2018's Progressive Poem is HERE today!

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Howdy, Campers ~ And yikes!  The Progressive Poem is HERE today!

The Kidlitosphere Progressive Poem began in 2012 as a way to celebrate National Poetry Month (April) as a community of writers. Here's a three-way conversation between this poetry game's originator Irene Latham, Heidi Mordhorst, and Liz Steinglass just before 2018's poem sprouted.

This year, 30 poets signed on. Our mission: to grow the poem, one line at a time.

A few days ago, I posted a poem about my mixed-up feelings leading up to this momentous day. ...aka, the day I add a line.

This year, our instructions were: "take a minute to record your first impressions of how the [first] line strikes your imagination and what you think the poem might become."

So...I read the first line, by Liz Steinglass: Nestled in her cozy bed, a seed stretched.

Like so many others on this 30-day most excellent adventure, I was very happy with this first line because I like concrete, accessible images. I wrote:
Okay, a personified seed. Let's see...by nearly-the-end of this month, our seed will be
s-t-r-e-t-c-h-e-d to the max. Will she be a vine who crawls along the tops of walls? A tree who ages with each generation?

And my, my, look how our small seed has grown!  I loved Jan's line #5: invented a game. It grounded me; I couldn't wait to learn the rules of the game which Jasmine, Owl and Moon would play.  And then...off we veered! As Matt wrote: "the seed has invented a game, but she’s not playing it – which is a conundrum as far as a narrative goes." And as Heidi wrote:"you poets, you really know how to turn a ship with a well-chosen word!"

I liked Donna's prethinking of possibly including a sound, a texture, a smell...or perhaps, why be serious?  Donna jokingly toyed with the idea "that Jasmine slipped out of the owl's talons and fell to the ground and the owl ate her, The End..."

I was grateful for Sarah's grounding Jasmine on a trellis ("made of braided wind and song"~ such a pretty line) so that I could see her as a vine once more. I need images I can hold on to. (My favorite earrings are monarch butterflies. I also wear tiny bicycles, a little girl in a red dress, and big juicy slices of watermelon. My sister said: "I figured it out: you like to wear nouns.")

So, in order to be clear about what was going on in this poem, I printed it and added little drawings along the margin:

My notes. Star jasmine on the left, poet's jasmine on the right.
And boy, is its aroma intoxicating!

Along the way, Christie discovered that poet's jasmine is a real plant (which curls up the posts of our home--but I didn't know it was poet's jasmine! Thank you, for this, Christie!) According to one website, "give [this plant] heavy support [e.g., a trellis, etc.]." Isn't that what our warm community of poets and readers does?

Another site says, "this jasmine grows quickly and has a strong resilient root system." And that was my way in. I thought about what a young person could take away from our poem, especially in light of the fast-growing, newly awakened, resilient power of this generation.

So here's the poem thus far (I added a period after Kat's line):

Nestled in her cozy bed, a seed stretched.

Oh, what wonderful dreams she had had!

Blooming in midnight moonlight, dancing with

the pulse of a thousand stars, sweet Jasmine

invented a game.

“Moon?” she called across warm honeyed air.

“I’m sad you’re alone; come join Owl and me.

We’re feasting on stardrops, we’ll share them with you.”

“Come find me,” Moon called, hiding behind a cloud.

Secure in gentle talons’ embrace, Jasmine rose

and set. She split, twining up Owl’s toes, pale

moonbeams sliding in between, Whoosh, Jasmine goes.

Owl flew Jasmine between clouds and moon to Lee’s party!

Moon, that wily bright balloon, was NOT alone.

                                         Jas grinned,

                                                stretched,

                                                      reached,

                                                          wrapped

                                                        a new,

                                around           tender

                                         rootlet

a trellis Sky held out to her, made of braided wind and song.

Her green melody line twisted and clung.

Because she was twining poet’s jasmine, she

wiggled a wink back at Moon, and began her poem.

