What is Orange?

  What Is Orange?

Orange is a tiger lily,
A carrot,
A feather from
A parrot,
A flame,
The wildest color you can name.
Saying good-bye
In a sunset that
Shocks the sky .
Orange is brave
Orange is bold
It's bittersweet
And marigold.
Orange is zip
Orange is dash
The brightest stripe
In a Roman sash.
Orange is an orange
Also a mango.
Orange is the music
Of the tango.
Orange is the fur
Of the fiery fox,
The brightest crayon
In the box.
And in the fall
When the leaves are tuming
Orange is the smell
Of a bonfire burning.
---Mary O'Neill

Books for Encouraging Poetry Writing

 Teachers are busy people. Teachers are "on" the whole day and when the day ends they want a bit of time to be "off", but they also love reading, writing, and words. Teachers often want to do personal writing if time can be found after a full day of teaching.
I am often asked to recommend books that are an inspiration for personal writing.With this post the focus is on poetry writing books. It is often more manageable to grab paper and write a few verses of poetry when only fifteen minutes is available here or thirty minutes there. These books have excellent suggestions that would work with writing poetry with students also.
Thirteen Ways of Looking for a Poem by Wendy Bishop
What I love about this book is how each section starts with invention poems by published poets, then Bishop provides invention exercises using that poem.  "Thirteen Ways of Looking at a Blackbird" by Wallace Stevens is the poem she starts off with. Inventive exercises are also available using  "The Red Wheelbarrow" by William Carlos Williams, " Why I Miss the Midwest" by Michelle Liles, and "Praise Made of Water" by Nancy Willard to name a few of my favorites.  Any writer could use this volume once a week for a year and never run out of ideas. It is that good.

I love Ted Kooser. I love his poetry, his website, and how he has made poetry accessible to the people with his "American LIfe in Poetry" syndicated column featuring a poem a week by a wide variety of poets. His book The Poetry Home Repair Manual, Practical Advice for Beginning Poets is another guide I turn to often. The chapters on writing from memory and working with detail have reminded me often of new tips to try myself. He ends the book with a chapter entitled " Relax and Wait" which we often forget to do as we finish a draft of writing.

I will do future posts on other books on writing. Check the local library for these titles, or if you are in Moscow, the Bishop book has multiple copies available in our NIWP library in the IMTC.

October by Robert Frost

  Here is a poem that might be used to create images, remember a small moment, or reflect on October.

October

O hushed October morning mild,
Thy leaves have ripened to the fall;
To-morrow's wind, if it be wild,
Should waste them all.
The crows above the forest call;
To-morrow they may form and go.
O hushed October morning mild,
Begin the hours of this day slow,
Make the day seem to us less brief.
Hearts not averse to being beguiled,
Beguile us in the way you know;
Release one leaf at break of day;
At noon release another leaf;
One from our trees, one far away;
Retard the sun with gentle mist;
Enchant the land with amethyst.
Slow, slow!
For the grapes' sake, if they were all,
Whose leaves already are burnt with frost,
Whose clustered fruit must else be lost--
For the grapes' sake along the wall.

-Robert Frost

National Day of Writing

October 20th is the National Day of Writing! For more information on this event sponsored jointly by the National Writing Project and National Counsel of Teachers of English, go here. You can submit your own writing for the National Gallery of Writing.

The Meeting of the MInds in Moscow

The leadership team of the Northwest Inland Writing Project gathered in Moscow yesterday. When you have a group of teacher consultants with a passion for writing, literacy, and learning amazing things happen. Plans were made for events this school year, discussions were held on keeping the organization strong, and good food was had by all. Keep tuned in to this blog and FB to keep informed on the activities of NIWP.

Song for Autumn

Inspiration for writing surrounds us as we move from summer into autumn. Our student writers embrace autumn with stories about Halloween, football games, jumping in leaves, frosty evenings, the first hint of snow, and hunting camp. Here is a poem that works perfectly for imaging autumn. It may be a springboard for your students or you!

 

Song for Autumn

In the deep fall
    don't you imagine the leaves think how
comfortable it will be to touch
    the earth instead of the
nothingness of air and the endless
    freshets of wind? And don't you think
the trees themselves, especially those with mossy,
    warm caves, begin to think
of the birds that will come — six, a dozen — to sleep
    inside their bodies? And don't you hear
the goldenrod whispering goodbye,
    the everlasting being crowned with the first
tuffets of snow? The pond
    vanishes, and the white field over which
the fox runs so quickly brings out
    its blue shadows. And the wind pumps its
bellows. And at evening especially,
    the piled firewood shifts a little,
longing to be on its way.
-Mary Oliver

There Is A Place

 This poem works well  as we work at getting students to  write about places they have been and places they wish for.

There Is a Place

There is a place

where the museum houses thousands of paintings

seen nowhere else in the world,

the colors so bright they grab your eyes

and hold you there, looking,

where the library is filled with brand new books

waiting for you to open them first,

to tell stories only you could know,

where fresh cherries have no pits,

where puppies never grow old.

There is such a place,

hidden deep

in me.

- Janet Wong