"Show me your garden and I shall tell you what you are." – Alfred Austin
The soil has been fertile for planting poetry this month. At the beginning of March, Nikki Grimes challenged us to write golden shovel poems inspired by striking lines from "Black Box" from BRONX MASQUERADE, "blurred lines" by Lil Fijjii, and "Truth" from BETWEEN THE LINES.
Many gardeners' hands and hearts have made for a glorious and thought-provoking array of poems—some introspective, others proactive, but each one transplanting a line of poetry and sprouting new life.
THANK YOU to everyone who wrote golden shovel poems for our community garden, and most especially to Nikki Grimes for the seeds of inspiration that led to such fruitful results.
Scroll through the poems below or, for best viewing, CLICK HERE.
Inspired to write your own?
If you would like to add your golden shovel to the collection, post it on our March 2018 padlet by March 31st and I will add it to the wrap-up presentation.
Participants in this month's challenge will automatically be entered to win a copy of BETWEEN THE LINES by Nikki Grimes, courtesy of Penguin Young Readers. (One entry per participant, not per poem. US addresses only.)
Alternatively, you may enter the giveaway by commenting below. Comments must be received by Tuesday, April 3, 2018. If you contribute a poem and comment below you will receive two entries in total.
The winner will be determined by Random.org and announced next Friday when we reveal next month's interview and ditty challenge. Good luck!
Due to the popularity of my March 8th "Teacher Tips" post, I've created a downloadable and printable document for convenient use during National Poetry Month. Download or print your copy HERE.
Heidi Mordhorst is hosting the Poetry Friday roundup at my juicy little universe. Find out more about Irene Latham's annual Kidlitosphere Progressive Poem (making the rounds beginning on Sunday, April 1st) and check out the many links to this week's other poetry offerings.
Click HERE
to read this month's interview with Nikki Grimes. She has challenged us
to write a golden shovel poem using a line from one of the poems in the
post.
Leave your golden shovel on our March 2018 padlet. All contributions will be included in a wrap-up celebration TOMORROW, Friday,
March 30th, and one lucky participant will win a copy of her new
companion novel to Bronx Masquerade:
Click HERE
to read this month's interview with Nikki Grimes. She has challenged us
to write a golden shovel poem using a line from one of the poems in the
post.
Leave your golden shovel on our March 2018 padlet. All contributions will be included in a wrap-up celebration this Friday,
March 30th, and one lucky participant will win a copy of her new
companion novel to Bronx Masquerade:
Click HERE
to read this month's interview with Nikki Grimes. She has challenged us
to write a golden shovel poem using a line from one of the poems in the
post.
Leave your golden shovel on our March 2018 padlet. All contributions will be included in a wrap-up celebration this Friday,
March 30th, and one lucky participant will win a copy of her new
companion novel to Bronx Masquerade:
PASSIONS ~with a line from "Truth, by Tyrone Bittings"
Put your passions to good use Ponder them and pursue them to fulfillment. Don’t cry tears of regret. Work! Find a way to bloom! Then pump fists and shout!
Click HERE
to read this month's interview with Nikki Grimes. She has challenged us
to write a golden shovel poem using a line from one of the poems in the
post.
Leave your golden shovel on our March 2018 padlet. All contributions will be included in a wrap-up celebration this Friday,
March 30th, and one lucky participant will win a copy of her new
companion novel to Bronx Masquerade:
FORGETFULLY YOURS ~with a line from "blurred lines" by Lil Fijjii
There are only so many ways I can say I'm sorry. I know that you're tired. I am too. Weary of searching for words—names, places, and all the everyday things I once took for granted. If only you could read my mind! Say what you will, I probably won't believe it. Because unless you can dip a net into my fishbowl world, you can't imagine how slippery it is. Let them take my memories, my dignity, my hope. None of it matters as long as you come back.
Click HERE
to read this month's interview with Nikki Grimes. She's challenged us
to write a golden shovel poem using a line from one of the poems in that
post. Other poems featured this week included work by Ann Magee, Jone Rush MacCulloch, Maria Marshall, and Sydney O'Neill. Margaret Simon's students wrote golden shovel poems (also inspired by "blurred lines") which she shares today at Reflections on the Teche, and Rebecca Herzog shares her golden shovel at sloth reads.
