7-Minute Poetry Challenge #16-You Call This Cold!

Jane Yolen: 365 Books Published and counting...

Thanks for saying YES! to this Challenge! (or at least to looking at it…) In case you have qualms about the value of SSSSSTTTREEEEEETCH read what gazillion-times published author Jane Yolen writes about her ongoing poetry challenge. (BTW: Did you know you could read a different one of Jane's books every day for a YEAR!) 

“I started writing a poem a day seven years ago as a personal challenge.  I didn’t expect to be happy with any poem on the first draft. But I did it for three reasons: 1. Finger exercises 2. Brain exercise 3. Sales: This was an unforeseen plus. I’ve gotten at least a half dozen picture books out of those poems and sold a hundred or more to journals and anthologies, and used them in books of my own. My writing had taken a huge step forward. I have no plans to stop.”

— Jane Yolen in the SCBWI Insights (Jan. 4, 2018).

Poetry Challenge #16

If You Think This is Cold… 

Brrrrrrrrrrrrr! If you, like me, are feeling a bit chilly today, when after a few glorious bright spring days, it’s back to gray. It’s time for a refresher.

If you’re not:

1. Go to the refrigerator

2. Stick your head inside the freezer compartment.

3. Now you’re ready!

Write a poem about the cold.

Begin with the line:

“You know it’s cold when…”

Think of all the things that make you know it’s cold. Hope you’re wrapped up in a blanket!! 

Set the timer for 7 minutes.

Start writing!

Don’t think about it too much; just do it.

*Cindy Faughnan and I began this 7-Minute Poetry Challenge at least 2800 days ago. We now take turns creating our own prompts to share with you. If you join us in the 7-Minute Poetry Challenge let us know by posting the title, a note, or if you want, the whole dang poem. Scroll down and click on the comments!

Can You Say COLD? Playlist:

Baby It's Cold Outside: Idina Menzel & Michael Buble's Sweet Video

 

 

Want the 7-Minute Poetry Challenge sent to your email?  Click on Fishbowl link and sign up to receive email notifications from Kelly's blog (aka The Fishbowl):

All who subscribe, comment or share a poem will be entered in . . .

Poetry Challenge #15 Ring My Bell

Channelling Zuzu and Anita Ward today—

(although I can not for the life of me see why Patti Labelle hasn’t busted out with her own version.

RING-A-DING DING!

“Every time a bell rings, an angel gets its wings.”

Everyone knows the refrain to Anita Ward’s hit Ring My Bell, but do you recall how it starts?

I'm glad you're home
Now, did you really miss me?
I guess
You did by the look in your eyes
Look in your eyes, look in your eyes
Well, lay back and relax
While I put away the dishes
Put away the dishes
Then you and me
Can rock-a-bye

Poetry Challenge #15

Ring My Bell! 

Bells come in many shapes and sizes, with so many different uses, and sounds!

Begin by listing as many bells as come to mind. Here are a few to get you started: Sleigh bells, steeple bells, harness bells, doorbells, elf shoe bells, cow bells, Santa’s bells . . .

Next, list the different sounds those bells make. List real words and make up your own words by using letters to recreate sounds—after all this is your bell. Does it bong? Ring-a-ling? Clink?

Now, follow Zuzu’s lead and imagine what magical thing might happen each time your bell rings?

Write a poem about it.  Be sure to include those sounds. Make your poem really ring!

Set Your Timer for 7 Minutes

Start Writing!

Don’t Think About it, Write It!

Is this the caller to whom I am speaking??

?

Do those words ring a bell?

First one who can tell me who used to say that—every week—wins!

Post your answer in the comments (below).

Ring My Bell Playlist:

• Ring My Bell sung by Anita Ward

• It's A Wonderful Life Movie

• Bells Are Ringing Movie

• "Twenty-Five Wonderful Facts About It's A Wonderful Life"

Bell Ringers at St. Patrick’s Cathedral. Wouldn’t it be marvelous to be there with them? Great upper body workout!

