Your assignment is to create five original poems to place in a small packet of your own design you must have several graphics included in your packet. Be creative and make this a colorful and creative display as your packet will be judged by your classmates and teacher. One winner from each class will receive a special prize for his or her packet. You do not have much time, so get working. Just for a little fun, I have provided you with several ideas and forms of poems to try. Be extremely careful, as you may actually enjoy doing this. Choose either poem ideas from this packet or write some of your own, but do not use the same poem sample or form more than twice. Good Luck. You may do up to two poems more for extra credit.
This Project is due: May 16
1. Pick a color and write a poem that uses it five times. You can describe things that are that color or use the color to represent a feeling. Here is an example:
The sky was lavender, kissing
good night to the trees before
it went to sleep
I closed my eyes
and saw lavender
There was lavender in my brain
In my bones
I could smell it
I curled up like a lavender cloud
I wanted to be held
by the lavender.
2. Need a new idea for a poem? Get out the dictionary for this one, open it up and pick one word (preferably one you did not know before). Write the word down and find four more words. Now, try to write a poem with all five words.
3. In the sample poem, the speaker wishes he could live outside, next to a hill. Write a poem about an outside place in which you wish you could live, maybe on a cloud, in the forest, on an iceberg, next to a landfill (who knows). What would you hear there? Who would visit you and what would you do together. Write this poem out in prose (paragraph form) first and then break it into lines if that helps.
“A Wish” by Samuel Rogers
Mine be a cot beside the hill:
A bee-hive’s hum shall soothe my ear
A willowy brook, that turns a mill,
With many a fall shall linger near
The swallow oft beneath my thatch
Shall twitter from her clay-built nest;
Oft shall the pilgrim lift the latch
And share my meal, a welcome guest.
4. The haiku is a Japanese form of poetry. It is only three lines long, but it describes a whole scene or idea or a feeling that the poet has. Every haiku has 17 syllables: 5 in the first line, 7 in the second, and 5 in the third. Haikus often describe images from nature. Try one. Here is an example:
Arched back, bent head, YAWN!
My cat looks suddenly wild.
But then he just sleeps.
5. Write a poem with five verbs and two nouns- and as few other words as possible. For example:
She pleaded
asked
demanded
needed
to possess
a lollipop.
6. If you had to give one piece of advice to your whole class, what would it be? Marcus Garvey wrote an advice poem telling everyone to “Keep Cool”:
…Let no trouble worry you;
Keep cool, keep cool!
Don’t’ get hot like some folk do,
Keep cool, keep cool!
What’s the use of prancing high
While the world goes smiling by.
You can win if you would try,
Keep cool, keep cool.
7. Pick an object out of your desk or bag, or choose one that you can see inside the classroom. Think of surprising ways to describe the object without saying what it really is. Try to compare it to other objects, real or imagined. Make a list poem with descriptions. Don’t say what the object is except in the title of the poem, and try not to write, “it looks like” Here is an example:
“Pink Eraser”
A chunk of gum
A pillow for a pixie’s tiny head
A bouncing ball with too many corners.
8. Write a poem by filling in the blanks. You may use as many words as you want in each blank, but try to keep the placement of the words as they appear below. You may choose to break the lines where you see fit.
Traveling______without______
______curious______orange
______except______
______finally______
Sweet______exhausted
9. Write an acrostic poem (using your name or favorite word going down the page) in which the first letter of every line spells out a word, like this:
Can you imagine the speed?
Avenue after avenue
Racing to get there first.
You may only have one of these in your packet!
START WRITING!