Greetings poetry lovers!
It’s my turn to participate in the Children’s Poetry Blog Hop, and since I have not recruited anyone to follow me, it looks as though I’m the tail end of this leg of the hop. I’m grateful to be here at all, and I want to thank Michelle H. Barnes for inviting me to participate. Here is her humorous children’s poetry blog hop entry from last week at Today's Little Ditty
Meet Children’s Poetry Blog Hop mascot, the dapper Mortimer.
And now to my three questions:
Why do you like to write poetry for children? I simply like to write poetry. It just happens that some of my poetry appeals to children and I consider that my good fortune. I write poetry because I enjoy giving a sharp focus to something specific. I also love to work the words in a poem like a puzzle, moving them around until they fit just right.
Why are you so interested in poetic forms? At first I wrote rhymes because it was something that I enjoyed and didn’t pay much attention to rhythm, techniques, or forms. As a result, I wrote quite a bit of mediocre verse. Once I realized how mediocre it was, I was no longer satisfied and I wanted to improve. That’s when I began to study the elements of verse and poetry and started to apply those to my writing. Bit by bit I learned a few things and my poetry got better.
Do you remember the first poem you wrote? (This is the question borrowed from Michelle)
No. I’m sure I was writing poetry in early elementary school, but I don’t have those earliest poems. I do have some of my poems from my later elementary school career.
Here is an early action-based poem that I wrote:
Running
Running is fun,
I like to run.
I was once told,
You shouldn’t run in the cold.
You shouldn’t run in a storm,
But you should if It’s warm.
Tamera Will Wissinger ©2013
Here is the original handwritten poem:
With this feedback from my teacher – how could I not become hooked on poetry? (I don’t remember which teacher wrote this encouraging comment and grade. I have a feeling it was my fourth grade teacher – the one who read from James and the Giant Peach by Roald Dahl out loud to my class each day after lunch.) Thank goodness for the teachers who helped inspire us when we were young!
Who inspired you when you first began to write poetry?
Thank you for joining me for this Mortimer Minute poetry break.
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Poetry Friday is hosted today at Merely Day by Day
10.18.2013