WANTED: ANIMAL PERSONA POEMS

Dear Poetry Friday friends,

Tara's in a workshop all day Friday, but that hasn't stopped her from posting a timely poem and hosting Roundup at A Teaching Life. (She's awesome like that.) Go see!

As for me, I'm in the midst of "appointment week." That' what we're calling it -- kids have had eye exams  and teeth cleaning and other stuff we've needed to get out of the way before the madness of the school year schedule. All that waiting-room time has got me thinking about the poetry workshop for kids I'm teaching in August at Gadsden Public Library. We'll be reading and writing persona poems.

Now I have a number of go-to volumes that contain animal persona poems, and that's great, but what I'd really like to do is share with the kids some of YOUR work!

So. If you have a poem in the voice of an animal, and you'd like it read aloud for inspiration and entertainment to a great group of elementary age kids, would you pretty please send me an email (irene at irenelatham dot com) OR leave in comments!

To get the ball rolling, I will share one of mine. I wrote it when I was writing a series of ocean-life poems this time last year. It needs to be shortened, but I haven't gotten to that yet. Here it is in all its excessive glory:

Lionfish Can’t Sleep Tonight

I didn’t ask to hatch.

I would have picked

a green-er patch

with pancake sun

and butter moon,

s t r e t c h e d – o u t

naps in the afternoon.

Instead

 I get lonely rocks

and cell block of water.

I can’t grrrr

or even purr.

Life is just a bubbly blur

 of endless hunger.

Pardon me

while I hide my eyes.

Excuse me

while I dream.

Somewhere

there’s a herd of gazelle

 grazing grass so tall

 it gleams.

copyright 2012 by Irene Latham


The poem was inspired, of course, by a bit of THE LION KING:

Happy weekend, all!