Poetry Friday is hosted today by Jone at Check It Out, so please go over to check all the poems out!
There are a number of connections to this post today for Poetry Friday. February is our second snowiest month in the Denver, Colorado area. March is traditionally the snowiest, so there is more to come! We have had a lot of snow this February, and today, the 23rd, is another snowy day. We’re supposed to have 4-6 inches, not the blizzard of earlier in the month, but still a messy day to drive, although beautiful when viewed out the window. Wednesday, yesterday, was 65 degrees! Our weather continues to be topsy-turvy, and never boring.
At school I seem to be the person with whom poems are shared. Everyone knows how much I love poetry, and recently a friend sent me a snowy poem by a teenager. The day today made me remember it again. It opens with these words:
SNOW
Deep in the night it comes
Covering footprints of summer
Purifying the landscape of the year’s sins
The rest of this snowy poem can be found here.
I love that there are places now online where our students can publish. Teen Ink is one of those sites and it’s been a marvelous pleasure to past students when they had something published outside of regular school, whether online, in a print or online magazine, like Stone Soup, or for a contest. Today, teachers can help even further by setting up classroom blogs or by using Posterous or one of the other online applications for sharing. Writing to an audience, other than the teacher or classmates, has rarely been easier. And knowing one has an audience to write for is empowering to the writer. Even though we tell ourselves we are writing for ourselves, having someone read the words, and respond to them is nice, smile-making, motivating.
A few other snowy poems in which you might find a favorite are by
Billy Collins – Snow Day “Today we woke up to a revolution of snow,”
Claude McKay – The Snow Fairy “Throughout the afternoon I watched them there,/
Snow-fairies falling, falling from the sky,
Mary Oliver – Snow Geese “Oh, to love what is lovely, and will not last!”
Wallace Stevens – The Snow Man “One must have a mind of winter”
Ralph Waldo Emerson - The Snow Storm – “Announced by all the trumpets of the sky,”
I imagine you have a favorite too that I haven’t listed.
Thus, I share a snowy poem from Teen Ink. I especially enjoyed this young poet’s words about life slowing down in order to observe things around us more closely. Before I begin again that yearning toward spring, I think I will stop and enjoy the beauty of this snowy day.
That was one of my favorite Oliver poems...and Billy Collins' take on snow always makes me chuckle. Alas, no snow in New Jersey yet...an I do wish we could have some soon!
ReplyDeleteI'm off to look up more snow poems now, Linda - thanks for the inspiration.
ReplyDeleteWhat a smorgasbord of snowy poems indeed! Such a rich post here - and I always love it when you share posts about your kids in school, these are my favorite lines from the poem First Snow:
ReplyDeleteThe sound it makes is like angels landing softly
It makes you want to cry
And laugh
And ponder at the strangeness of it all
-- so beautiful indeed. :)
Linda,
ReplyDeleteThanks for sharing the snow and the snow poems. A list of snow poems is a good thing to have in one's treasure trove. Now I'm going to have to find out what a trove is, and add more snow poems to my own list. Thanks for the inspiration. Today I will dance snow. I will be the drifting flake, just as long as I don't have to become cold dancing. Thanks for a great Poetry Friday post.
Thanks for the roundup of snow poems -- and for the inside info that March is the snowiest month in Denver. I did not know! I, too, love how the internet allows teens valuable places to post work. While I wasn't brave enough at that age to share my writings, I'm sure I would have benefited from the community (as I do now with Poetry Friday!).
ReplyDeleteEnjoyed Hallie's poem! Didn't know about Teen Ink. What a great resource.
ReplyDeleteWe've had little snow this year in Virginia (not complaining one bit), but that doesn't mean I don't like reading about it :). Have always loved Stevens's Snow Man. And of course Oliver and Collins are favorites to return to again and again.
Brrrrrr! More snow for you in March? Bundle up and stock up on hot chocolate. :)
Thanks for sharing these snow poems...though I really don't want to think about snow now. It is around 70 degrees here! :)
ReplyDeleteUsually I find inspiration in snow for snow poems, but our snow this winter has been seriously lacking...but I'm sure March and April will hold some surprises. We had a blizzard a few years back on April Fool's Day. That would have been wonderful fodder for poems! Thanks for sharing all the links!
ReplyDeleteWow, I wondered where all the snow was! We´ve had hardly any all year! I guess it´s all with you! :-) Thanks for sharing the poems.
ReplyDeleteLove TeenInk. Always had it in my classroom in junior high--need to transfer it to the high school. And Billy Collins--fabulous. Great poetry today. Thanks!
ReplyDeleteHi Linda,
ReplyDeleteI love that you shared part of a teen's poem with us, and linked to the rest on Teen Ink. I encourage my young writing workshop students to submit to such markets (we have a long list of them on our TA blog at http://www.teachingauthors.com/p/for-young-writers.html) but few students are brave enough to send anything. Perhaps if I share this example with them it will help.
We've had very little snow so far in the Chicago area this winter, but the 3 inches that fell this morning was enough for them to delay the opening of the community college where I teach, to my great surprise!
Thank you for the snow poems and for pointing us to Teen Ink!
ReplyDeletePretty photo...my kids feel very cheated that we haven't had any snow to speak of here.
The snow is falling here again - unusual and not welcome - this is not a day with time to shovel the drive and fight out way up the hill but I guess that is what we will do. And, as I am not a fan of snow, I don't have a favorite but I have enjoyed the links you provided.
ReplyDelete