There's only one week left to leave your golden shovel on our March 2018 padlet. All contributions will be included in a wrap-up celebration next Friday,
March 30th, and one lucky participant will win a copy of Nikki Grimes's new
companion novel to Bronx Masquerade:
The winner of last week's giveaway for a personalized copy of Hidden City: Poems of Urban Wildlife by Sarah Grace Tuttle, illustrated by Amy Schimler-Safford is . . .
MARY LEE HAHN
Congratulations, Mary Lee!
Laura Purdie Salas is hosting this week's Poetry Friday roundup at Writing the World for Kids. While you're there, check out her latest poem in the March Madness competition and find out more about her newly released rhyming picture book, Meet My Family: Animal Babies and Their Families (Millbrook Press, 2018). (It was also previewed here at Today's Little Ditty last November.)
LEAVE A MESSED-UP MIND CLEAR ~with a line from "Truth, by Tyrone Bittings"
Poetry can hang around, or leave and then again drop in, easy like a friend who understands the messed-up hour, day, year of muddled mind and helps to find a thought that’s clear.
Click HERE
to read this month's interview with Nikki Grimes. She has challenged us
to write a golden shovel poem using a line from one of the poems in the
post.
Leave your golden shovel on our March 2018 padlet.
While some contributions will be featured as daily ditties this month,
all contributions will be included in a wrap-up celebration on Friday,
March 30th, and one lucky participant will win a copy of her new
companion novel to Bronx Masquerade:
Click HERE
to read this month's interview with Nikki Grimes. She has challenged us
to write a golden shovel poem using a line from one of the poems in the
post.
Leave your golden shovel on our March 2018 padlet.
While some contributions will be featured as daily ditties this month,
all contributions will be included in a wrap-up celebration on Friday,
March 30th, and one lucky participant will win a copy of her new
companion novel to Bronx Masquerade:
STRIP AWAY ~with a line from "Truth, by Tyrone Bittings"
In the inky darkness of a room, the lines of a poem hang in the shadows. Can the newborn worm moon strip the harshness of winter away refusing to walk in fear?
Click HERE
to read this month's interview with Nikki Grimes. She has challenged us
to write a golden shovel poem using a line from one of the poems in the
post.
Leave your golden shovel on our March 2018 padlet.
While some contributions will be featured as daily ditties this month,
all contributions will be included in a wrap-up celebration on Friday,
March 30th, and one lucky participant will win a copy of her new
companion novel to Bronx Masquerade:
ADVICE TO MY COLLEGE-BOUND DAUGHTER ~with a line from "Truth, by Tyrone Bittings"
Remember, take one day at a time. Don’t underestimate what a poem is capable of, what it can do, how it can turn rain clouds to blue sky the minute it matters most. Don’t listen to the clock tick-tick-ticking. Look up. Walk forward. My hand is always at your back.
Click HERE
to read this month's interview with Nikki Grimes. She has challenged us
to write a golden shovel poem using a line from one of the poems in the
post.
Leave your golden shovel on our March 2018 padlet.
While some contributions will be featured as daily ditties this month,
all contributions will be included in a wrap-up celebration on Friday,
March 30th, and one lucky participant will win a copy of her new
companion novel to Bronx Masquerade:
In my blogging life, there are few things that give me as much satisfaction as being able to introduce a poet from one of The Best of Today's Little Ditty collections as a DEBUT AUTHOR.
This is one of those moments.
Although Sarah Grace Tuttle hails from Boston, we never crossed paths while I lived there. My connection with her is one of those "small world" stories—a close friend of mine told me about a woman named Sarah who writes poetry in her critique group. Not long after, I started noticing Sarah Grace Tuttle's name pop up in Poetry Friday roundups, and, well, here we are!
On her website, Sarah describes how, thanks to her Nana, her first stories were recorded before she was even able to write. She also describes her lifelong fascination with the natural world. Unwilling to choose one interest over the other in college, she ended up earning degrees in both Environmental Studies and English, followed by an MFA in Writing for Children.
HIDDEN CITY: POEMS OF URBAN WILDLIFE
Eerdmans Books for Young Readers (March 8, 2018)
ISBN: 978-0802854599
Find at Amazon.com, Barnes & Noble, & Indiebound.org.
Hidden City: Poems of Urban Wildlife (Eerdmans Books for Young Readers, 2018) is the result of Sarah's two passions coming together to create a book that's graceful and eye-opening—the perfect blend of poetry and science.
