The merits of little things
I keep thinking of the line from A Midsummer Night's Dream: "Though she be but little, she is fierce!" as I sit to write this post.
Part of my to-do list this week has been to write a minimum of two poems for children daily. In case you are curious, the process isn't seriously different than writing poems for adults, and anyone who tells you otherwise is selling children short. If anything, you have to be still more careful with your word choice and imagery to be sure it is get-able. But I digress.
Some of the poems run to as many as 24 lines, many are more in the eight line range or so, but some are what can only be termed "short" poems. They are among the trickiest to write, since they use so few words and lines, but need to get all of the work done that any other poem does. Not just put down an idea or a rhyme, but make it something that matters somehow.
I've been rereading lots of poetry this week, and have just (again) enjoyed Betsy Snyder's I Haiku You and Michael P. Rosen's The Cuckoo's Haiku. I have his other collection, The Hound Dog's Haiku pulled to read a bit later, with Jack Prelutsky's If Not for the Cat. I'm hoping to come up with a few haiku of my own tomorrow.
Meanwhile, here's one from The Cuckoo's Haiku that is gobsmackingly good:
hunkered, plumped sparrow
each feather pockets the heat
a mitten-warmed fist
Happy sigh.
Part of my to-do list this week has been to write a minimum of two poems for children daily. In case you are curious, the process isn't seriously different than writing poems for adults, and anyone who tells you otherwise is selling children short. If anything, you have to be still more careful with your word choice and imagery to be sure it is get-able. But I digress.
Some of the poems run to as many as 24 lines, many are more in the eight line range or so, but some are what can only be termed "short" poems. They are among the trickiest to write, since they use so few words and lines, but need to get all of the work done that any other poem does. Not just put down an idea or a rhyme, but make it something that matters somehow.
I've been rereading lots of poetry this week, and have just (again) enjoyed Betsy Snyder's I Haiku You and Michael P. Rosen's The Cuckoo's Haiku. I have his other collection, The Hound Dog's Haiku pulled to read a bit later, with Jack Prelutsky's If Not for the Cat. I'm hoping to come up with a few haiku of my own tomorrow.
Meanwhile, here's one from The Cuckoo's Haiku that is gobsmackingly good:
hunkered, plumped sparrow
each feather pockets the heat
a mitten-warmed fist
Happy sigh.