Recycling, Revising, and Rethinking

Happy first Poetry Friday of National Poetry Month! I share a "recycled" poem at the end of today's post, along with a link to this week's Poetry Friday roundup.

Last Friday, April wrapped up our series of posts on new things the TeachingAuthors have been doing this year. We thought it would be a fun contrast to follow up that topic with ideas related to recycling, revising, or rethinking old projects or activities. 

When I started at Vermont College way back in 1998, I was definitely NOT a fan of revision. One of the most important things I learned in the MFA program was that the real work of writing is in revision, or as faculty member Sharon Darrow used to say, "re-visioning." I came to love revision, and, as a writing teacher, I try to instill that same love in my students. Re-visioning can lead not only to a more powerful piece of writing, but also to publication. 

Let me share two fairly recent examples from my own work, one prose, the other poetry:

In February 2025, I posted here about the publication of my nonfiction story, “A Life-Changing New Year's Tradition,” in Chicken Soup for the Soul Tales of Christmas:101 Stories of Holiday Joy, Love and Gratitude edited by Amy Newmark. However, I didn't mention that the piece was the revision of a story Chicken Soup had rejected two years earlier. I had put the story aside for a while (which I find crucial for gaining perspective) and then reread the piece trying to see it as an editor might. I realized the story needed a tighter focus and a stronger ending. With the help of my critique group, I reworked the story with that in mind, and the new version was accepted.     

In a blog post last October, I accounced the publication of my poem "Thirsty Amaryllis" in the fall 2025 issue of Little Thoughts Press Magazine. That time, I did describe the poem as one "I first wrote years ago, but it wasn't until recently that I revised it to my satisfaction." Prior to the acceptance by Little Thoughts Press, I'd submitted a different draft called "Amaryllis Gift" to another journal. Here's that earlier version:

              Amaryllis Gift

       Four scarlet trumpets
       sing a silent song
       to the sun.

       I stoop to water
       their parched roots.

       In return, they caress 
       my shoulder—
       powdery lips
       blessing me with

       an amaryllis kiss.

  © 2022 Carmela A. Martino. All rights reserved.

While revising, I worked on adding more alliteration, and I played around with stanza breaks and formatting. Here's the version published in Little Thoughts Press. (You should be able to click on the image to enlarge it if needed.)

The changes may seem minor, but it took a lot of rethinking to see new possibilities for this poem. I'm so glad I made the effort! 

How about you? Do you have a project sitting in the proverbial drawer that might be worth recycling, revising, or rethinking? I'd love to read your feedback in the comments. 

When you're done here, don't forget to head over to Matt Forrest Esenwine's Radio, Rhythm, & Rhyme for this week's Poetry Friday roundup! 

Happy writing (and revising)!

Carmela 

New Ways To Tell Stories

 I am continuing the series of posts - Something New I’m Doing This Year. 

As an artist and a storyteller, I am always searching for new ways to tell stories.  There is a freedom to having many tools at one’s disposal, especially ones that are yet to be discovered. That is where the adventure lies. It is that place where fear and creativity meet and enchantment takes over.  The only way to discover these new tools for me, is to experiment and push the limits.  I love to learn new mediums and storytelling formats.  It’s intoxicating. 

I admit that stories often flood my imagination each having their own way that they want to be told.   Stories are often stubborn.   They have a mind of their own.  They won’t be shoehorned into the medium of my choice. I approach writing like I approach teaching.  I listen.  When these stories come aknockin. I try my best to put them into their requested form: board book, picture book, graphic novel, YA novel, etc.  

This year, I have pushed myself to add some new forms, formats and mediums to my repertoire. As an artist I love to learn the medium and its rules well so I can break them or combine mediums and formats to create new ways to tell stories.

I am learning to paint with oil paints and thinking about how I can push the medium by collaging on top of the still life paintings. I’m still getting the oil painting down.  It was great to take a class at Otis College of Art and Design.  I also see some water color classes in my near future.

