NPM: Rhyming Acrostics: Post #18

I dug up some old poems that I wrote about a decade ago when I was working on a collection of rhyming acrostics. Here are seven of them:

Changes suits to suit

His locus. Abracadabra! Hocus-pocus! He’s

A clever

Master of disguise…a trickster who can fool the

Eyes! This

Lizard with a fashion flair takes his wardrobe

Everywhere. Predators don’t stop

Or stare.

No one even knows he’s there.

 

Fiery flowers bloom

In the night:

Roses, carnations…chrysanthemums, too,

Emerald green, red,

White, and blue. Silvery fountains spill

Out of the sky.

Rockets of gold sizzle and sigh.

Kaleidoscope colors cascade in space,

Showering glitter all over the place.

 

Cans of people,

Automobiles

Roaring down roads on

Silver-capped wheels.

 

Claw-handed critter

Races sideways, skitters

Across sea-washed land…

Beachcombing in the sand.

 

Dawn, dressed in a bright blue robe

And golden slippers,

Yawns awake. Stars scurry away.

Breaking into song, birds

Rouse the sun,

Eager to start

A new day. Morning bounds out of bed with delight,

Kicking off the dark cover of night.

 

Silent sidekick, shape shifter who

Hides in the darkness…

A copycat mimicking everything you

Do. Sunny day playmate frolics in the light.

Oh, where, oh,

Where does it go at night?

 

Words

Hushed

In soft velvet

Sounds

Patter into your

Ear

Revealing deep secrets that no one

Should hear.

 

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 Wild Rose Reader Posts from Earlier This Week

NPM: TOO LITTLE!-An Original Poem:Post #16

NPM: THERE WAS A WITCH-An OriginalPoem: Post #17

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BOOK GIVEAWAY

I'm giving away a copy of YOU JUST WAIT: A Poetry Friday Power Book by Sylvia Vardell and Janet Wong. It's would be an excellent classroom resource for teachers of "tweens and teens."

To be entered into the drawing for the book, all you have to do is to comment on any of my Wild Rose Reader posts that I publish from April 23rd through April 30th. I'll announce the winner on Wednesday, May 1st.

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Carol V. has this week's Poetry Friday Roundup at Beyond LiteracyLink.

 

 

NPM: An Original Cricket Acrostic: Post #13

Years ago, I began work on a collection of acrostic poems titled What's in a Word. I never submitted the manuscript to a publisher. Fortunately, Kenn Nesbitt selected one of the poems from the collection for his anthology One Minute till Bedtime: 60-Second Poems to Send You Off to Sleep. The book was published by Little, Brown in 2016.

 

Here's CRICKETS--my acrostic that appears in Kenn's anthology:

 

Chirping in the dark, their song

Resonates

In the still air. A

Chorus of summer night strummers in concert with

Katydids

Entertaining warm evenings with

Their

Symphony of wings.

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BOOK GIVEAWAY

 

I'll be giving away an autographed copy of A Suitcase of Seaweed & More by Janet Wong. It's not only an excellent poetry book--it's also an excellent classroom writing resource, which could inspire students to write poems about their own life experiences.

 

To be entered into the drawing for the book, all you have to do is to comment on any of my Wild Rose Reader posts that I publish from April 14th through April 20th. I'll announce the winner on Sunday, April 21st.

 

SPRING THING: Welcoming April...and National Poetry Month!

Being a nanny granny for two little ones is a lot more tiring than I had expected. Julia is four now—and Allison just turned one in early March. Sorry to say that I don’t have much time or energy for blogging these days. I have managed to carve out some time for writing poetry. In fact, I wrote three new collections this year. The first one I completed is a seasonal collection of mask poems told in the voices of plants and animals. The second one is also a collection of mask poems--told mostly in the voices of farm animals. The manuscript that I just finished last week is my second collection of “things to do” poems. This collection is about winter.

 Julia and Allison

FYI: Things to Do, my first poetry/picture book, won’t be published until February of 2017—not this coming October as originally planned.

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Here are some poems about April and Spring to start Poetry Month off:

And now spring settles in,

Pitches her green tent
Robins return, daffodils dance
In the garden, fruit trees explode with blossoms, as the sun
Lays her warm yellow hands over the earth.

Softly, raindrops come to call. Can you

Hear them gently tap-tapping

On the

Windowpane, on the roof with an

Even, steady beat…

Repeating the song that April loves to

Sing?

Patter of April showers.

Up go our umbrellas,

Down go our booted feet…

Down into shimmery

Liquid looking glasses.

Everywhere we go we’re

Splashing in pools of fallen sky.

