In My Yard

In My Yard

Dinosaur cedars

loom LARGE over

shiv-er-ing shoots

of poplar, near

a WILD tomato jungle –

all sustained by a friendly snake,

while spiders stay busy

at their posts.

Stella Castella

Since I emphasized the importance of sharing unrhymed poems with your students, I thought that I better produce one for this week’s entry.  In a way, it’s like crafting a long, juicy sentence – and then deciding where to place the breaks.  Experiment with this; it’s work, but it’s fun work!

I own too many purses and I buy too many shoes; even so, I am a great appreciator of everything that the world outside has to offer.  Plants and animals are often my favorite subjects – for both poems and photographs.  Aileen Fisher has always been a poet that I’ve admired.  When you read her work, you’ll see why. She is one of the early NCTE Poetry Award winners.  (I promise to post a particular favorite in December).

 In one of my earlier entries, I mentioned A Jar of Tiny Stars (Cullinan).  It was published in 1995 and contains some of the work and excellent quotations by the first several winners of that prestigious award.  Another volume was published in 2010:  Another Jar of Tiny Stars:  Poems by More NCTE Award-Winning Poets (Cullinan and Wooten).  I am eagerly awaiting my copy of that from Amazon!