Friday, April 5, 2013

HIBERNATION: An Original Acrostic Poem


 


As I’ve noted many times before on Wild Rose Reader—I LOVE writing animal mask poems. A couple of years ago, I wrote a collection of acrostic poems about spring. The following acrostic, HIBERNATION, from that collection is also a mask poem. I wrote it in the voice of a mother bear.


How long have
I slept? How long has it
Been since I’ve
Eaten? I hear the river running again. I must
Rouse my cubs from their slumber
Now…open their eyes to the wonders of spring,
Awaken them to a new life. It is
Time to take my children out
Into the sunlight,
Out into a brighter world they’ve
Never known.

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REMINDER
Book Giveaway
As in past years, I’ll be giving away a children’s poetry book at Wild Rose Reader every week during the month of April. If you leave a comment at one of my poetry posts this week (April 1-6), I’ll enter your name into the drawing for a poetry book. If you leave comments at two posts, I'll enter your name twice...and so on. I’ll announce the winner of this week’s giveaway on Sunday, April 7th.

This week’s prize from Wild Rose Reader will be a copy of Lemonade and Other Poems Squeezed from a Single Word, which was written by Bob Raczka and illustrated by Nancy Doniger.

 


Here’s the link to my April 1st post: SpringSings…with Poetry!

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The Poetry Friday Roundup can be found at Life on the Deckle Edge.

 

9 comments:

Jane Heitman Healy said...

Good morning, Elaine! I love this poem. It's full of wonder and new life! Since I really dislike winter, I have often been envious of bears' ability to hibernate and miss all the cold, snow and ice. :)

Bridget R. Wilson said...

Lovely poem. I may try writing an animal mask poem this month. I wrote many acrostic poems over the years. My freshman English teacher in high school introduced me to the form.

Janet Wong said...

Kids really adore acrostic poems, yet there are so few examples for them to follow. Avis Harley has collections of acrostics--and who else? Maybe your next book should be acrostic poems?? Good to see you posting again!

Robyn Hood Black said...

Welcome back, Elaine! We missed you. Love your acrostic.

And since I have Bob Raczka's delicious LEMONADE, you can leave my name out of the drawing... this time. ;0)

Charles Waters said...

I'm with Janet. If you don't have an acrostic manuscript or two laying around you should create one. Love your writing. Always have!

Elaine Magliaro said...

Thanks, Everyone! It's good to be back and connecting with my blogging friends again.

I'm hoping once my husband and I get settled into our new home--whenever that is--that I'll be able to post more often...and to get back to writing poetry. My focus has been elsewhere in the past few months.

Linda B said...

Good to see another of the mask poems, & this is an acrostic too. I do wonder how the bear cubs do, after being so warm & cozy all winter.

Ruth said...

As others have said, my students love acrostic poems too, and it would be lovely to have a book of GOOD ones like this to share.

Patent Box guy said...

I love how this poem reads out as a full sentence, waving its way through the lines spacing with those powerful words at the beginning of the sentence raised to prominence. Especially "Rouse" - wow.