Cindy Faughnan and I began this 7-Minute Poetry Challenge 2800+ days ago. Now we take turns creating prompts to share with you. Our hope is that creatives—children & adults—will use our prompts as springboards to word play time. If you join us in the Challenge, let us know by posting the title, a note, or if you want, the whole poem in the comments.

Click on Fishbowl link and sign up to receive email notifications from Kelly's blog (aka The Fishbowl):

All who subscribe, comment or share a poem will be entered in . . .

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Poetry Challenge #14-Remember First

Do you remember the first of something in your life?

Maybe you remember the first time you rode a bike,

the first time you visited someone by yourself, or the first time you went somewhere by yourself.

Maybe you have early memories of learning to read, like our friend Rain!

Or writing or hiking.

Or learning to play basketball, like Aiden!

or drive a car…not like Aiden!

Who did these things with you?

Where were you?

What did you like?

What feelings do you remember?

Poetry Challenge #14

Remember First . . .

Make a list of anything you remember about some first event.

The more things you write down, the more you’ll remember.

Add detail and play with the words and order to make the best poem you can.

Try to repeat sounds for effect.

Set Your Timer for 7 Minutes

Start Writing!

Don’t Think About it, Write It!

For inspiration a few songs to rev up your rememberer:

• It Was a Very Good Year sung by Frankie Baby

• I Remember it Well sung by Maurice Chevalier in Gigi

• And—how could I not!—the commercial: Times of Your Life sung by Paul Anka

Baby you can drive my car! And Baby I love you! Beep-Beep-n-Beep-Beep YEAH!

Cindy Faughnan and I began this 7-Minute Poetry Challenge 2800+ days ago. Now we take turns creating prompts to share with you. Our hope is that creatives—children & adults—will use our prompts as springboards to word play time. If you join us in the Challenge, let us know by posting the title, a note, or if you want, the whole poem in the comments.

Click on Fishbowl link and sign up to receive email notifications from Kelly's blog (aka The Fishbowl):

All who subscribe, comment or share a poem will be entered in . . .

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7-Minute Poetry Challenge #13--Smell That Smell . . .

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P. U. what stinks?  

Which sense is most important?

My Internet research session determined, that the sense of smell wins hands-down . . .  

                    Or, should we say noses-pinched . . .   

Why? Smell lingers longer in our minds, and is more closely linked to memory than our other senses.  

"Smell is the sense most linked to our emotional recollection." 

It follows that tapping into our sense of smell would inspire a more visceral response to our poetry, and this give it more impact.

Easy to say, but hard to do, right? 

Why is it so easy to describe things in terms of how they look, feel, taste, sound, but so hard to describe how they smell? Beats me. Let’s give it a try anyway.

Poetry Challenge #13   

Smell That Smell . . . 

Take a moment to recall a smell.

Now write a poem describing it—without comparing it to another smell.

I agree, this challenge stinks…

Futhermore, or What Curious Minds Want to Nose:

• For some science behind smells, click here: Psychology and Smell http://www.fifthsense.org.uk/psychology-and-smell/

• For a Rockin' inspirations, click here: Lynyrd Skynyrd Band singing Smell That Smell

• For 19 more about smells, click here: "Fascinating Facts About Smells" 

Cindy Faughnan and I began this 7-Minute Poetry Challenge 2700+ days ago. Now we take turns creating prompts to share with you. Our hope is that creatives—children & adults—will use our prompts as springboards to word play time. If you join us in the Challenge, let us know by posting the title, a note, or if you want, the whole poem in the comments.

Click on Fishbowl link and sign up to receive email notifications from Kelly's blog (aka The Fishbowl):

All who subscribe, comment or share a poem will be entered in . . .

