Thursday, February 27, 2020

February DMC Wrap-Up Celebration + Giveaway


MonikaP via pixabay

At the beginning of this month, Buffy Silverman challenged us to write a poem using combined or invented words. She offered up a recipe that involved combining nouns and verbs to create new adjectives, as she did in On a Snow Melting Day: Seeking Signs of Spring.


With nature as our test kitchen, how could we go wrong? 

tumblr.tastefullyoffensive.com

We added our ingredients one by one, mixing and stirring . . . 

"The cook" by Harry Whittier Frees

whipping up our words until they held their own . . .

"Barker was Busy in the Kitchen" by Harry Whittier Frees

the perfect amount of sweetness in each and every bite-sized poem.

ddraw at freepik

No doubt you will find something to your taste.

"A hungry bunch" by Harry Whittier Frees


Many thanks to everyone who participated, and especially to Buffy for cooking up such a satisfying challenge!

Scroll through the poems below, or for best viewing, CLICK HERE.

Made with Padlet

Feeling inspired?

If so, you have one more day (until Saturday, February 29th) to write a poem using combined or invented words. Post your poem on our February 2020 padlet and I will add it to the wrap-up presentation.


Participants in this month's challenge will automatically be entered to win a signed copy of On a Snow-Melting Day: Seeking Signs of Spring by Buffy Silverman (Millbrook Press, 2020). One entry per participant, not per poem.


Alternatively, you may enter the giveaway by commenting below or sending an email to TodaysLittleDitty (at) gmail (dot) com with the subject "snow-melting giveaway." Comments and emails must be received by Tuesday, March 3rd. If you contribute a poem and comment below, you will receive two entries in total. The winner will be chosen randomly and announced next Friday, March 6th, when we reveal our next Spotlight ON interview and DMC challenge!


Karen Edmisten is sharing a beautiful poem by Jane Hirshfield about the "extra day" we are blessed with this month. Join her for this week's Poetry Friday roundup.



18 comments:

  1. How fun! I love all the combined and invented words in the gallery. I think I might play with this challenge a little bit more after seeing how playful some of these are. Thanks Michelle and Buffy!

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  2. As usual, I slid in at the eleventh hour to add my poem to your ditty challenge. It was great fun creating a poem concentrating on imaginative word play, Michelle. My 2 1/2-year-old granddaughter does love Buffy's book especially the snowman-drooping illustrated page. II enjoyed reading through the different poems with each of their unique formation of new wordings.

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  3. I loved the results of this challenge. Such wonderful imagery all around.

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  4. Happy to have been able to write for this challenge! Thanks for offering it, Michelle. There can "never" be too much poetry and for teachers, as well as poets and kids, your blog's a terrific resource. Thanks,as well,to Buffy!!! And all the other contributing poets!

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  5. Such incredible responses to Buffy's prompt. "Windicative" caught my eye (or ear?) I also loved Breighlynn's "hawk-squawking."

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  6. What an especially fun challenge. Word-happy today! :)

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  7. Buffy's challenge has resulted in a lot of nodding on my part, as I appreciate the poets' clever combos. People have really taken a good look at the things they are describing.

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  8. This was a good challenge, and I look forward to playing more with it. Thanks!

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  9. It was lots of fun to do & to read everyone's poems & approaches, Buffy & Michelle. There are so many variations! Don't put me in the drawing; I have this wonderful book!

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  10. Yay to Buffy and Michelle for inspiring so much poetry!

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  11. These are fabulous! I had fully intended to participate, and then...life. But thank you for the fun poems that resulted. Love it! (And I have this book, so if I get drawn, draw someone else.)

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  12. This was such a fun challenge. Thanks again for spotlighting Breighlynn's poem.

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  13. Wow! So much great stuff here!

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  14. The poetry produced from Buffy and Michelle's inspired challenge opportunity is wonderful. I'm sorry I wasn't able to find the time this month to contribute, but maybe this style of poetry will find it's way into some of my future work. Thank you both. =)

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  15. Oh, the riches of invention! Thanks for serving up this feast!

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  16. So great to see all these contributions--thanks to everyone who took up the challenge!

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  17. Where do you come up with these wonderful photo images Michelle–they are perfect for this post! And I loved reading many of these sometimes tongue-twisting combo word poems! Thanks Michelle, and thanks Buffy for the challenge.

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