Back to Poetry

Poetic goodness can be found with Amy Ludwig Vanderwater at The Poem Farm.

I have been doing a lot of other writing lately, I am happy to come back to some poetry today, it feels good. Everyone should write a poem. My sister insists it makes the world a better place every time someone does. It sort of makes me think of that line in It's a Wonderful Life, "every time a bell rings, an angel gets its wings." Maybe every time someone writes a poem, someone else smiles! Wouldn't that be nice?



Awe struck
Listening
Laughing

Wondering
Reflecting
Inspiring
Talking
Eager


The above is a list/acrostic poem of the wonderfully filling experience I had at the All Write conference in Warsaw, Indiana the past two days.

Today, Ralph Fletcher lead us in an exercise of borrowing a few lines from one of his poems and creating our own. He has used this technique, at first with hesitation, with students and noticed that it seemed to work well. He described it like giving you training wheels so you can go farther (something like that, he said it much better). Here is my poem, the first two and last lines are the borrowed parts.

(The Good Old Days)

Sometimes I remember
the good old days

Walking down to the river
skimming tadpoles from the still pools

Watching them
circle in my cup

Looking at you

Looking at me

I still can't imagine
anything better than that.