In my blog post yesterday (I write daily here at The Apples in My Orchard), I wrote about a pair of cardinals that had been visiting our yard. You can check the post out here: Cardinal Story. My poem today focuses on the same pair of birds, just put into a poem.
Cardinal Story: A Poetic Version
Today I wrote a cardinal story It told of these birds and all their glory He has bright red feathers you can easily see While she blends in very gently with the tree Together they stay, a life-long pair Raising their young through the duties they share Cardinals might visit to see if you are doing okay And, if they do, surely you will want them to stay. © Draft, Carol Labuzzetta, 2022 After I wrote this today, I had a thought that this might be a good combined ELA lesson, most likely for middle grades. Students could write a short narrative about an observation and then pare it down for a poem, keeping the critical elements. I might try it in the future if I have another writers circle! What do you think teacher friends?
Congratulations are due to the three poets who had their poems selected for another anthology by Janet Wong and Sylvia Vardell aptly named Things We Eat! Current Anthology 201 students who are working on this anthology selected the poems from a plethora of entries for food poems named Orange, Udon, and Zucchini. It was fun to try and write poems for this anthology that will be on sale soon! All proceeds go to IBBY, the International Board on Books for Young People. This is the second anthology in a series of three planned for preschoolers written by Wong and Vardell’s course participants and guided by their expertise in anthologies and independent publishing through Pomelo Books. For more information on the courses offered by these generous authors and publishers, please see Sylvia’s webpage at Poetry for Children on Blogspot or at Pomelo Books. As a past participant in Anthologies 101 and 201, with a poem called INVENT in the book Things We Do, I can highly recommend their course offerings!
Our host for Poetry Friday today is Dr. Patricia Stohr-Hunt at the Miss Rumphius Effect. Thank you for hosting, Tricia! Please visit her blog page for more wonderful poetry and inspiration!
The Apples in My Orchard 
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