Inspired by my fellow bloggers, I have flirted with poetry writing (adult themes), taking workshops at the longtime literary arts center, Beyond Baroque in Venice California.  Beyond Baroque was founded in 1968.  They have an amazing creative culture dedicated to poetry, literature and art. For those of you into Punk Rock, here’s a fun fact: Exene Cervenka and John Doe, of the band X, met at the long running Wednesday night poetry workshop in the mid 70’s. The Wednesday Poetry Workshop still happens online in addition to a Monday night Fiction Workshop also online.

click here for more information about Beyond Baroque

Executive Director Jimmy Vega

Existence Archived

When all is said and done,

All that remains

Are the cockroaches

Humans are arrogant.

We know we’re at the end

Our existence limited

Our time running out

For those who measure time

Cockroaches don’t

They live in the present

Our days are numbered

Data yet to be collected

But we know it

Intuitively

We know it,

The signs are there

Refusal to fade into oblivion

We have the technology to prevent this

To prove we were here

To prove we mattered

To prove it wasn’t all for nothing

Refusal to disappear,

Refusal to be forgotten

We madly archive our existence

Synthetic humans

Hold our place

In time and space

Generative AI

Generative extinction

We hate the cockroaches

They’ve always been here.

Survived before

Will survive beyond our wildest dreams

Dreams and thinking gone…

Sucked into devices

Sucked onto digital highways

Archived for later

The cockroaches don’t care.

They just don’t.

Erasure hurts.

By Zeena M. Pliska

With a few poems under my belt, I recently mustered up my confidence and even read for the first time at The Book Jewel, a local independent bookstore.

I am becoming more proficient in the art of filmmaking.  Recently, I participated in a 72-hour film challenge, producing, writing, and directing a short film that we’re preparing to submit to small, local film festivals.

Rough Edit of Don't Assume short film

I’m also learning to combine my newfound skill of poetry writing and filmmaking to create poetry videos.  My visual art in the past has always combined images and text.  I love adding moving pictures and sound to poetry, to create a different genre that pushes my storytelling to a new level.

All these newfound creative endeavors add to my kidlit writing in ways that I feel give it more breadth and depth, bringing cinematic writing to the table.  It also gives me new angles, avenues, and perspectives to approach new story themes. It feels expansive.

My life as an artist/storyteller runs parallel to my life as a teacher of 4 and 5-year-olds.  I utilize a Reggio -Inspired Approach in my public-school classroom (in Los Angeles).  

The approach comes from Reggio Emilia, Italy.  One of the components of this approach are the many uses of “languages.”  

THE HUNDRED LANGUAGES OF CHILDREN

NO WAY. THE HUNDRED IS THERE 

The child is made of one hundred.

The child has a hundred languages, a hundred hands, a hundred thoughts, a hundred ways of thinking, of playing, of speaking. 

A hundred always a hundred ways of listening, of marveling, of loving, a hundred joys for singing, and understanding, a hundred worlds to discover, a hundred worlds to invent, a hundred worlds to dream.

The child has a hundred languages (and a hundred, hundred, hundred more) but they steal ninety-nine. 

The school and the culture separate the head from the body.

They tell the child: to think without hands, to do without head, to listen, and not to speak, to understand without joy, to love and to marvel only at Easter and Christmas.

They tell the child: to discover the world already there and of the hundred they steal ninety-nine. 

They tell the child: that work and play, reality and fantasy, science and imagination, sky and earth, reason and dream, are things that do not belong together. 

And thus they tell the child that the hundred is not there. 

The child says: No way. The hundred is there. - Loris Malaguzzi (translated by Lella Gandini) 

Languages are defined as a multitude of materials that students use to communicate like paint, clay, wire, beads, recycled materials, natural materials, blocks, music, etc.  When I was first exploring and learning this approach, I spent a couple of days at a school in Portland, Oregon called the Opal School.  It was a public school that used the Reggio- Inspired Approach in a K-5 setting.  Unfortunately, the school has since closed but the lessons I learned in my observations remain almost 2 decades later.

I observed an amazing use of the Reggio-Inspired Approach that engaged students in storytelling using different “languages” (mediums).   They called it Story Workshop.   It has influenced the way I approach story crafting with my young students.  

 In my class, we use different “languages” to tell stories.  

