Hot days, cold poems
Let’s capture “aha” moments
Lazy summer days
— Ann Angel
Summer days are meant for daydreaming on beach blankets, sitting on porches lost in a great piece of fiction, and writing about this very moment we’re in. It’s a great time to pull out a journal and create a poem that captures these special moments. Poetry seems to fit the lazy timeless summer experience and allows writers to capture the thunderstorms that feed our gardens even as they shake us to our toes, or paint the experience of hot sun on our faces, popsicle juice dripping down our hands, and even the moment we dip our faces into clover or lavender and breathe deeply.
But where to start? There are some iconic how-to books including Mary Oliver’s A Poetry Handbook: A Prose Guide to Understanding and Writing Poetry. While this book tends to be a bit dense, there are a few books that speak directly to middle graders. Poetry Play by Amanda Shackelford uses rhyme to encourage writers to play with their experiences.
One of my personal favorites that speaks directly to writers in clear language is JoAnn Early Macken’s Write A Poem Step-by-Step. This how-to walks writers through idea generation to revision.
Giggle-Worthy Poetry Prompts for Kids by Mike Downs and Sandra Athans offers writers six poetic forms and suggests easy ways to generate poems. Writers might use their own names to create acrostic poems, use free flowing ideas like “Purple Pickles” for free verse poems, or create concrete forms from surroundings (think a star-shaped poem about a star or back to lavender, consider that shape in simply describing this plant).
In thinking about writing poetry on timeless summer days, I’d recommend picking up a classic collection that also teaches style such as A Kick in the Head: An Everyday Guide to Poetic Forms illustrated by Chris Raschka with poems selected by Paul Janeczeko.
Over 25 poetic forms and examples are provided. (This is the most borrowed book from my personal university library and the one book that I keep having to replace because students forget to return it. I don’t mind because they end up writing a variety of amazing poems).
Of course a summer library visit to choose poetry by Robert Frost, Mary Oliver, Amanda Gorman, and Eve Miriam who offers us the opportunity to bite into poetry with her poem, “How to Eat a Poem” or seeking pictures books by JoAnn Macken, or the above authors of How-to books, mentioned above, as well as so many other favorite picture book writers who write in a variety of verse styles and provide hours of learning enjoyment even as the poems will tickle our spirits and help us lose our creative hearts in our own writing.
Here are a few more possible writing prompts:
- Look around you. What color is your world?
- Study a blade of grass and look so closely you can see an ant wandering through that jungle, or find cracks in the dirt below. Describe it in a haiku (3 lines, 5 syllables, 7 syllable, 5 syllables).
- Write about how timeless summer feels, using free verse let metaphors for timelessness flow.
- Consider a more difficult poem like a sestina which requires you to find 6 words that will be ending words that change order to create a 36 line poem. To find the words, look around you and select a few nouns, some verbs, and possible adjectives and adverbs.
- Make a list of the best things about summer.
- Write a concrete poem about the last thing you ate.
- Write a persona poem.
- Style copy a classic poem or respond to a classic poem. For example, Mary Oliver’s poem, “At Blackwater Pond” tells the story of the poet’s sensory experiences at this pond. There’s a frog in this poem and I wrote a poem from the frog’s viewpoint. Here’s that response:
A Frog At Blackwater Pond
In Blackwater Pond the lily pads tremble
throughout this night of rain.
I absorb water through green skin. I breathe
oxygen and moisture. The excess slides
down my slimy back and puddles
on the leaf pad. I hear the drumming
of drops, spattering,
insistent reminders that this beautiful
water is my life force.
— Ann Angel
Explore your summer world and see if you can fill a journal with this summer’s “aha” moments. I don’t think you’ll be disappointed.
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