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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 17

WHEN ELI TURNED TWO


WHEN ELI TURNED TWO
by April Halprin Wayland

Before, as if he hadn’t heard,
my memo slowly fluttered down.  The words
which bid him to obey
would float above his brain all day.

My doofus dog who chewed my shoes
so long ago (before he grew),
now hears when I command him,“Stay!”
and as my jaw drops—Eli stays.

Poetry Prompt:  I’ve never had a big dog before.  I’d never had a galumphing, doodle-brained mutt who smacks into a door at full speed; an adolescent canine who turns every day into Mr. Toad’s Wild Ride.  Everyone at the dog park told me that a big dog calms down around the time he turns two…but I didn’t believe it.  Oh, ye of little faith!  On his second birthday, it was as if Eli walked through the door marked: Calm Dogs Only Beyond This Point.  Amazing.

The pattern of a rhyming poem–its rhyme scheme-is written in a kind of secret agent poet’s code. In the poem above, the pattern of my quatrains is aabb, ccbb where each letter stands for the sound of the end rhyme.

It’s your turn. Play with rhyme schemes!

poem © 2012 April Halprin Wayland. All rights reserved

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