Want the 7-Minute Stretch sent to your email? Click on SUBSCRIBE  to receive email notification when entries are posted on Kelly's Fishbowl

7-Minute Poetry Challenge #12-I Like . . . I Love . . .

Brown paper packages tied . . .

I like it! I love it! I want some more of it!

That song by Tim McGraw popped into my head when I read this week's poetry challenge. (I hope that's what you're thinking too, if you clicked over for this week' challenge!) And then, after reading the challenge, Julie Andrews, the Von Trapp kids and a thunder storm chimed in--image the cacophony!

Whiskers on . . . 

If you're just joining us, welcome! (And if Tim McGraw's song's not your speed, dial up some Sound of Music, grab a pen and let's go: 

Raindrops on . . 

Poetry Challenge #12   

I like…I love…

List five small things that make you really happy. It could be a thrush singing, hot fudge, a puppy, anything. Add specific details to each thing. Make yourself smile. Try to use alliteration (same beginning sounds). Rearrange them until they’re in the best order for your poem.

Set the timer for 7 minutes.

Start writing!

Don’t think about it too much; just do it.

For Inspiration take a listen:

• My Favorite Things from The Sound of Music

• I Like It, I Love It by Tim McGraw

*Cindy and I began this 7-Minute Poetry Challenge 2700++ days ago. We now take turns creating our own prompts to share with you. If you join us in the 7-Minute Poetry Challenge be sure to let us know by posting the title, a note, or if you want, the whole dang poem, in the comments!

Want the Poetry Challenge sent to your email? Click on SUBSCRIBE  to receive email notification when entries are posted on Kelly's Fishbowl

Poetry Challenge #11-Spring Fling

Spring is busting out all over! Crocus and daffs are blooming, birds are twittering, bees are buzzing…

About those bees!!!

Public service announcement: Enjoy the dandelions—but don’t pull or mow them yet. Dandelions are one of the first, the only sources of food for bees in early spring.

For that matter: let all those dried up sticks and twigs and dried grasses in your flower beds BE for now—UNTIL THE TEMPERATURES RISE ABOVE 50!

Ladybugs are sleeping in those stems, so are other pollinators. Give them a chance to wake up and shake the dust of winter from their weensy wings and FLY! …they’ll still be time to clean up the yard.

Spring is early this year, too, weather-wise and calendar wise.

Leap year is one reason for it, but only one.

Like all things pertaining to change and growth and love and roses . . .

Blame it on the moon!

Poetry Challenge #11

Spring Fling

A funny thing about spring—Flowers and bees aside—Spring is fickle. Poetically speaking, it can never seem to make up its mind. Sometimes Spring is a noun. Sometimes its a verb. Sometimes an adjective. And, even, when whimsy and wit or dimwit wills, an adverb.

For this poem, let’s embrace Spring in all it’s fickle forms by writing a spring poem using the word spring at least once as every part of speech you can: noun, verb, adjective, adverb—more power to you if you can figure out how to work Spring into a prepositional position.

And, because what would spring be without birds, bees, and the moon, work them in your poem, too!

Set Your Timer for 7 Minutes

Start Writing!

Don’t Think About it, Write It!

Cindy Faughnan and I began this 7-Minute Poetry Challenge 2700+ days ago. Now we take turns creating prompts to share with you. Our hope is that creatives—children & adults—will use our prompts as springboards to word play time. If you join us in the Challenge, let us know by posting the title, a note, or if you want, the whole poem in the comments.

Click on Fishbowl link and sign up to receive email notifications from Kelly's blog (aka The Fishbowl):

All who subscribe, comment or share a poem will be entered in . . .

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Poetry Challenge #10-And To Think That I Saw It!

I spend a lot of time looking down…at my keyboard, a page…on walks, my feet.

All that is about to change, if only for a short while today. So plant your feet safely and then proceed—without caution!

Recently, in light of our collective efforts to be more culturally sensitive, this book (which was brought to mind by the title of this prompt) is being banned because a mural in the Dr. Suess Museum depicted a scene from this book has been deemed racist. The mural, or that section of the mural, is being replaced.