Her whispered words floated on a puff of wind,

filled with light and starsong. “Revelers, lean in –

let’s add to this merriment a game that grows

wordgifts for Lee. He’s a man who knows

selection, collection, and wisely advising

these dreamers, word-weavers, and friends.”

Jas enfolded Moon-Sky-Owl into the cup of her petals,

lifted new greens to the warming rays of spring. Sun

smeared the horizon with colour, as Jasmine stretched.
She felt powerful. She felt fresh. She bloomed and took a breath

The Progressive Poem is a kind of poet's relay race isn't it?

 So it is with a deep breath of relief, that I hand it over to dear Doraine...

  who takes us to the finish line!

Thanks for creating this, Irene ~ and thank you to every member of this year's team!2018 Progressive Poetry Contributors:

1 Liz at Elizabeth Steinglass

2 Jane at Raincity Librarian

3 Laura at Writing the World for Kids

4 Michelle at Today's Little Ditty

5 Jan at bookseedstudio

6 Irene at Live Your Poem

7 Linda at TeacherDance

8 Janet F. at Live Your Poem

9 Ramona at Pleasures from the Page

10 Matt at Radio, Rhythm and Rhyme

11 Brenda at Friendly Fairy Tales

12 Carol at Beyond LiteracyLink

13 Linda at A Word Edgewise

14 Heidi at my juicy little universe

15 Donna at Mainely Write

16 Sarah at Sarah Grace Tuttle

17 Ruth at There is no such thing asa Godforsaken town

18 Christie at Wondering and Wandering

19 Michelle at Michelle Kogan

20 Linda at Write Time

21 Robyn at Life on the Deckle Edge

22 Tabatha at The Opposite of Indifference

23 Amy at The Poem Farm

24 Mary Lee at A Year of Reading

25 Kiesha at Whispers from the Ridge

26 Renee at No Water River

27 Buffy at Buffy's Blog

28 Kat at Kat's Whiskers

29 April at Teaching Authors

30 Doraine at Dori Reads 

posted with love by April Halprin Wayland, with help from Eli and Monkey

Monkey and Eli share a favorite poem

from Louis Untermeyer's The Golden Treasury of Poetry 

The 29 Minute Picture Book

     Remember when rock and roll songs had to be under three minutes to fit AM radio format? (when AM radio had actual music) I don't know why this was, but those 45's were all two minutes plus. I will wait while you look for your old Herman's Hermits collection. There was endless PR (mostly untrue) that such and such a song had been written in 15 minutes. My father, who is pretty open-minded about all kinds of music, said he doubted it took more than a half hour to write Meet the Beatles, the entire album.


     Some people have the same attitude toward picture books. (None of you, of course.) Not a week goes by when someone doesn't ask why I've written "only six "baby" books in ten years. (I also wrote two novels, but somehow people zero in on the picture books.)  I mean how long can it take to write 700 words or less? Or if you happen to be Maurice Sendak and wrote what is arguably the classic picture book, Where the Wild things Are in 160--something words.

    It takes me three to four times longer to write a picture book than one of my novels. Why? For one thing, I never ever intended to become a picture book writer. I was very comfortable in my 45,000 word count zone.  I was intimidated by people who could craft these little jewels of less than a thousand words (This was years ago when a picture book could be a thousand words.)

My first picture book, My Best Friend, sold in 2000, was 990 words. Today, adults often tell me they like the book "but it's so long."  Less is more...a lot less. Editors lust after the 600 words and under book. The best I've been able to do is 690 (Camp K-9, May 2011, Peachtree.) I'm still trying for that magic 600.

 Each word has to carry its own weight. The words have to be lively but easy to read aloud. My husband still turns purple at the memory of one of my daughter's favorite books in which nearly every word began with the letter "p." One page, and he was sputtering like Porky Pig.

If all this weren't enough, you need actions that the illustrator can draw. "To be" "think" and "felt" are not words illustrators (or editors) want to see in a picture book.

