Coming Soon: The Progressive Poem for 2014!

It's almost April, and you know what that means!  National Poetry Month, and the third annual Kidlitosphere Progressive Poem!

Here are the finished products for the last two years.  This year, like before, thirty different writers will each contribute one line.  The poem will move around the blogosphere as follows:


2014 Kidlitosphere
Progressive Poem

1 Charles at Poetry Time
2 Joy at Joy Acey
3 Donna at Mainely Write
4 Anastasia at Poet! Poet!
5 Carrie at Story Patch
6 Sheila at Sheila Renfro
7 Pat at Writer on a Horse
8 Matt at Radio, Rhythm & Rhyme
9 Diane at Random Noodling
10 Tabatha at The Opposite of Indifference
11 Linda at Write Time
12 Mary Lee at A Year of Reading
13 Janet at Live Your Poem
14 Deborah at Show--Not Tell
15 Tamera at The Writer's Whimsy
16 Robyn at Life on the Deckle Edge
17 Margaret at Reflections on the Teche
18 Irene at Live Your Poem
19 Julie at The Drift Record
20 Buffy at Buffy Silverman
21 Renee at No Water River
22 Laura at Author Amok
23 Amy at The Poem Farm
24 Linda at TeacherDance
25 Michelle at Today's Little Ditty
26 Lisa at Lisa Schroeder Books
27 Kate at Live Your Poem
28 Caroline at Caroline Starr Rose
29 Ruth at There is No Such Thing as a Godforsaken Town
30 Tara at A Teaching Life

Or you can just watch this space; I'll link you. Can't wait!

Poetry Friday: A Word

A student shared this little Emily Dickinson poem in class today.

A WORD

A word is dead
When it is said,
Some say.
I say it just
Begins to live
That day.


I wonder if the words I say and read with my students will continue to live, and maybe someday some of these words will come back to them.  I hope so.  Today a tenth grader said to me, "I miss your class so much, and the way you used to read to us."  I needed to hear that, in the middle of a season when my words so often seem dead!

Mary Lee has the roundup today, here!  Go check it out!

Poetry Friday Again

I am really falling down on the Poetry Friday job lately.  But not to worry -- soon it will be April and National Poetry Month, and I'll be making more of an effort.  (Plus, I won't be in the middle of grading season.)

Here's today's roundup.

Poetry Friday

Sorry, but today I have no time for Poetry Friday.  Actually, it's the ultimate Poetry Friday, because today I'm getting 24 seventh grade poetry anthology assignments, as well as I haven't even counted how many eighth grade final writing pieces.  Some students were in my classroom crying days ago, worrying that they wouldn't finish (they did), while others started their work last night and are not at all concerned today with whether they finish or not. 

See you next week, when I'm hoping this grading will be almost all done.  And meanwhile, here's today's roundup, so you can see what everybody else posted.

Poetry Friday: Today

My much-anticipated week off is almost over, and on Monday I go back to the week of a million due dates.  Next weekend I will be buried in student writing to read.

Meanwhile, it's the last weekday of my spring (Carnival) break, and today is a perfect day.

Today
Billy Collins
 

If ever there were a spring day so perfect,

so uplifted by a warm intermittent breeze

that it made you want to throw

open all the windows in the house

and unlatch the door to the canary's cage,

indeed, rip the little door from its jamb, 

 

Here's the rest. 

 

And here's today's roundup.