After they have developed their story in different “languages”, they make books.  Because they don’t “write” yet, we write their words for them. We go through this process every day.  I find that it builds strong story crafters and writers.  Writing becomes effortless (developmentally appropriate) because it is tied to story and story is tied to the experimentation of different materials and not limited by format.

For me, I find that pushing the limits as an artist/writer makes my work more dynamic. It gives me possibilities that would not necessarily emerge if I was confined to one way of telling stories.  I hope I am passing this down to my young students so that they develop as writers also not confined to the page in prescribed and uninteresting ways. I hope that it habituates the creative process in their story crafting endeavors and keeps their writing fresh.

By Zeena M. Pliska

Author of 

Hello, Little One: A Monarch Butterfly Story

Egyptian Lullaby

Chicken Soup for the Soul for Babies Say Thank You? (But Why?)

Chicken Soup for the Soul for Babies A Gift For Me? (I Want It!)

Putting the "New" in the New Year

Happy New Year! We're kicking off 2026 here at TeachingAuthors with a series of posts about something new we're doing this year.  

My "new" goal is to incorporate more humor into my poetry. Lucky for me, shortly after deciding that I wanted my poems for young readers to be more playful, I learned about The Poet's Studio's online workshop "How to Write a Funny Poem with Chris Harris" this coming Monday, January 12, 2026. 

I was familiar with Harris's work from reading his 2023 title My Head Has a Bellyache: And More Nonsense for Mischievous Kids and Immature Grown-Ups illustrated by Andrea Tsurumi. You may recall that I blogged about reading Bellyache back in 2024. But I didn't mention then that the book has the most entertaining glossary of poetry terms I've ever seen--and the glossary is itself a poem! Here are the opening stanzas:

          GLOSSARY OF TERMS
          (from My Head Has a Bellyache)

     A simile flits like a songbird.
     A metaphor struts—it’s a bear.
     Personification
     Says, “There’s a gradation
     Of human in things everywhere.

     Alliterative language looks lovely.
     Consonance crackles and creaks.
     Assonance has
     A class-act pizzazz,
     While sibilance slithers and sneaks. 

          © 2023 Chris Harris. All rights reserved. 

You can read the whole glossary online, where Harris shared it as a series of posts on X. 

When I registered for the workshop, I discovered Bellyache was actually the second in a series that began with a book illustrated by Lane Smith called I'm Just No Good at Rhyming: And Other Nonsense for Mischievous Kids and Immature Grown-Ups. Both books are published by Little, Brown Books for Young Readers. 

Since rhyming is not my strong suit, I find the title especially appealing. But it's obviously not true, given the book's abundance of rhythm and rhyme. Booklist even called it "A magnificently wacky romp through verse." 

I don't know if writing poems like the ones in these two anthologies can be taught, but I'm looking forward to Monday's workshop. An extra plus: all the members of my poetry critique group will be there, too. Are any of you TeachingAuthors readers planning to attend? If you haven't registered yet, there may still be a few openings. You can learn more at Georgia Heard's The Poet's Studio website. 

Don't forget to check this week's Poetry Friday roundup by Ruth at There is no such thing as a God-forsaken town. 

Happy writing!

Carmela 

Wrapping Up Our Series on Frequently Asked Questions

Image by Margo Lipa from Pixabay

Happy August!  

It's hard to believe that summer is already waning here in the northern hemisphere and students and teachers will soon be returning to classrooms. Today, I'm closing out our latest TeachingAuthors series. At the end of this post, I also share one of my poems and a link to this week's Poetry Friday roundup.

I've enjoyed reading all my fellow TeachingAuthors' responses to the prompt: "Share a question you often get from your students or readers." I must admit, though, that the post that most resonated with me was April's, in which she talks about someone approaching her with an idea and asking her to write the book. I, too, have received that request many times, not only from my students, but also from strangers I've met at social functions and even via email from random people who found me online.

But there's another question I've heard far more frequently from those same sources: "How do you get a book published?" In fact, when I first started teaching classes in writing for children and teens over 25 years ago, the question was frequently worded as "How much does it cost to get a children's book published?" Back before self-publishing became prevalent, many people assumed you simply paid a book publisher like Scholastic or Random House to publish your book. These same people also typically assumed that if you were a writer and not an artist, you had to hire someone to illustrate your picture book before submitting to that publisher. 

