poets | Thinking Through My Lens

A Golden Shovel? It’s a poetry form I’ve heard about, but have never tried until today. Margaret at #verselove today suggested picking a line from a Billy Collins poem as inspiration for a golden shovel or any other kind of poem. But I couldn’t get Ada Limon’s new book, You Are Here: Poetry in the Natural World out of my head. You can get a peek reading this article: Pick Your Poem: 6 Poems to Transport You into the Natural World. So I decided to pick a line from one of the 6 that has been speaking to me–it’s called Twenty Minutes in the Backyard by Alberto Rios.

After reading the poem a few times, I decided to use this line: While the whole world simply moves forward.

Nature’s Medicine

Backyarding with the crows and bees while

framing photos in my mind’s eye seeking the

sunlight’s warmth, trying to remain whole

as time stretches and contracts, I’m spinning in space atop the world

in this outdoor space, I stop the spinning to smell lavender blossoms, feel the ridged aloe simply

spreading, spreading, filling space along the path as it moves

greening and growing wholing my mind, calming frantic synapses, inching me forward

Over at The Nerdy Book Club, Cindy has invited readers to share their favorite poets or poems.

I love poetry…especially in the classroom. Each week in our classroom we study a poem, noticing what the poet is doing and paying attention to the images it creates in our minds. We read it aloud and notice how the words feel in our mouths. Individual students read and together we read chorally.

Later in the week, we revisit our poem and create an illustration that captures our understanding of the poem. We glue our poem and illustration into a composition book we call our poetry anthology. By the end of the school year, students have read, studied, and illustrated more than 30 poems…over the course of the three years they spend in our multiage classroom, they have close to 100 poems collected and illustrated to take home and treasure.

One of my favorite poets to share with my young students is Valerie Worth. I love her short poems. They are accessible to children. And I love that she writes about ordinary things. But these are not simple poems…they are full of imagery, word play, and figurative language.

One of my favorites is Safety Pin.

safety pin

Valerie Worth

Closed, it sleeps On its side Quietly,
The silver Image

Of some Small fish;

Opened, it snaps Its tail out
Like a thin Shrimp,

and looks
At the sharp Point with a Surprised eye.