2012 Poetry Month « April Halprin Wayland – Children's Book Author & Poet

test

Enter your email
for blog updates

Yippee! In honor of Poetry Month, Easter, and all things rabbity,
my free-verse picture book, To Rabbittown is now only 99 cents
on iTunes, Kindle, Nook--yippee! (Picture me jumping up and
down like an over-caffeinated kangaroo…)
Download the free Kindle for PC if you don’t have an eReader.

.
And here are links to Poetry Month
in the Kidlitosphere–thanks, Jama!

Eli found Squirrel at the dog park.
Eli loves Squirrel.
Squirrel no longer squeaks.
Eli removed Squirrel’s squeaker.
He couldn’t help himself.

Howdy, Campers and welcome to my 2012 Poem-A-Day Challenge! Wowee–I can’t believe it’s here again! This means I’ve been writing a poem a day since I took the challenge in April 2010. Two. Whole. Years. Over six hundred poems.

Ask any writer and I’ll bet 98% of us wonder if we deep-down really ARE writers. Writing a poem a day has given me an amazing gift–I no longer doubt that I’m a writer.

This month, all the poems will be DOG POEMS, because the dog park is my new addiction. So, let’s get on with the dog show–arf, arf!

April 10

DOG PARK SPRING QUARTET

DOG PARK SPRING QUARTET
by April Halprin Wayland

1.
Dogs frisk in dust,
birds choir on wires.

2,
The sparks of spring
bring racing things
on paws
and wings.

3.
Dog’s full-stretch yawn.
The chill? It’s gone.
Instead, the crazy sting
of spring.

4.
Our park is full of
barks that mean g’morning, howdy, hi!
My heart is full of wagging tails
and hope and song and sky.

Poetry Prompt:

Sometimes I get flashes on a topic. Pieces of a puzzle that don’t fit together with that satisfying click no matter how I look at the pieces. Most days I discard all but one and work out a poem from that. But today I wanted to keep them all. This is one way to organize ideas. It’s almost like a strobe light, flashing on one idea at a time in a black room.

It’s your turn. Pick a big topic–spring, love, Paris, mother–whatever it is, scribble down metaphors, words that sound like your feelings about the topic, etc. Create a quartet of poems. And remember to breathe.

2 Responses to “DOG PARK SPRING QUARTET”

Joanna says:

April 10, 2012 at 12:32 am

You are inspirational!
April Halprin Wayland says:

April 13, 2012 at 12:56 pm

Wow, Joanna–thank you!

You must be logged in to post a comment.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

2 Responses to “DOG PARK SPRING QUARTET”

Leave a Reply