Welcome to Poetry Month 2018 at No Water River!
Please take a moment to peruse the how-to below, and then dive in! Happy writing — and thank you for helping to build our collection(s)!
Remember: The Community Collections are open indefinitely, so you can visit each post at your leisure to add your poem!
Today’s Guest…
is the coziest poet on the block. She makes all sorts of things, including wonderful books of poems like With My Hands, and has a habit of inspiring others to observe the world and write about it, too. Please welcome author and educator …
AMY LUDWIG VANDERWATER
THE POEM
(Click to enlarge)
THE PROMPT
In second grade, as a little girl in upstate New York, I carved a soap whale (Ivory soap) for a school project. Forty years later, I cannot tell you whether I washed with that whale or threw it away, whether I gave it as a gift or lost it. However, I know for sure that my soap whale lives on inside my body and inside my heart. I was so proud of it! I still am. Such handmade things live forever.
Remember something you made with your own hands. What was the object? What did it feel like to make it? Where is this object now?
Or…
Remember an object that someone made for you with his or her own hands. How did it feel to receive this object? What lives on?
Allow yourself to travel back in time. Feel your own hands making or receiving.
What do you see? Who are you in this moment? How is it to be a maker? How is it to receive the gift of a maker?
These thoughts and rememberings will lead you to your poem.
xo,
Amy
COMMUNITY COLLECTION 29: MAKING THINGS
POST YOUR POEMS AND PROSE HERE!
1. Click the pink + circle on the bottom right.
2. Type in your title and copy in your poem
3. Don’t forget to include your name/copyright (e.g., (c) 2018 Gladys Poet)!
4. To make it stick, click on the background pic OUTSIDE the white area of your post.
5. Use the tools on the bottom of your post to easily upload images.
6. Scroll to read and comment on others’ work!
If you have any trouble posting your poem, you may email it to me at renee@reneelatulippe.com and I will post it for you!
THE POET
Amy Ludwig Vanderwater is the author of books including Forest Has a Song, Every Day Birds, Read! Read! Read!, Dreaming of You, With My Hands, and Poems Are Teachers. A writing teacher and journalist as well as a poet, Amy has a master of arts in curriculum and teaching from Teachers College, Columbia University. She taught fifth grade and directed a summer writing program for many years. She currently works in schools throughout the United States, teaching teachers about writing workshops, studying literature, and conferring with students.
Amy lives in Holland, NY with her family, blogs for young writers at The Poem Farm and Sharing Our Notebooks, and posts on Twitter and Instagram as @amylvpoemfarm.
Discover more about the author and her books at www.AmyLudwigVanderwater.com.
THE BOOKS
WITH MY HANDS: POEMS ABOUT MAKING THINGS
For young makers and artists, brief, lively poems illustrated by a NYT bestselling duo celebrate the pleasures of working with your hands.
Building, baking, folding, drawing, shaping . . . making something with your own hands is a special, personal experience. Taking an idea from your imagination and turning it into something real is satisfying and makes the maker proud.
With My Hands is an inspiring invitation to tap into creativity and enjoy the hands-on energy that comes from making things. (from Indiebound.org)
READ! READ! READ!
Twenty-three poems capture the joys of reading from that thrilling moment when a child first learns to decipher words to the excitement that follows in reading everything from road signs to field guides to internet articles to stories.
These poems also explore what reading does, lyrically celebrating how it opens minds, can make you kind, and allows you to explore the whole world. Ryan O’Rourke’s rich artwork beautifully captures the imagination and playfulness in these poems. (from Indiebound.org)
POEMS ARE TEACHERS: HOW STUDYING POETRY STRENGTHENS WRITING IN ALL GENRES
“Poems wake us up, keep us company, and remind us that our world is big and small. And too, poems teach us how to write. Anything,” Amy Ludwig VanDerwater explains in Poems Are Teachers.
This is a practical book designed for every classroom teacher. Each lesson exploration includes three poems, one by a contemporary adult poet and two by students in grades 2 through 8, which serve as models to illustrate how poetry teaches writers to:
- find ideas
- choose perspective and point of view
- structure texts
- play with language
- craft beginnings and endings
- choose titles.
Students will learn how to replicate the craft techniques found in poetry to strengthen all writing, from fiction to opinion, from personal narrative to information. “Poets arrange words and phrases just as prose writers do, simply in tighter spaces,” Amy argues. “In the tight space of poetry, readers can identify writing techniques after reading one page, not thirty pages.” (from Indiebound.org)
Don’t miss a prompt! Save this calendar to your desktop.
CALENDAR OF POETS ~ APRIL 2018
“Soap Carving” and prompt copyright © by Amy Ludwig Vanderwater.
Copyright on community collection poems held by authors indicated. All rights reserved.
Other post content © 2018 Renée M. LaTulippe or as indicated. All rights reserved.
Arts and Crafts photo by rawpixel.com via Pexels (no attribution required).
Oh, R! You have a way of welcoming folks to No Water River that just makes us feel cozy. Thank you for your beautiful series this month, for always sharing poetry for children, for your own poems, and for inviting me to join your April calendar. Today: origami with children at a book event to close out April. Hug. xx, a.
I still can’t believe you sent me a soap carving poem! I looked high and low for the carvings I did as a girl, which I still have, but alas I could not find them. I have a pig and an elephant that I did when I was in high school (soap carving ain’t just for little kids, you know!). It was one of my favorite rainy day pastimes. Thanks for bringing back the memories!
LOVE this post, Renee – Amy “lives her poem” as our buddy Irene would say. I’ve never outgrown making things by hand, and I’m happy about that! :0)
Indeed, I’m the same, Robyn! I adore making things with my hands — though you’re a true artist and I’m more of a DIYer. 😀
Your words make me wonder if kids still do create things with Ivory Soap, Amy? I did, too, but don’t remember what! There are all kinds of wonderful things to make, and your book gives a boost for “doing”. Thanks, Amy and Renee for a month of poetry inspiration!
Good question, Linda. As soon as I trust the boys with knives, I think I’ll hand them a bar of soap! 😀
Thanks for this inspiring poem prompt Amy—I enjoyed working on it. Love the playfulness of your whale poem and the video was fun. Thanks Renee for this rich post!
I love this whale poem! Amy sure knows how to spin a tale.
A fantastic prompt! I spent the day at the Virginia Fine Arts Museum yesterday….it was a swim in a pool of creativity. Just what I needed. I’ve loved your April project. You inspire!
You must be on inspiration overload, Linda!