If the person asking the question was not a student in one of my classes, I simply directed them to the Frequently Asked Questions page of the Society of Children's Book Writers and Illustrators (SCBWI) website. But over the years, the answer has gotten increasingly more complicated, and the SCBWI FAQ page isn't as helpful as it used to be. Thankfully, Jane Freidman has a great resource: "Start Here: How to Get Your Book Published," that covers publishing books for adults as well as for children. The post describes three publishing paths: traditional publishing, hiring a company to publish for you, and self-publishing, and she updates the information periodically. 

There are now all sorts of books on writing for children, too. Two of my favorites include Ann Whitford Paul's Writing Picture Books: A Hands-on Guide From Story Creation to Publication and Writing Irresistible Kidlit: The Ultimate Guide to Crafting Fiction for Young Adult and Middle Grade Readers by Mary Kole, both published by Writer's Digest Books.     

How about you, Readers? Do you have any questions we haven't addressed in this series? If so, please let us know in the comments. 

Now for the poem I promised. Earlier this summer, I had the honor of having two poems accepted for publication at The Dirigible Balloon, a UK-based online magazine that publishes poetry for children--my first time being featured there! Here's one of them, which you can also see on their site here: 

      On the Launchpad (An Etheree)    
      by Carmela A. Martino

      Preparing for takeoff! I fuel up 
      on determination so I can 
      blast past expectations and climb
      skyward, higher and higher—
      beyond the stratosphere—
      to where earthly fears
      won’t weigh me down.
      Here I go—
      THREE, TWO,
      ONE …

  © 2025 Carmela A. Martino. All rights reserved.

As noted above, this poem is an Etheree. If you're not familiar with the form, you can learn about it on the Shadow Poetry site.  And you can read my other poem, "Puppy Litter," on this page of The Dirigible Balloon.

Don't forget to visit this week's Poetry Friday roundup hosted by Jane Whittingham for more terrific poetry.

Happy writing!

Carmela 

3 Books for Poetry Month

As a follow-up to my co-blogger April Halprin Wayland's post about 3 Discoveries for Poetry Month, today I'll share three books to help celebrate poetry this month. And at the end of this post, you'll find a link to this week's Poetry Friday round-up, too. 

The first book I'd like to share is a 2024 title I learned about on Jama Rattigan's blog. After reading Jama's post about Grant Snider's Poetry Comics (Chronicle Books), I couldn't wait to get my hands on a copy. 

The book lives up to all Jama's praise and more. To be honest, I generally don't enjoy reading graphic novels, but Snider melds the form with poetry in wonderful and often unexpected ways, making his book a pleasure to read. The poems are clever, touching, and even instructional, as is the case with the four poems about writing poetry. I encourage you to check out Jama's detailed post filled with wonderful images and poems from the book, and then go out and read a copy for yourself.

And while you're on Jama's website, I encourage you to check out her National Poetry Month Kidlitosphere Events Roundup for all sorts of ways to celebrate poetry this month. The page includes information about the Kidlitosphere Progressive Poem--our own April Halprin Wayland will be one of the contributors!

I'm currently reading (and savoring) the second book I'd like to share today: If I Could Choose a Best Day: Poems of Possibility (Candlewick), an anthology selected by Irene Latham and Charles Waters and illustrated by Olivia Sua. The publisher describes the book, which was released just last month, as follows: "An ode to imagination and the power of  'if,' this exhilarating poetry collection features the voices of thirty-one diverse poets." The book's poems, which all begin with the word "if," are divided into four categories: Everyday Magic, The Power of You, Kinfolk and Companions, and Anything is Possible. 

While most of the poems are new, there are several classics, including this one from Emily Dickinson, which is in the Power of You section: 

      If I Can Stop One Heart from Breaking

      If I can stop one Heart from breaking
      I shall not live in vain
      If I can ease one Life the Aching
      Or cool one pain

      Or help one fainting Robin
      Unto his Nest again,
      I shall not live in Vain.

 Original © by Emily Dickinson, now in public domain 

I've enjoyed all the poems in the collection that I've read so far, especially Georgia Heard's "What Kind of Word is If?"

