My creative writing club students are the best. Every Monday and Wednesday after school they show up and go with me, wherever I want to lead them. We’ve done so many goofy little writing projects, participated in NaNoWriMo, created an illustrated picture book, worked on a school literary magazine, but my favorite has got to be the meetings we’ve had in April, National Poetry Month!

We’ve checked in on the 2016 Progressive Poem each day, and these bright middle schoolers surprise me every time with the way they analyze the newest lines, make interesting observations about the direction the poem is heading, and offer their suggestions for the next line.

One exciting poem we wrote was following in the footsteps of poet and teacher Amy Ludwig Vanderwater at The Poem Farm. She’s doing this awesome project she calls Wallow in Wonder, which uses the site Wonderopolis (a terrific site for building inquiry and nonfiction reading and just…it’s amazing!) as a jumping off place for daily poetry. We love seeing how she’s using different poetic forms, as well as illustrating her work. Next year I’d love for my club to keep up a blog with their writing and drawings, too! We went to random wonders to spark our poems, and mine was about the origin of birth stones. It’s kind of fun because I’ve actually written a short story — one of the few short stories I’ve completed, actually (without turning them into novels!) — about a birthstone ring and the connection between mothers and daughters. My poem started off kind of rough, trying to be free verse but too close to the nonfiction text to feel all that inspired. Finally, I broke out of my normal poetry head and tried out some short rhyming lines. It was fun, and not too scary at all. I’m happy to have played along with the Wallowing in Wonder, even if it’s only one day! Here’s my Wonder Poem:

dreaming of amethyst

birthday ring

my eyes shine

this tiny thing —

this ring is all mine.

birth stone

dark and inscrutable

a garnet alone,

cold irrefutable

face falls

only ten days from February

that purple calls

and me stuck with January

safe stone

for a world wanderer

winter-cold bones

I’m much more a ponderer

still envious of violet

this garnet, it grows on me

deep and quite subtle, yet

in secret it glows for me.