Friday, February 24, 2012

Happy Poetry Friday! Write your own Lingo Poem--and then sing it to your cat!

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Howdy, Campers!

Today's poem and writing prompt/Writing Workout is below.

My fellow bloggers have covered the topic of Digital Learning fabulously (scroll below).

Today, I want to list some of the ways I use these new tools...

~ Every day I use an online thesaurus and rhyming dictionary to write my poetry.

~ I decided which version of Ashoken Farewell I wanted to play at a recent tribute to the journalist Daniel Pearl by watching different versions on YouTube; then Freda Sideroff posted a snippet she'd filmed of me and hammer dulcimer player, Phee Sherline at the tribute concert (what goes around comes around!...)



I learned how to pronounce author Jon Scieszka's name (and lots of other authors and illustrators names) by listening here.(hint: it rhymes with the soda, Fresca)

Raise your hand if you get overwhelmed.  Do you?  Whew!  And I thought I was the only one.  Well, JoAnn is right. I just need to try one new thing. And I'm going to change the adjective: try one small thing.

So...here's my poem, based on an old song. But just one verse, not all of them. That's my one small thing!

(listen to the song on this video first, so you know the tune, then read the new words...)

THE BLOGGER BEARS' POETRY FRIDAY
by April Halprin Wayland
with apologies to Jimmy Kennedy and John W. Bratton 

If you go onto the internet
You're sure of a big surprise.
If you go onto the internet
You'd better go in disguise.

For every bear who hopes to express
Will gather there to write on Wordpress
Today's Fri-day, when every bear posts a poem!

Poem time for blogging bears
The Kidlit blogging bears are having a lovely time today.
Watch them, catch them unawares,
And hear them rhyming on their holiday.

See them tweet their permalink
They love to click in sync
And never have any cares.
At night they share on Mister Linky
now they can go to bed
Because they're tired little blogging bears.

If you go onto the internet
You're sure of a big surprise.
If you go onto the internet
You'd better go in disguise.

For every bear chewing sunflower seeds
Will gather there to read RSS feeds
Today's Fri-day--when every bear posts a poem!
poem (c) 2012 April Halprin Wayland


Writing Workout: Sing a Lingo Poem!
What's a Lingo?  A Lingo is a poem based on the lexicon of a particular field of interest. Period.

1) Pick a song you love to sing (I used my favorite song book for ideas, Rise Up Singing--in folk music circles it's known as The Song Book)

2) Daydream about a profession or hobby that fascinates you.Weaving? Blackjack? Riding horses? Gymnastics?  Plumbing?  I chose blogging.

3) Search for a glossary of words for that profession or hobby.

4) Pick out the most interesting words and put them at the top of your page.  In the poem above, I picked these words:
feeds, link, pingback, internet, blogging, podcast, post, rss, search engine, URL, spam, subscribe, entry, sidebar, tags, ping,permalink, Mister Linky, Poetry Friday, Kidlitosphere, dashboard, Blogger, Wordpress, LiveJournal, blogiversary, reciprocal link, link love, navbar, bookmark, tweet, facebook, draft, schedule

5) Find ways to fit some of these words to the beat of your song. You probably won't use more than a few words, but it's nice to have a big selection.  You can see that I only used a handful of my words.

6) Make liberal use of a rhyming dictionary.

7) Make sure you've installed AdBlock Plus (which is free) or the ads on this site (and most sites!) will drive you crazy (at least they drove me crazy!)

5) Sing your song to your cat.

6) Sing it to a friend.

7) Sing it with your friend!

The end.

Poetry Friday is hosted at Check It Out today.  Thanks, Jone!

...and for heaven's sake, write with joy!
poem and drawing (c) 2012 April Halprin Wayland

12 comments:

jama said...

*thunderous applause*

My 300+ bears and I thank you for this delightful post, April. Adorable lingo poem! You're just too cute :).

((BEAR HUG))

April Halprin Wayland said...

Jama--THREE HUNDRED BEARS?!?! Wowee! I want to go on a picnic with them!

Linda B said...

Darling, all the way through, and I really loved that young child's voice in the singing. Your poem is great fun, and considering you all are talking of taking little challenges in cyberspace I liked this line: "See them tweet their permalink". Pretty impressive use of terms. The lingo idea looks fun. I copied your directions to remind me to try it, & I will share it around with my colleagues. Thanks for all!

April Halprin Wayland said...

Linda and Jama--I feel as if I know you--like you're our neighbors, tip-toeing to say hi over your fence, staying awhile for a chat.

maria horvath said...

April,

I love the images, all those teddy bears tweeting in sync.

Wonderful, just wonderful.

Amy Goldman Koss said...

Adorable!!!!!

April Halprin Wayland said...

Maria and Amy...thanks!

Susan Patron said...

What a delicious picnic!

Betty G. Birney said...

Thanks, April! Teddy Bears' Picnic is still a favorite of mine and I loved your version as much as the original. Loved your violin playing and loved the post!

April Halprin Wayland said...

Susan and Betty--thanks for stopping by!

Tabatha said...

Fun idea, April. My cats would love this song, and my rabbit, too. I'm impressed with Jama's 300 bears!

Carmela Martino said...

What a great post, April. I loved seeing you play. And what terrific use of blogging lingo. Quite timely, as I just taught a blogging class today, and I used every lingo word in your poem at least once. :-)