Soft, scented breezes, kite-catching winds, the
Pitter patter of warm rain on the
Roof, daffodils and daisies and lilacs
In bloom, apple trees wearing snow-white crowns.
Now the sun lingers at the edge of day and
Green…lovely green…has come home to stay.

TASTING THE SUN

Shower in the April sun

Shower in the light,

Streaming down on yellow days.

Stand out in the pouring rays.

Like butter on a toasty bun,

Let the sunlight melt and run

In golden rivers on your skin.

Feel it glowing deep within.

Feel the touch of early spring,

Feel the warmth that April brings.

Shower in the pouring rays

Washing winter cold away.

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The talented children’s poet Amy Ludwig VanDerwater has the Poetry Friday Roundup this week.

SKY: An Original Acrostic

I’ve been away from blogging at Wild Rose Reader for far too long. There have been many changes that took place in my life during the past few years. My attention has been diverted elsewhere. I haven’t even been writing much poetry. I’ve got to get my creative juices flowing once again.

For the first day of National Poetry Month, I thought I’d post the poem SKY from an unpublished poetry collection I wrote a few years ago titled Spring into Words: A Season in Acrostics.

Suddenly Earth’s blue dome springs to life, catches careening 

Kites, fills with the face of a smiling sun, the music of

Young songbirds and geese honking homeward.

MUD-LUSCIOUS: Poems for Spring

“Never forget that the subject is as important as your feeling; the mud puddle itself is as important as your pleasure in looking at it or splashing through it.  Never let the mud puddle get lost in the poetry –because, in many ways the mud puddle is the poetry.” –Valerie Worth

e.e. cummings wrote [in Just-]a poem about spring titled in Just-. In the poem, cummings described the season as being “mud-luscious” and “puddle-wonderful.” And aren’t puddles and mud fun to play in when we’re young? I know I loved splashing in puddles and making mud pies when I was a child. I’m sure many of you did, too.

 Click here to read in Just-.

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Today, I ‘m posting some poems in celebration of mud and muddy puddles.

The Muddy Puddle

By Dennis Lee

I am sitting

In the middle
Of a rather Muddy
Puddle,
With my bottom
Full of bubbles
And my rubbers
Full of Mud,

While my jacket

And my sweater
Go on slowly
Getting wetter..

Click here to read the rest of the poem.

Haiku

By Issa

A bush warbler…

Muddy feet wiped
On the plum blossoms

MUD

By Elaine Magliaro

Messy, mushy, mucky

Ucky, oozy, wonderful wet 

Dark chocolate dirt perfect for pie making

DIRTY DOG

(A Triolet)

By Elaine Magliaro

Dirty, dirty, dirty dog!
Didn’t heed your master—NO!
Thought you’d run into the bog.
Dirty, dirty, dirty dog!

(I rant in my mad monologue.)
You frolicked where you shouldn’t go.
Dirty, dirty, dirty dog!
Didn’t heed your master—NO!



MUD by Polly Chase Boyden

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BOOK GIVEAWAY

My book giveaway for the fourth week and final days of National Poetry Month will be Puddle Wonderful: Poems to Welcome Spring with poems selected by Bobbi Katz and illustrations by Mary Morgan. I’ll announce the winner of this book on Wednesday, May 1^st.



NOTE: Puddle Wonderful is a Random House PICTUREBACK®. It was published in 1992 and is now out of print. It includes many wonderful poems about the spring season—including works by Eve Merriam, Bobbi Katz, Elizabeth Coatsworth, Charlotte Zolotow, J. Patrick Lewis, e.e. cummings, Dennis Lee, Lilian Moore, Langston Hughes, Karla Kuskin, and John Updike. It would be a great book to share with a young child and would make an excellent addition to an elementary classroom collection.



SKY: An Original Acrostic



 

Ah! It’s finally warm and sunny here today. Unfortunately, I can’t enjoy the fine weather outside because I caught a bad bug. I’ve spent a lot of time sleeping the past few days. I’ve been too tired to do much on anything—including writing new poems. So…I dug into my poetry files once again and decided to post another acrostic poem from my unpublished collection Spring into Words: A Season in Acrostics.

 

Suddenly Earth’s blue dome springs to life, catches careening 

Kites, fills with the face of a smiling sun, the music of

Young songbirds and geese honking homeward.

 

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Book Giveaway Reminder

My book giveaway for the third week of National Poetry Month (April 14-20) will be COWBOYS—with poems by David L. Harrisonand illustrations by Dan Burr. NOTE: I’ll announce the winner of COWBOYS on Sunday, April 21^st.