglass, all rights reserved

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How to Write a Poem

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

How to Write a Poem

To write a poem
Go out the front door.
Walk around
Your neighborhood,
Following your nose
Down this or that street.
Cross for the latest bloom.
Track the ants to their castle
Of dust. See where the bees
Dance their maps. Crawl
On your belly. Open your mouth
And funnel the dirt through you
Like a worm. Listen to the rhythm
Of your footsteps and the song
Of passing cars. Eat daisies.
Smell asphalt. Rub your elbows
On oak bark. All the while
Compare your trip to a bird
Or to death. But if you want
To write something new,
Go home. Go up to the attic.
Open a window and

jump.

 

I got another rejection this week (Can we please agree to stop calling it this? How about a “pass?” Anyone else have a suggestion?). Getting a “pass” is too common to be noteworthy. What was remarkable was that the editor said I was close and told me which of the poems he preferred. (Because he replied to me like one human being to another, I didn’t actually feel rejected.) As I considered the two poems he mentioned, I realized they had something in common, not in terms of the product, but in the process that had produced them. With both, I had somehow let go. I had stopped writing from my head and wrote from my gut. I had gone up to the roof and jumped and out in the air, I had caught something a little more unusual.

To metaphorically jump, I literally did something like a cross between free writing and brainstorming. I wrote as quickly as possible, without judging or revising, or even developing any one idea. I tried to get out as many different approaches as possible. Only after 20 or 30 or 40 different options did I go back and see if there were a few I wanted to develop. I think that by writing quickly and getting out as many ideas as possible, I was able to get off the well-worn paths and find new associations and connections.

What do you do when you want to get past the usual?

I hope you’re enjoying National Poetry Month.

Jama Rattigan has an extensive list of Kidlitosphere events celebrating our favorite month.

Irene Latham is once again hosting the Kidlitosphere Progressive Poem, which I’ll be contributing to later in the month.

For more Poetry Friday, visit Robyn Hood Black.

(c) Elizabeth Steinglass, 2013, all rights reserved

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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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March Madness

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Ed DeCaria at Think Kid, Think! has once again organized a crazy poetry tournament. Competitors have 36 hours to write kids’ poems using ridiculous words given to them by Ed. Outcomes are determined by those who visit the website and vote. Winners advance to the next round (like the March Madness basketball tournament). The whole tournament takes a few weeks.

 

My first-round word was hubris. (My opponent’s word was chisel.) I wrote two poems. You can find the first at the tournament website.

Here is the second:

 

The Girl in the Hole

There once was a girl with great hubris,
Who exclaimed without shame, “I can do this!”
When she came to a hole,
She leaped (like a mole)
And found that she’d been quite amiss.

(c) Elizabeth Steinglass, 2013

 

When you have a free moment, visit the tournament, read some great poetry, and vote!

For more Poetry Friday, visit Check It Out.

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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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Ode to My Slippers

 

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You sit by the door
Two old Labradors,
Two rabbits hunched in the grass
Waiting
To hop after mama,
Happy to welcome
These foul, wandering feet,
Never complaining
You’re not the ones
To go out.
Circled in fur,
Two open sacks folded back,
Two manes without their lion heads,
Without their thoughts,
Without any idea
Where to go
Without me to say
Time for the kitchen,
Time for the office,
Time for bed.
So little do I think of you,
I’ve worn you
Out the door.
It was the feeling of something wrong
That made me notice
You’d gone too far.
I’ve flattened your fur,
Bored a hole in your toe,
But you never complain.
Happily you swish swish across the floor,
Singing a song
Of someone returned
Home.

 

 

I’ve been preparing to visit a middle school writing/drawing elective. Because some kids are writing and some are drawing, I thought I would bring some odes. My plan is to ask the kids to choose something in the room to draw or write about so they can really examine their chosen subject. I know that when I have my subject directly in front of me I can come up with ideas that would never occur to me if I were simply picturing it in my head. To prepare for my visit I’ve been reading Odes to Common Things by Pablo Neruda and because I’ll be working with kids I’ve also been reading Neighborhood Odes by Gary Soto. I’ve also been inspired by Laura Shovan’s lesson plans for odes.

I love my copy of Neruda’s Odes to Common Things. It has the original poems in Spanish on one side and the English translations by Ken Krabbenhoft on the other. It also has beautiful pencil drawings by Ferris Cook at the top of each page. Even the drawings make interesting pairs—a violin on one page and its case on the opposite, closed scissors on one page and open scissors on the opposite.

Here is the opening of Neruda’s “Ode to a pair of scissors:”

 

Prodigious
scissors
(looking like
birds, or
fish)
you are as polished as a knight’s
shining armor.

Two long and treacherous
knives
crossed and bound together
for all time,
two
tiny rivers
joined:
thus was born a creature for cutting,
a fish that swims among billowing linens,
a bird that flies
through
barbershops.

 

Gary Soto also uses beautiful and surprising imagery in his odes. Here’s the beginning of his “Ode to Los Chicharrones” (fried pork rinds):

 

They are shaped
Like trumpets,
The blow of salt
On your lips
When you raise
One to your mouth.
The music is a crunch
On the back molars,
A hard crunch that
Flushes the ears
And tires the jaw.

 

One thing I hope to discuss with the kids is the language the poets use to describe the objects—how they look, sound, and even taste. I love the images of scissors as fish swimming among billowed linens and of chicharrones as salted trumpets. These images feel new and unfamiliar. One thing we can talk about is how to get past the old and familiar to discover the new.

I also hope we can talk about how odes are about familiar objects and something more. Neruda’s scissors cut fabric and hair, but they also cut happiness, sadness, and poetry. Soto’s chicarrones are so good, ants drop their breadcrumbs in hopes of a salty flake.

I’m looking forward to my visit and to hearing and seeing what the kids come up with.

For more Poetry Friday visit Sheri Doyle.

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Ode to My Bed

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This isn’t a place
I want to go—
It’s where I’m put
Or sent
Before I’m ready,
When I’m too busy
To stop my game and say good-bye
To the day.
I’m scared when I’m here
Alone
With my ears hearing
Sounds
All around me,
My thoughts thinking
What might be making
Those noises.
I pull my blue blanket,
My old blue blanket,
Up over my head,
Over Armadillo and One-Eyed Gorilla,
Little Blue Ostrich and Theo the Bear,
And there in our tent we tell stories,
Until our whispers
Turn
Into
Tomorrow.

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