PROGRESSIVE POEM STARTS HERE!

Happy National Poetry Month!
As if all those blooming things aren't enough, April also brings on a rush of poetic praise and celebration. And this year the kidlitosphere is offering all sorts of goodies for you to enjoy, including our experiment in collective verse: 2012 KidLit Progressive Poem!

Since I volunteered to organize this event, I also inherited the task of starting the poem. So all during March I was thinking, what on earth can I use as a first line?

Well. I broke it down (as we poets often do) all the way to syllables. I thought about my favorite one-syllable word, which is YES, simply because of all the possibility it contains. 

And then I though, which word contains all the imagination of the world? 
I decided that word, for me, is "IF."

So, my word-loving friends, here's the first line of our poem:

If you are reading this 

Take it away, Doraine!

Please follow along in the progress of this poem. With such an assortment, there's no telling what worlds we'll explore!

2012 KidLit Progressive Poem:  watch a poem grow day-by-day as it travels across the Kidlitosphere! April 1-30
 

Schedule

1  Irene at Live Your Poem 

2  Doraine at Dori Reads

3  Jeannine at View from a Window Seat

4  Robyn at Read, Write, Howl

5  Susan at Susan Taylor Brown

6  Mary Lee at A Year of Reading

7  Penny at A Penny and her Jots
8  Jone at Deo Writer

9  Gina at Swagger Writer's

10  Julie at The Drift Record

11  Kate at Book Aunt

12  Anastasia Suen at Booktalking

13  Tabatha at The Opposite of Indifference

14  Diane at Random Noodling

15  Ruth at There is No Such Thing as a Godforsaken Town 

16  Natalie at Wading Through Words 

17  Tara at A Teaching Life

18  Amy  at The Poem Farm

19  Lori at Habitual Rhymer

20  Heidi at My Juicy Little Universe

21  Myra at Gathering Books

22  Pat at Writer on a Horse

23  Miranda at Miranda Paul Books 

24  Linda at TeacherDance

25  Greg at Gotta Book

26  Renee at No Water River

27  Linda at Write Time
28  Caroline at Caroline by Line
29  Sheri at Sheri Doyle
30  Irene at Live Your Poem

And here's other great stuff that's going on:

Susan Taylor Brown: Kick the Poetry Can'ts: Fun Ways to Play With Poetry.
Susan will share the various ways she teaches poetry, with exercises and an invitation for readers to play along.  

Katie Davis: Katie is having a month long celebration of poetry with a list of (so far) 21 guest poet posters who've submitted everything from how to-s to videos, to audio clips. Katie will also be doing lots of giveaways in April, so stop by!

Mary Lee Hahn: Mary Lee will write a poem a day again this year at A Year of Reading.

Renee LaTulippe: Renee – a firm believer that poetry is ALIVE and must be heard! – has coerced an incredible group of poets to go outside and film themselves reading one of their own poems, and to contribute that video to the growing poetry video library at her blog, No Water River. Each video is accompanied by a written interview. The participating poets are:

Michael Rosen (UK Children’s Laureate 2007-2009)

Laura Purdie Salas

Lee Wardlaw

Kenn Nesbitt

Julie Larios

Greg Pincus

Irene Latham

Debbie Diesen

Amy Ludwig VanDerwater

J. Patrick Lewis (current U.S. Children’s Poet Laureate­­)

When can you see them? Check in at No Water River on Mondays and Fridays throughout April to see and hear these accomplished poets sharing their work. If you don’t want to miss any, “like” NWR on Facebook to be notified of new posts.

Jone MacCulloch:  Poetry Postcard Project:  Get a poem postcard created by a student.  Email Jone at macrush53 at yahoo dot com.

 At Deowriter: Poem a Day: original poem by Jone 

At Check It Out:  Thirty Days, Thirty Plus Poems: Poetry by Silver Star Students

Greg Pincus: 30 Poets/30 Days daily at Gotta Book throughout April.

Laura Shovan: Laura at Author Amok will spend April looking at 30+ Habits of Highly Effective Poets. From the importance of scheduling dedicated writing time, to the joys of procrastination and the lows of eating while you write, Laura will explore the tried and true as well as some flagrantly odd, unique and wacky writing habits. Authors including Betsy Franco, Jacqueline Jules and Laura Purdie Salas will be visiting with their favorite -- or strangest -- writing rituals. Laura will also look at the unusual writing habits of some great poets of the past.

Anastasia Suen: Author and teacher Anastasia Suen invites poets of all ages to share an original "STEM haiku," a haiku about a STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering or Math) topic at the STEM Friday blog.

April Halprin Wayland: As usual, April is posting a poem a day for the Poem-A-Day Challenge. This year they’re all dog or dog park poems; the dog park has become my new religion.

And in honor of Poetry Month, April's TO RABBITOWN, the first picture book has been e-published! It’s a free-verse fantasy (illustrated by Robin Spowart) about a child who runs away to live with rabbits and slowly turns into one. Look for it on Kindle and Nook for just 99 cents!…and soon it will be on iTunes as well.