One of my favorite forms of poetry is called concrete poetry. It's poetry that looks like shapes, and the words are all about that shape. Sometimes the shape can tell a secret about the poem. Look at this famous concrete poem, Apple, by Reinhard Döhl. Can you see the worm in the apple? I made a concrete poem this morning. The first thing I did was to find a picture of something that was easy to recognize. In this poetry book, The Proper Way To Meet A Hedgehog, there's a poem called "How to Tell A Camel." I decided I was going to make a concrete poem about the one-hump camel, also called a dromedary. With a pen and a piece of paper, I drew the outline of the camel. You can also just draw the outline of an animal or object, like the apple, without tracing it from anywhere, I just thought that would look nice. |
The next thing I did was to make a list of body parts the camel has. I decided not to use some of the words later, and I added more. That's okay. Then I took the words and I filled in the shape of the camel until I had words in every part. Some of the words overlapped. You can make the words go up and down, and be different sizes, too. Camels are funny animals, aren't they? Look how long their noses are! By the way, you might appreciate the little trick J. Patrick Lewis offers in his poem about how to tell the difference between a dromedary camel and a bactrian camel. Watch in Seesaw this Thursday for a poetry activity from the library.
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Mrs. RohdeI've been a media specialist for over 15 years, with a little classroom teaching mixed in. Before that, I was a public librarian, a web designer, a microbiologist and an opera singer. Archives
February 2021
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February 2021
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