Finally, I'm thrilled to announce that the third book I'm recommending for Poetry Month is written by my friend and critique group partner, Eileen Rajala Meyer. Eileen's new picture book, Build a Sandcastle, releases April 24 from Reycraft Books. It's a wonderful rhyming story about sharing a fun day at the beach with a friend and it's marvelously illustrated with mixed media art by Manica Musil.   The book also includes text sidebars featuring a clever starfish who offers
"5-star" STEM tips about building sandcastles that will surely inspire young creators. 

Unfortunately, the cute and clever starfish doesn't appear on the book's cover. So I encourage you to check out Eileen's latest post on the Rhyme Doctor's House Calls blog to see a sample page and check out some of her poetic text. I hope you'll also purchase a copy of the book for your favorite child and/or ask your local library to order one. (Check out the Acknowledgements on the copyright page to see a familiar name. 😊 )

And don't forget to visit this week's Poetry Friday roundup hosted by Jone Rush MacCulloch for more Poetry Month fun.

Happy Poetry Month and happy writing!

Carmela

Celebrating a New Anthology Featuring Poems by Two TeachingAuthors!

Our current TeachingAuthors topic is "Something New I Learned and Can’t Wait to Share." I've been learning lots of things this year and am pleased to share a few with you today! You'll also find a link to this week's Poetry Friday roundup at the end of this post.

I'm especially pleased to announce that today we're celebrating this week's release of Clara's Kooky Compendium of Thimblethoughts and Wonderfuzz edited by Sylvia Vardell and Janet Wong and illustrated by Frank Ramspott (Pomelo Books).

This new anthology includes poems by me and my fellow TeachingAuthor, April Halprin Wayland. I include samples of our poems below. But first, here's a bit about this amazing new book for grades 3 and up. Clara's Kooky Compendium is a "fun-filled journal-style book featuring a mixture of dandy doodles and drawings, fun facts, quirky questions, and 150+ poems that will get your kids giggling and guffawing while they learn about language arts, science, math, research skills, writing techniques, and more." No wonder the book has been named a Children's Book Council "Hot Off the Press" Selection for October 2024! You can see the list of the over 100 poets who contributed to the anthology on the Pomelo Books website. That page also includes printable activity sheets to go with the book. (While you're there, you may notice that a portion of the profits from this book will be donated to charities that bring joy to children in hospitals.) If you'd like to learn even more about this anthology, watch this video from Pomelo Books posted on Twitter/X.

I am honored to have two poems in Clara's Kooky Compendium, both of which came out of a course I took with Sylvia and Janet on Writing Humorous Poetry. In that course, I learned that a poem doesn't always have to make the reader laugh out loud to be humorous. Instead, it can employ rhyme, repetition, sounds, wordplay, etc., to simply invoke a smile. And when Sylvia sent me the final images of my poems in the book, I also learned how much art can add to the fun! You can see that for yourself from the page featuring my poem "Pasta"!  

I even learned something from the Thimblethought that accompanies my poem--I had no idea the first U.S. pasta factory was built by a Frenchman! My other poem in the anthology is also in free verse, but it's quite different from this one. You'll have to get the book to read it for yourself, but I'll tease you with two facts about it: The poem is called "Invention" and it's related to math.

My fellow TeachingAuthor April Halprin Wayland also has two poems in the Compendium. Here's the first one, called "Errand Dog:"

Don't you just love April's poem? Her second poem is also about a dog, but again, you'll have to get a copy of the book and read it for yourself.

Just this week, I also learned that April has a poem in another anthology that released on October 1: The Mistakes That Made Us: Confessions from Twenty Poets edited by Irene Latham and Charles Waters and illustrated by Mercè López (Carolrhoda Books). Congratulations, April!

I'm looking forward to learning a lot more from the posts in this week's Poetry Friday roundup hosted by Tabatha Yeatts at The Opposite of Indifference

Happy Writing!
Carmela

2 for 1 Giveaway: A Set of Metaphor Dice and a copy of the Poetry by Chance Anthology

Happy Poetry Friday! (Wondering what Poetry Friday is? See this page for info.) 