     I have talked about novels simmering on the back burner of my brain for a year or two before I begin to write. By then, I know my characters, and the story arc.  Not so the picture book. They are on super slow simmer. I'm amazed they don't scorch, simmering so long.

     My Best Friend was a miracle. I wrote it in two hours. Two furious hours, because someone had been mean to my four-year-old and I wrote it to make her feel better. I failed; she didn't feel one bit better that I had given her real life problem a fictional happy ending. However, the nice people at Viking appreciated it and bought it. I have never again written a picture book in less than three years (which only goes to show what can happen when someone picks on your kid, and you are M-A-D!)

    Here's what usually happens. I get an idea. I write a first draft and put it away for a couple of months.
I take it out again, and discover that not only is the first draft way too long, the story is lame.
Write another draft. another couple of months. Another draft.  Around year two, I start sending the book around, even though I know it's not  quite right, but hey, maybe the editor won't notice. They notice, but they don't tell you how to fix it. Then I put the story back in the file, because you don't want to use up all your available editors.   Unless an editor says these words "This is almost right. Please revise and resubmit," do not revise and resubmit.  Being rejected by a publisher is a bridge burnt, And there are few enough publishers who will even read un-agented writers, like  me. But that's another blog.

At this point I used to pester my picture book writing friends for their input. I have since learned to ask for their critiques before I start wasting postage and editors' patience. At this point big things start changing. Like the entire concept. I can write and write and still not know what the story is about. For instance, Surprise Soup started off as a story of two brothers, stuck in the house on a rainy day, so their father teaches them to make an old family recipe,  And it was 300 words too long. When the book finally came out (seven years after I got the original idea), the only thing that remained from the original story was the word "soup." Even my human characters had morphed into bears (the wise idea of my illustrator G. Brian Karas) Not to give away the whole story (and lose a possible book sale!) what really changed was the focus....from bored boys making soup to family dynamics. And 300 words less.

At this moment, I have at least five picture books (plus my current novel) running on little gerbil wheels in the back of my head.  They have gone through all of the above agony, so it is time (when I find the time) to do what finally got Surprise Soup off the launch pad.

Writer's Workout

 1. See if you can sum up your story in one sentence of seven words or less. Not the plot, the theme.

If you can't do that, you're not "almost" there yet. Give it another couple of months.

2.  Sometimes you can ignore step one. All I knew about Surprise Soup was that I had two brothers arguing over soup-making. This is kind of ironic since my idea of soupmaking involves a can opener and a microwave. Soooo....

3. I made lists (I may have mentioned this in another post) of sounds you might hear. I didn't limit myself to actual words like rattle or clatter or clink. I made up words. I love making up words (although sometimes my copyeditors don't. Yes, I know it's not a real word. I made it up!) The list looked something like this--splooshety-sploosh, slippity-slop, plippity-plop, woosh, swoosh, whirrdiddy. Allowing myself to get silly with sound words encouraged me into the next part; sibling bickering.

4. Some of you could probably write volumes of taunts and name calling and the accompanying body movements. I am an only child who has an only child. However I grew up in a neighborhood with huge families, who could stage some colorful throwdowns. I remembered what they said, plus some choice pieces of snittering (I know it's not a word, but it's what you do when your entire fight takes place in whiney or all-knowing voices.) That list really doesn't need to be repeated although I can't resist saying

"you doodoo head...in  French accent" was on that list (but not the book)

5. One of my current lists (for a story I've been fiddling with for four years) looks like this; sand-itch, spliddle, spladdle, whooshswish, flippity-flap-flap,drippity-drip, bingety-bang, sproing, tickety-tackety.  Just writing this down makes my original concept do a 180.

6. Stay with tis list making for part of your writing time for a week (I do not spend four hours a day just making lists)  You may have an a-ha moment. You may finish that sucker up in 24 hours. Most likely, it will get you some new directions which....you know what I'm going to say...you should put it back in the file for a couple of months. By then, I'll bet you will not only know what your story is about, but that you can finish it as well.

Have  a happy writing week...and work in a few lists.

Posted by Mary Ann Rodman