I am not sure where this leaves this first book by the beloved Dr. Seuss. To read or not to read it, is a question for you to decide. To ban it is shut the door on an important conversation.

 (As Theo is long gone, he can't weigh in on the discussion.)

Here’s a more PC journey PB

* NY Time Bestseller

* Newbury Award Winner

* Caldecott Honor

* Coretta Scott King Honor

Now that you’ve been a bit of a flaneur (that’s Fancy Nancy for idle wanderer) on to the prompt!

Poetry Challenge #10

And To Think That I Saw it!

List 10 or more things you saw on the bus or in the car —through the window—on your way to work or school.

Or take a walk and list things you see.

Pick 5 of the things and put one on each line. Add detail, simile, or metaphor:

It ____________looks like a___________ .

It is as _________ as a ________.

It is a ______________.

Read the five lines. Try moving some lines around to get it in a better order or change some words to make it rhyme (or not rhyme) or sound better.

Set Your Timer for 7 Minutes

Start Writing!

Don’t Think About it, Write It!

NOW! In the “oh so cool” words of Nancy Sinatra: COME ON BOOTS! START WALKING! Dah-dah-dah-DUH . . .

This photo of the grands on a walk is my screensaver. Imagine how that walk went!

Cindy Faughnan and I began this 7-Minute Poetry Challenge 2700+ days ago. Now we take turns creating prompts to share with you. Our hope is that creatives—children & adults—will use our prompts as springboards to word play time. If you join us in the Challenge, let us know by posting the title, a note, or if you want, the whole poem in the comments.

Click on Fishbowl link and sign up to receive email notifications from Kelly's blog (aka The Fishbowl):

All who subscribe, comment or share a poem will be entered in . . .

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Poetry Challenge #9-Time for a Cool Change

The Spring Clock is ticking! Blossoms are busting out all over North America! It’s almost time. This Sunday, March 10, Daylight Savings Time 2024 begins.

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Saturday night tick-tock change your clocks! Spring Forward!  

Once the clocks reach 2 a.m. CST, they will "spring" forward to 3 a.m.

(Or if you live in the few places in the US that don’t Spring Forward take note.)

If you wonder why these places don’t observe DST, here’s the reason. As for the rest of us . . .

Yes! Daylight Savings Time, Spring Forward does mean you’ll lose an hour of sleep…

. . . But you will also gain an hour to what???

Poetry Challenge #10

Time for a Cool Change

Spring is a time of change, regrowth, renewal.

When you think of spring changes that are coming…or changes you might make…what springs to mind?

Let’s celebrate by crafting a five-line pyramid poem.

A Pyramid Poem is a five-line poem, growing in line length, 1-2-3-4-5, so the finished poem is shaped like a pyramid. That’s it…

But not so fast! We’ve added some specific instructions for each line. (Note: by definition a Pyramid Poem doesn’t have to have these specifics, but we’re changing things up.)

Line 1: 1 word (a noun)

Line 2: 2 words (include a description)

Line 3: 3 words (include sensory)

Line 4: 4 words (include action)

Line 5: 5 words (surprise)

Set the timer for 7 minutes.

Start writing!

Don’t think about it too much; just do it.

For inspiration here’s the Little River Band singing “Time for a Cool Change.”

Want the Poetry Challenge sent to your email? Click on SUBSCRIBE  to receive email notification when entries are posted on Kelly's Fishbowl.

Cindy Faughnan and I began this 7-Minute Poetry Challenge 2700+ days ago. Now we take turns creating prompts to share with you. Our hope is that creatives—children & adults—will use our prompts as springboards to word play time. If you join us in the Challenge, let us know by posting the title, a note, or if you want, the whole poem in the comments.

Click on Fishbowl link and sign up to receive email notifications from Kelly's blog (aka The Fishbowl):