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Jack Prelutsky is the author of many, many colletions of poetry for children. His new book, I’ve Lost My Hippopotamus comes out today. I had a chance to speak with Jack about his career and his new book recently, and you can listen to that interview here.
While poking around on YouTube this morning, I came across three new videos that readers had made of my poems. What struck me as most interested about these three videos is how different they all are from one another. I am always impressed at the creativity kids put into creating videos. Watch these and you’ll see what I mean.
This first one, using my poem Today I Wrote this Poem (from My Hippo Has the Hiccups), displays the poem one line at a time, while also showing lines from William Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet to demonstrate the particular poetic technique mentioned in my poem.
The second video is a young girl rapping my poem Beavers in the Bathroom from my book The Tighty-Whitey Spider. She has apparently practiced quite a bit with this poem, as she recites it quickly and with no mistakes.
The final poem is an animation of the poem Gerbil, Gerbil, On the Run, also from The Tighty-Whitey Spider. I was so impressed with this animation. I’d love to find out how it was created because it has such fun text animation effects.
There are so many different ways to create videos from poems. If you happen to create a video of one of my poems, please drop me a line and let me know about it. I would love to see what you have done.
Beginning December 1 and continuing throughout the month, right up until New Year’s Day, I will be posting a funny holiday poem or funny winter poem every day on Facebook, Google Plus, and Twitter. Follow me now to read them all! Click on the Facebook or Google Plus logo on the left or the Twitter logo on the right to follow.
NOTE: You don’t need an account to follow along and read the poems. Even without an account, you can still view the Twitter feed and link to the poems. Just click on the Twitter link on the right to see my tweets, which will have links to the poems.
Looking for some funny poetry to share for Thanksgiving? Here are a few Thanksgivings poems for kids that I’ve written. I hope you enjoy them all.
And here is the newest… a collection of “fractured” Mother Goose nursery rhymes especially for Thanksgiving:
Adelaide Crapsey, American poet and creator of the modern cinquain
A cinquain – which, by the way, is pronounced “sin-cane,” not “sin-kwane” – is a form of poetry that is very popular because of its simplicity. It was created by American poet Adelaide Crapsey about 100 years ago, and is similar to Japanese poetic forms, such as haiku and tanka.
Cinquains are just five lines long, with only a few words on each line, making them easy to write. The first and last lines have just two syllables, while the middle lines have more, so they end up with a diamond-like shape, similar to the poetic form called the diamante.
Though they are just five lines long, the best cinquains tell a small story. Instead of just having descriptive words, they may also have an action (something happening), a feeling caused by the action, and a conclusion or ending.
You can learn to write cinquains by following these few simple steps:
There are actually many different ways to write a cinquain, so I’m just going to teach you how to write a traditional cinquain, as it was defined by the poet who invented it. These are the rules:
That’s it. Just three simple rules.
If you want to, you can even memorize the syllable count by remembering this five-digit number: 24682. Repeat after me: 24682, 24682, 24682. Now you’ve got it.
First, you need to select a topic. That is, you need to choose something to write your cinquain about. Here are a few easy places to get ideas:
Since I like ice cream, I think I’ll write a cinquain about ice cream. This is convenient since the words “ice cream” have two syllables, so I can probably use this phrase as the first line of my cinquain. If your favorite thing is pizza, soccer, your cat, etc., you could also use “soccer,” “pizza,” or “my cat” as the first line of your cinquain.
Once you know what you are going to write about, you need to brainstorm ideas about your topic. Think of as many things as you can and write them down on a piece of paper. It’s okay to write your ideas on one piece of paper and then write your poem on another piece of paper.
For example, I know several things about ice cream, so I’ve put them down here:
These are just four ideas, but they are not yet a poem. To turn these ideas into a cinquain poem, we need to say them in a way that we have five lines with the right number of syllables on each line.
I recommend your count your syllables with your fingers as you write each line. If a line has too many syllables or not enough syllables, see if you can change some of the words to get the right number of syllables.
Once you get the syllable count right, make sure the poem says what you want it to say. You may need to go back and change it some more so that it tells the story you want it to.
Once your cinquain is finished, read it again, counting the syllables on your fingers to make sure you got everything right.
Here’s a cinquain that I wrote about ice cream, using the ideas that I brainstormed earlier:
Ice Cream
Ice cream.
Cold and yummy.
I love its sweet richness
as it finds its way into my
tummy.
You might notice a few things about this poem. It tells a little story. There is an action in which I eat the ice cream and it swallow it. There is a feeling expressed where I tell that I love it. And I even rhymed “yummy” with “tummy.”
Let’s try another one. This time, let’s write a cinquain about having a messy room. First, we need to brainstorm ideas. Here are a few I came up with:
I don’t have to use all of these ideas, but writing more ideas than I am going to actually use give me lots to choose from when I start writing the poem.
Now that I’ve got my ideas, I’ll rearrange these into a five-line story with a 24682 syllable pattern, like this:
My Messy Room
My room
is such a mess.
Toys all over the place.
Mom says, “Clean up!” But I like it
like this.
I mentioned earlier that the best cinquains tell a story. An easy way to do this is to start with your subject on the first line, describe it on the second, put an action on the third line, a feeling on the fourth line, and a conclusion on the last line, like this:
Title
Subject
Description
Action
Feeling
Conclusion
You don’t have to follow this pattern exactly. For example, in the Messy Room cinquain, you’ll see that my description is on lines 2 and 3, and both the action and the feeling are on line 4. But this should give you a general pattern for telling a story.
Now it’s your turn to try writing your own cinquain. Here are a few things to remember as you write:
Click here to download a cinquain-writing worksheet
The holidays are almost upon us, and of course, our thoughts turn to gifts and giving, and giving thanks. For most kids, it’s all about what they’ll be getting under the tree, and not often about what they can give to others. And yet, ask any parent what the most precious gift they ever received from a child was, and they’ll remember a handmade card, a drawing, a letter, or a poem. This season gives you a wonderful opportunity to use poetry to help children create a lasting, memorable gift for the people that they love. I’d like to give you a few pointers for poetry projects that translate well into family gifts.
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Children’s author Alan Katz has a brand new collection of funny poetry for kids called Poems I Wrote When No One Was Looking. I had the pleasure of speaking to Alan about his new book. You can listen to the interview here on the Poetry4kids Podcast.
Beginning October 1 and continuing throughout the month, right up until Halloween, I will be posting a funny spooky poem or funny monster poem every day on Facebook, Google Plus, and Twitter. Follow me now to read them all! Click on the Facebook or Google Plus logo on the left or the Twitter logo on the right to follow.
NOTE: You don’t need an account to follow along and read the poems. Even without an account, you can still view the Twitter feed and link to the poems. Just click on the Twitter link on the right to see my tweets, which will have links to the poems.