Twenty-eight pared-down, lyrical poems celebrate the urban wildlife that captivated Sarah as a young child, from house mice to feral cats, dandelions to elm trees, and shadowy spiders to roof top falcons. Coupled with Amy Schimler-Safford's richly colored collage illustrations, this collection also happens to be gorgeous!
While marketed for young children (have a look at the adorable book trailer), Hidden City will be enjoyed by
anyone who is enchanted by nature. Whether it's pigeon pageantry, ants waging war on the sidewalk, moss carried by a shoe, or a cricket singing to his mate in a heating vent, the hidden lives of plants and animals are unveiled in surprising and imaginative episodes that dazzle and pop off the page.
One of my favorite poems is this collection is about house sparrows. (I wish you could hear them "chitter-cheeping" outside my window right now!)
A "hidden" benefit of Hidden City is that it subtly reminds readers to notice and care about the environment—the flora and fauna that share our corners of the world. You'll find additional fun and unusual facts about the wildlife featured in these poems at the back of the book, as well as suggestions for further reading.
And speaking of further reading, do be on the lookout for another book from Sarah coming this fall! It's a board book from Creative Editions called Dot, Stripe, Squiggle. Also inspired by nature, it introduces the extraordinary patterns displayed in living things by featuring dotted, striped, and squiggly sea creatures.
For today, however, I've invited Sarah to come and talk about the inspiration for one of her poems from Hidden City. And because we're focusing on poetry in the classroom this month at Today's Little Ditty, she has a wonderful educational activity to offer as well!
Thanks so much for being with us, Sarah.
Thank you so much Michelle for hosting me today and featuring Hidden City: Poems of Urban Wildlife. Happy Poetry Friday!
Hidden City was born from my life-long love of nature in the city. As a child, dandelions were my favorite wildflowers. Pigeons were endlessly fascinating, and rabbit tracks on the sidewalk were a special find on a winter day. As an adult, I wanted to create a book for the kids like I was—the city kids who love the wildlife right in their own backyard, and the ones who would love it if given the chance.
Many of the poems in Hidden City are based on moments of observing wildlife or questions about what I saw that I had as a young person. They are also science poems, designed to quietly teach readers about what they are seeing as they look around their neighborhoods and backyards.
“Sunflower Buffet” is a list poem inspired by a tall stand of sunflowers I walked by every day when coming home from school.
SUNFLOWER BUFFET Sunflower pollen and seeds can feed ant fly moth bee butterfly sparrow squirrel me.
I always saw so many animals in and around the flowers! Many of the animals I included in the poem are ones I observed on those walks. As a science writer, I also created this poem as a way to introduce an underlying concept of food webs—how one species can feed many others. A sunflower provides so much more than food, but focusing the poem on this single ecological function allowed me to both educate and have some fun.
List poems are a great way to start teaching the observation skills that an ecologist or wildlife scientist relies on in the field. Here is an observation list poem activity that you can take and adjust to the needs of your group of young writers.
Part One: Research
Take your writers to an outdoor place—the schoolyard, a local park, or even a side street with a few trees on it. Have them pick something natural to focus on—it can be anything, so long as it’s not man-made! Maybe they spot an ant in a sidewalk crack, or focus on a tree, bird, cloud, or flower in a garden. Have them list at least 10 things (fewer for very young children) that they notice about what they are observing. Their list can be single words or multi-word phrases, but it must be something they actually observe that day. Encourage them to be as specific as they can.
Part Two: Writing
For very young children, the list they made outside can be their poem. Have the title of the poem be what they observed.
For older children, have your writers pick at least six of the things on their list and arrange them into a poem. They can choose the order of their items any way they want (alphabetical, chronological, spatial, or even just what sounds good), but there should only be one item per line. Have them add another line or two to the poem about what they observed. Suggestions: If they are adding lines at the beginning of the poem, have them use the lines to introduce their subject. (For example: “A lone tree on the sidewalk…” ) If they are adding lines at the end of the poem, have them use the lines to draw some sort of conclusion about what they observed. (For example: “… a tree is a busy place!”) I find these extra lines are always fun to read. You never know what a child will come up with!
Thank you, Sarah! What an excellent way to bring poetry into the classroom.
