Celebrating Poetry

Today I join my fellow bloggers in "serving up a slice" to the Tuesday Slice of Life sponsored by Stacey and Ruth from Two Writing Teachers.

 

We celebrated warmth and sunshine this past week with a writing session outside!  Those of us who live in the Northwest know that a sunny day in April is a moment to be seized.  When we had our second day of almost sixty degree weather, we took our Writer's Notebooks and headed outside for inspiration.  

Inspired by a fellow slicer, I tried my hand at a new form, the arun.  It's a fifteen-line poem in three sets of five lines. Each set of five lines follows the same syllable structure: starting with one syllable and increasing by one (1/2/3/4/5 — 3x).

Sun,
we bask
in your glow
gathering words,
celebrating warmth.
We
listen,
collect ideas
capturing this
one moment in time.
Spring
arrives!
We linger,
longing to stay
in your warm embrace.

GirlGriot inspired me to try this new form. She has written many aruns during Poetry month.  Here's a link to a birthday arun she wrote for her niece.  

As soon as I get student permission, I'll post student poems from our outside writing workshop time!

Sunday afternoon, I attended the Poetry Cafe at our local library.  Middle and high school students were invited to share their own poems, read the poetry of others or simply listen in the ambience of a poetry reading in a small coffee house--right out of the 1950s and 60s!  It's tough for a sixth grader to join a group that reaches high school students too, but intrepid Emi came and even shared a poem.