Today we have a special treat for all our followers who are fans of metaphor and/or poetry, and especially for those of you who teach writing.

I mentioned in my June 16 post that we'd be hosting a giveaway of Poetry by Chance: An Anthology of Poems Powered by Metaphor Dice edited by Taylor Mali (Button Poetry). Well, Taylor surprised me by sending not only a copy of the book autographed to "a fan of TeachingAuthors" but by also including a set of Metaphor Dice for the giveaway.

I include instructions on how to enter the giveaway for this fun prize duo at the end of this post. But first, I want to share a bit about the anthology and give you a sneak preview of my poem that appears in it.

As it says in the book's description: "Poetry By Chance is the first collection of poems that were all prompted by different rolls of Metaphor Dice, featuring submitters from the inaugural Golden Die Contest." But that description fails to note that the anthology includes poems from young people, ages 10 and up, as well as adults. The book also contains a section devoted to Lesson Plans using Metaphor Dice to inspire writers of all ages. 

Poetry by Chance will be released Tuesday, July 11, 2023. Taylor Mali will be celebrating with a free book launch the following Friday, July 14, at Brooklyn Poets, 144 Montague St, Brooklyn, NY. If you're in Brooklyn, I hope you'll attend in person. If not, you can participate virtually instead. But either way, you must register in advance to attend, which you can do so here. 

Even though the book isn't officially out till next week, I have received permission to share my poem with you today. As I mentioned last time, the poem was inspired by these dice:

 Here's the poem:

     WHAT IT MEANS TO FORGET

      For some,
      forgetting is a gentle blessing
      providing absolution
      and forgiveness of sins.

      For me,
      forgetting is a harbinger of death,
      bearing the image of my grandmother—
      her brown eyes blank, blinking—
      unable to remember my name.

© 2023 Carmela A. Martino, Published in Poetry by Chance: An Anthology of Poems Powered by Metaphor Dice edited by Taylor Mali (Button Poetry). All rights reserved.  

In my last post, I mentioned that I first learned of the anthology from a Poetry Friday post by Heidi Mordhorst, and that my poem follows one of two of Heidi's that appear in the book. I neglected to say that the Lesson Plan section in the back of Poetry by Chance includes a contribution by Margaret Simon, another Poetry Friday regular. Margaret shares a fun way she uses Metaphor Dice to teach students about figurative language. It's lovely to have my poem in such great company!

Speaking of Poetry Friday, after you enter our giveaway below, be sure to visit this week's Poetry Friday round up hosted by Marcie Flinchum Atkins. 

And now for our giveaway!

. . . . . .

To enter the drawing to win a copy of Poetry by Chance: An Anthology of Poems Powered by Metaphor Dice edited by Taylor Mali (Button Poetry) AND a set of Metaphor Dice, use the Rafflecopter widget below. (Note: if the widget doesn't appear, click on the link at the end of this post that says "a Rafflecopter giveaway" to enter.)

You may enter via up to 5 options. The more options you choose, the better your odds!

If you choose option 4, you MUST leave a comment on TODAY’S blog post or on our TeachingAuthors Facebook page. If you haven’t already “liked” our Facebook page, please do so today!

If you prefer, you may submit your comment via email to: teachingauthors [at] gmail [dot] com.

Note: if you submit your comments via email or Facebook, YOU MUST STILL ENTER THE DRAWING VIA RAFFLECOPTER BELOW.  The giveaway ends July 15, 2023 and is open to U.S. Residents only.

If you’ve never entered a Rafflecopter giveaway, here’s info on how to enter a Rafflecopter giveaway.  And a second article explains the difference between signing in with Facebook vs. with an email address.

Good luck!

Carmela

 

a Rafflecopter giveaway

Embracing Change with an Etheree

Happy Poetry Friday (and St. Patrick's Day ☘ too)!

Today, I'm wrapping up our TeachingAuthors series on the theme of Moving Forward in the New Year by sharing an original Etheree poem.

You may recall that Esther kicked off our topic back in January with her review of The Stories Behind the Stories: The Remarkable True Tales Behind Your Favorite Kid's Books by Danielle Higley (Bushel & Peck Books). Of course, I loved reading all the posts in this series, but April's has especially stuck with me. She shared her One Little Word for the year: Simplify. The word is becoming my mantra as my husband and I try to declutter all the stuff we've accumulated over the last forty years. Given that we've lived in only one place in all that time, it's A LOT of stuff! 