Would you like to get your hands on a copy for your home or school library? (Of course you would!)
Sarah has graciously offered a personalized copy of Hidden City: Poems of Urban Wildlife to one lucky Today's Little Ditty reader. To be eligible, all you need to do is leave a comment below or send an email to TodaysLittleDitty (at) gmail (dot) com with the subject "HIDDEN CITY GIVEAWAY." You have until Wednesday, March 21, 2018. The winner will be selected randomly and announced on Friday, March 23rd.
In addition, Sarah is running another giveaway at her website that is specifically for teachers—an opportunity to win one of three classroom visits. (In person if your school is within the extended Boston area, or a virtual visit if it is not.) Click HERE for more information about the classroom visit giveaway.
Click HERE
to read this month's interview with Nikki Grimes. She has challenged us
to write a golden shovel poem using a line from one of the poems in the
post.
Leave your golden shovel on our March 2018 padlet.
While some contributions will be featured as daily ditties this month,
all contributions will be included in a wrap-up celebration on Friday,
March 30th, and one lucky participant will win a copy of her new
companion novel to Bronx Masquerade:
IMMIGRANTS ~with a line from "Truth, by Tyrone Bittings"
Ride the waves, rough and high— filled with fear of crime, tales of loss, and far from their homeland, full of insecurity, captives they are, because of the sacrifices made in order to be “part of” yet worth the risk at the end of the day.
Click HERE
to read this month's interview with Nikki Grimes. She has challenged us
to write a golden shovel poem using a line from one of the poems in the
post.
Leave your golden shovel on our March 2018 padlet.
While some contributions will be featured as daily ditties this month,
all contributions will be included in a wrap-up celebration on Friday,
March 30th, and one lucky participant will win a copy of her new
companion novel to Bronx Masquerade:
BEATING HEART ~with a line from "Truth, by Tyrone Bittings"
Oh, for a good story! A poem with a beating heart that can make me sob like a lonely cat, or turn me, for a moment, into the ancient snail, slower than the small hand of a clock, escaping dark forces with my house on my back.
Click HERE
to read this month's interview with Nikki Grimes. She has challenged us
to write a golden shovel poem using a line from one of the poems in the
post.
Leave your golden shovel on our March 2018 padlet.
While some contributions will be featured as daily ditties this month,
all contributions will be included in a wrap-up celebration on Friday,
March 30th, and one lucky participant will win a copy of her new
companion novel to Bronx Masquerade:
TO THE FACEBOOK ADS THAT DOG MY DAYS ~with a line from "Black Box, by Devon Hope"
Don’t show me belly fat, underwire bras or tell me what I’m to think. Or want. Shut down. Back off. I’m allergic to your diet pill ads, your voyeuristic snidery, asking me to feel incomplete. For money. My dreams aren’t found in your boxes.
Click HERE
to read this month's interview with Nikki Grimes. She has challenged us
to write a golden shovel poem using a line from one of the poems in the
post.
Leave your golden shovel on our March 2018 padlet.
While some contributions will be featured as daily ditties this month,
all contributions will be included in a wrap-up celebration on Friday,
March 30th, and one lucky participant will win a copy of her new
companion novel to Bronx Masquerade:
"I am not a teacher, but an awakener." – Robert Frost
Wake up! Wake up! It's time for Poetry Friday!
We're focusing on poetry in the classroom this month at Today's Little Ditty. Last Friday I interviewed Nikki Grimes about how best to incorporate poetry into middle and high school classrooms. Today I'd like to talk about elementary classrooms, as well.
Many thanks to Renée LaTulippe for featuring me at No Water River last week! I'm honored to be included in her extensive Poetry Video Library, reading two poems from The Best of Today's Little Ditty, Volumes 1 and 2. Besides being great little collections, however, I
wonder if people realize how useful these books can be in the
classroom.
Available in paperback ($9.95) and Kindle ($5.95) editions at Amazon.com.
The 2016 edition even has a separate section called "Using Poetry in the Classroom." It includes information about Poetry Friday, plus a few websites that are particularly helpful when it comes to incorporating poetry into lesson plans. Along with No Water River, there's Sylvia Vardell's Poetry for Children, Amy Ludwig VanDerwater's The Poem Farm, Laura Purdie Salas's Writing the World for Kids, and Margaret Simon's Reflections on the Teche.
I quite like this recommendation that Janet Wong gave me for the back cover of the 2016 edition:
How to build your skills as a children's poet? Read anthologies! The Best of Today's Little Ditty is a great tutorial because each section contains several poems written from the same prompt. Maybe you'll find the best thing of all: that you write like no one other than yourself.
Janet's words apply equally well to student poets! Since I've become more active as a poet-teacher, I realize first
hand how useful— and versatile the DMC challenges are. During last week's Poetry Friday rounds, I came across Jone MacCulloch's post about student revision. The form she was using with her elementary students (some as young as kindergarteners) was adapted from Helen Frost's March 2017 challenge to write a specific type of ode poem. Wouldn't you know, I used the same challenge when I was working in a high school classroom the week before!
Here's the group poem the high schoolers and I worked on together:
Fog You feel hazy today, yet crisp like winter air. I hear your suffocating silence. When I look, you disappear into the pea soup thickness of memory. What secrets are you keeping?
But enough about my experience in the classroom. Today I've invited a number of more experienced teachers and poet-teachers to contribute their own simple and practical tips for successfully engaging, inspiring, and otherwise connecting students with poetry in fun and meaningful ways. (The tips are for teachers of all age groups unless otherwise noted.) With National Poetry Month right around the corner, it's a terrific opportunity for all of us to refresh our tool bags with some new approaches to poetry education.
If you want students to love poetry, you have to read poetry to them regularly. Tuesday was my poetry day in first grade. We wrote poetry, read poetry, figured out patterns, counted syllables, and more. Every Tuesday! The whole year! But poetry and rhyming words and alliteration and word rhythm, etc. snuck their way into Mondays, Wednesdays, Thursdays, and Fridays too. I cannot imagine teaching writing without poetry, but the reasons why are too many to include here. My first graders loved poetry, in part, because I love poetry. Part of the reason I love it so much is because it accelerates the learning and thinking process in young minds. It builds flexibility, empowers students, and fosters empathy, which is essential for instilling kindness.
Poetry Tip for Kindergarten (could be PreK through 1st Grade, though)
Select a “Poem of the Week” that the class studies in-depth. In addition to a large shared reading copy on a chart to interact with all week, provide an individual copy for their poetry notebook with space for illustrating and writing a response sentence or two. Ask students to draw the image created in their head when listening to and thinking about the poem.
While this "tip" isn't anything original, I think it's a powerful language routine of sorts. Many teachers have a poem of the week, but they often ask students to circle sight words and/or sounds. While we can certainly focus on these skills in a whole group setting, I love to keep the integrity of the poem as a whole. This imagery-focused task isn't often done, from what I've seen. The conversations that stem from this work are amazing!
Read a lot of poetry. Find the ones you love. Collect words, mimic form, write, write, write. Then share. Poetry is meant to be read aloud and shared with people you trust. (This could be written in a poem form. Ha!)
Using previous years' student poems, encourage students to read what others wrote in the past, to see they could do it, too. Then read published poems from all kinds of books. Sharing their favorites—poems and sometimes just a line—and why, helps students "see" the poetic in all its variations. They read and explore, begin to choose what they like and want to attempt themselves.
Ask yourself, "Can I accomplish this (task, standard, teaching point) with poetry?" Such a question gave me and one of my teaching partners the perfect Black History Month project: Our students have studied the poetry of 8 Black poets, 2 per week for 4 weeks.
And I would offer a corollary to Mary Lee's mantra.... when you plan a lesson or unit or gather a list or set of books, ask yourself, "Did I remember to include poetry?" Adding a poem or book of poetry is always a good idea and broadens the literary models kids experience and enabling cross-genre connections. Plus... FUN!
One more thing: OBVIOUSLY, I would want to recommend the "Take 5" approach for sharing poetry! It's a simple, pedagogically sound approach that teachers can lean on and children participate in. In a nutshell, first (1) the teacher reads the poem aloud with a bit of pizzazz (a prop, movement, visuals), (2) then the students join in to read the poem aloud with the teacher (e.g., chiming in on a key word, repeated line, or final line), (3) then you pause to chat about the poem (e.g. what does it remind you of or make you wonder), (4) then you focus on one key skill (e.g., rhyme, alliteration, similes or connect with a related picture book), and finally (5) follow up with ANOTHER poem that is similar in some way or for contrast or just for fun. Voila! Instant poem lesson in five minutes!