This photo by Sigmund on Unsplash looks a lot like a corner of our basement.

The decluttering has been necessitated by the fact that we're seriously contemplating selling our house.  Doing so would be a HUGE change, and we're both finding the idea a bit overwhelming. That feeling inspired me to take up this month's Poetry Sisters' challenge to write an Etheree on the theme of "transformation." I came up with the following. (Click on the image below to enlarge it.)

I still don't know what the future will hold, but writing this poem helped me feel a little less overwhelmed. So, a big THANK YOU to the Poetry Sisters! I look forward to reading all your Etherees at the end of the month. 

Poetry Friday logo by Linda Mitchell

Meanwhile, I'm going to check out this week's Poetry Friday roundup hosted by Laura Purdie Salas.

Carmela

Winter Poem Swap Treasures

Happy Poetry Friday! Today I'm thrilled to share the wonderful winter poem and gifts I received from my Poem Swap partner. First though, a HUGE thank you to Tabatha Yeatts for coordinating the Winter Poem Swap. You'll find Tabatha's blog here.  

I'm relatively new to the Winter Poem Swap--this is only the second time I've participated. This year, I was paired with Tricia Stohr-Hunt. Tricia is a professor at the University of Richmond, where she prepares future teachers. At her blog, The Miss Rumphius Effect, she writes about "children's literature, poetry, and issues related to teaching children and their future teachers."

For the swap, Tricia sent an envelope filled with marvelous treasures, including two notebooks and a bag of sweet-smelling scented soaps!

It wasn't until I read Tricia's note inside the lovely "Book Leaf" bearing a George Kingsley quote that I discovered she had made both of the notebooks! The small folded notebook with the beautiful butterfly design on the front contains pockets--they held the poem she'd sent plus a series of prompts to inspire my own poems. The second journal is meant to hold those new poems. 

Here's a peek inside the folded notebook:

What a terrific idea! I'm looking forward to trying the prompts in the new year--almost all of them are for forms I've never written before. 

And it was obvious from the poem Tricia sent that she'd done her homework. We've never met, but she knew of my math background. She labeled her poem accordingly:

Holiday Poem Swap 2022
To: Carmela (a fellow math lover). 

A Mathematical Pi Poem.

In case you aren't familiar with this form, the number of syllables per line in a pi poem must equal the numbers in pi up to that point. For example, in a 3-line pi poem (often called a pi-ku or π-ku because it has the same number of lines as a haiku), the syllables per line equal 3, 1, 4, to represent the first three digits of π: 3.14. Since pi is infinite, there’s no limit to the number of lines in a pi poem. The longest  I've ever written contains eight lines. Tricia's Mathematical Pi Poem is 36 lines long and is quite splendid!  (If you have difficulty reading the poem in the photo below, you should be able to click on the image to enlarge.) 

I love everything about this poem, and I especially connected with these lines:

There is wonder in
how the world
arranges itself.
Mathematicians across time
find universal delight in
the perfect arrangement of
lines in a plane, or in quadratic
equations. 

I also love the last stanza (which cleverly follows a blank line to represent the digit 0):

Where will
beauty find you? It sure finds
me in the mystery of math.

I'm so grateful for this opportunity to get to know Tricia a bit. She definitely feels like a kindred spirit.  In addition to loving math's mysteries, I'm intrigued by the intersections between math and poetry. And Tricia's pi poem is a marvelous example of that!

December has been an exceptionally gray month here in the Chicago area. Receiving the envelope of treasures from Tricia really brightened my day, week, and month! And the gifts will also brighten the New Year as I put them to use. Thank you, Tricia!

If you'd like to read the poem I sent Tricia, you can find it in her post here. I hope you'll also check out this week's Poetry Friday roundup being hosted by Irene Latham at Live Your Poem.

I wish all of you, our TeachingAuthors readers, a blessed and happy holiday season. Esther will be back on January 6 with a special book giveaway to kick off the New Year! 

Carmela