Bring a little nature inside. It can be something as simple as tree leaves, a fallen stick, shells, a feather, a stuffed animal, or photos that you clip from a magazine. Use your nature items to brainstorm a list of words, memories, sensory items. Have students "steal" strong verbs, nouns from a poem that you read aloud (I've done this with Joyce Sidman's "Welcome to the Night.") Choose some words/memories from your list. Borrow some words from a classmate's list. Start to write.
Inspiration
is all around us. You can find it in two simple steps: Slow down and
pay attention. And if your senses are sharp, the second one might be
enough!
Write poetry WITH your students! It's intimidating, but SO valuable. Talking through your process aloud as you write in front of students gives kids tremendous insight and courage. It also can help create a real feeling of trust, exploration, playfulness, and authenticity in writing. (Also, they will soon suggest ways to improve your poems, so it leads naturally into the next step of them writing their own poems.)
and then we look at examples to illustrate each line. After we write together, I ask students to use the acrostic as a checklist to prompt revisions. When we share our poems, the acrostic also gives students a framework for providing feedback to peers.
To encourage students, here is a little tip that has always helped me.
If
you write a poem, read it out loud. Then ask someone else to read it
out loud. Listen deeply to your words in the air, and you will know
where to revise.
When teaching revision, I tell students just to try to make Draft 2 “different, not better.” For instance, if Draft 1 rhymed, use zero rhyme in Draft 2. If Draft 1 didn’t use repetition, pick a favorite word to repeat a few times in Draft 2. If Draft 1 was 10 lines, cut it in half for Draft 2. Then take your favorite parts from Draft 1 plus your favorite parts from Draft 2, and add a few more words here and there to make Draft 3. Poetry is the best genre for teaching revision.
Play with words, for the sheer joy of it. No rules—just creativity. What sounds good when read aloud? Write a stream of alliteration, or rollicking rhyming words. Stretch the reader’s imagination with similes and metaphors. Surprise yourself—and have fun! (Shape poetry is a perfect springboard for this.)
Similes are a powerful tool!
There is a big difference between saying, "It was cold outside" and "It
was as cold as an Antarctic ice skating rink." A simile creates a
specific picture in your reader's mind.
Repetition is another powerful tool in the poet's toolbox.
Ask your students to choose one poem they have written and add repetition.
This might mean their first line and last line are the same (this is an envelope poem), or they may choose to repeat one line just once, as Robert Frost does in Stopping By the Woods on a Snowy Evening, and Langston Hughes does in Dreams, or they may repeat just one word, as Gwendolyn Brooks does in We Real Cool.
Have them read the first version and then the second version aloud and discuss.
To tag onto what others have said, I have students research animals, places, and people and then use the notes to create poems. Of course, they choose one, not all. And sometimes it's tied in with classroom curriculum. I also model for students, and show students other student work.
As a school librarian, my influence is different than that of a classroom teacher. However, I have some poetry go-tos at the ready for teachers and students always. For teachers, loan out our professional and my personal copy of The Poetry Friday Anthology for Celebrations(Pomelo Books). Whenever pertinent poetry articles pop up on my twitter feed or Library of Congress e-mail subscription, I send it to teachers in as a link and as a document they can print. For teachers and students, I have a resource list of every novel in verse in our catalog. National Junior Honor Society students prepare poems in pockets for the school in April. Poetry is something my students and colleagues associate with me, so I enjoy being their resource with my passion.
These tips are now available in a downloadable/printable format by clicking on the "Teacher Tips" graphic in the right sidebar.
THANK YOU to this generous bunch of educators for sharing tried-and-tested tips, activities, and methods for teaching poetry in the classroom. I do know there are more of you out there, however! If you have a tip to suggest, would you please share it in the comments?
And now, without further ado . . .
For those with links to share, please leave them below.
Due to the popularity of my March 8th "Teacher Tips" post, I've created a downloadable and printable document for convenient use during National Poetry Month. Download or print your copy HERE.
Heidi Mordhorst is hosting the Poetry Friday roundup at my juicy little universe. Find out more about Irene Latham's annual Kidlitosphere Progressive Poem (making the rounds beginning on Sunday, April 1st) and check out the many links to this week's other poetry offerings.
