Two June Challenges: Poetry parcels and Joy Cowley’s Snake and Lizard

Welcome young poetry fans  – I am so so so so so busy this year I am a day late. I am thinking hard and writing hard about what poetry can do.  So that inspired my first challenge.

 

Challenge One:

 

Poems can do and play and puzzle with so many things.

Poems can sound as good as a song.

Poems can build lists and make pictures grow in your head.

Poems can whizz or go slow.

They might surprise or soothe or shock or challenge you. You might laugh

or frown or cry as you read.

They can be short or long like a letter or a huge birthday parcel.

 

Your challenge is to write a poem about:     Poetry – writing poems or reading poems .

 

What are poems like to you? What do you love about poems?

What do they remind you of? Where do you read them or write them?

Find some good VERBS for what a poem DOES.

Find some sizzling SIMILES.

 

Send to paulajoygreen@gmail.com by 26th JUNE. I will post some favourites on JUNE 30^th and have a copy of the book for one reader.

Include your name, age, year and name of school.

IMPORTANT: Put POEM POETRY challenge in the subject line of the email please.

 

 

Challenge Two

 

I am a HUGE fan of Joy Cowley and Gavin Bishop and I especially love their Snake and Lizard books.

 

So on a very wet Sunday afternoon I gobbled up the new one: Helper and Helper.

 

Gavin’s illustrations are sheer beauty.

Joy’s stories are warm and wise and witty. Her sentences are like clear shiny streams.

 

Snake and Lizard are full to the brim with life and show us the power of friendship. Being friends is bumps and hills and new days and arguments and listening and kindness and discoveries.

When I read these stories I fill with warmth and good feelings and just want to write poems or even give stories a go.

 

a n o t h e r   c h a l l e n g e

I LOVE LOVE LOVE these stories so much I am challenging you to write a ‘Snake and Lizard’ poem (You can do more than one!). Read the book first to get inspired by the characters. Make up what happens. It can be something very small and curious.

I have the book to give to one young poet thanks to GECKO PRESS.

 

 Send to paulajoygreen@gmail.com by 26th JUNE. I will post some favourites on JUNE 30th and have a copy of the book for one reader.

Include your name, age, year and name of school.

IMPORTANT:  Put SNAKE and LIZARD challenge in the subject line of the email please.

 

 

An April-May challenge on Poetry Box: season your poem

 

 

You may also like to try my two challenges hiding in my Gecko Press books post. Please put ‘GECKO’ or ‘Lizard and Snake’ in the subject line so I don’t get in a SPAGHETTI muddle!

 

The April-May challenge:  Writer an AUTUMN poem.

 

A HOT tip for the CHALLENGE:

You have longer to work on these poems because I am going to be off-line until mid May!

I won’t read your poems until then!!!!

Try to hold onto the poem and look at it a week or so later.

Try listening to your poem to see which words you love and which words you might like to change.

I love every season and I love seasoning my poems with seasons.

Play with my suggestions!

 

 

Some ideas:

Collect autumn words and make a pattern in your poem.

Collect the sounds of autumn.

Show autumn out your window or in your back garden.

Use words to take a photo of autumn.

Tell an autumn story in a poem. Listen to how it sounds when you read it.

Show autumn weather. Collect 30 words first. Or 20. Or 10. Or 5.

Write an autumn list poem.

Make an autumn shape poem (a leaf, a bare tree, autumn vegetables and so on) and send a photo.

Write a poem with a friend, alternating lines.

Make the first line the same as the last.

Choose a strong autumn word to repeat through your poem.

Play with how many words go on the line.

Write an autumn poem with NO adjectives. * A book for someone who does this beautifully*

Write an autumn poem with strong verbs.

Try three different endings for me to see.

Try three different first lines for me to see.

Hide a mood in your poem.

Collect your favourite autumn things. Put them in your poem.

 

Deadline: May 5th

I will post:  May 10th or 11th

Send to: paulajoygreen@gmail.com

Include: your name, age, year, school AND put autumn poem in subject line please!

 

h a v e     f u n

 

 

t h i s  n o t  a competition  b u t

a way to challenge yourself as a poet!

 

have extra STUPENDOUS  fun!

 

 

 

Welcome back to Poetry Box 2017 – a little letter and a little challenge

 

 

a blue sky at our place!

 

 

Dear young poetry fans,

I do hope you have all had a lovely summer even if the sun didn’t shine as much as it usually does, the wind was windier and the rain was rainier.

I have been hard at work writing my big book but after I did a stunt-woman routine in my bedroom (BY ACCIDENT!) and flew through the air like a frisbee and crash landed on the wooden frame of the bed – I injured my back! So I have not been able to sit at the computer and do all the things I usually do. Now I can have small bursts.

 

So I am going to start the year off with a small-poem challenge for you.

 

Little poems are like chocolates – they can taste sweet or sour but they do TASTE!

You can play with how many words you use on each line because that will change the SOUND and the LOOK of the poem.

You can HIDE a very tiny thing in the poem: a glorious word, a single rhyme,  an idea, an object.

 

The challenge: Try writing a bunch of small poems. Say no more than 16 words or no more than 10 words or no more than 20 words. YOU CHOOSE!

Give the poem a title. Those words don’t count in the total.

Try leaving the poem for a week before you send it to me and give it a sound check before you do. As a poet I always do this. I wrote a poetry ms last summer and I have left it for a whole YEAR!

 

Deadline: March 28th.

Email: write small poem in subject line

Send to: paulajoygreen@gmail.com

Include: your name, age, year and name of school. You can include your teacher’s email if you like.

I will post some favourites on APRIL 1st

and have a least one book to give away just because.

 

BTW I have finished my collection of children’s poems using the titles you all gave me! I loved doing it so much!

 

Warm regards,

Paula

 

Molly wants to go for a walk! No swimming lessons for her this summer in the wild west-coast surf.

 

Last of year: Poetry Box November Challenge: something summery and something small (and a Gecko Annual challenge)

 

This is the last challenge for the year! Thank you so much for reading my posts, following my tips, reading the reviews, trying the challenges and sending me letters and poems.

w o n d e r f u l

 

It has been an excellent year for poetry. I especially liked all the classes that sent in work. I could see the poetry buzz and the fun you had writing and reading. The poems have been magnificent.

 

s t u p e  n d o u s

 

I have agonised on what to set for our last challenge this year. So I am going to offer you two. I will have a book for each challenge. I will do two separate posts. Remember this is NOT a competition – it is all about the joy of writing!

My top tip: Don’t send the poem the day you write it. Leave it for a few days, edit it and then send.

 

w a i t    w o n  d e r        w a n d e r

 

l o o k    at my post on the Gecko Press Annual and find  my challenge to review it  (I have a book token for someone!)  Deadline November 10th         !!!!!!!!!!!!       **********

 

l  i    s   t   e   n

 

Challenge Number One: a set topic

Try writing a poem about summer.

Before you write hunt for summer things.

Use your senses to find words.

Make a chain of interesting summer words. Pick your favourites to put in the poem.

Link three summer words together. Make a pattern poem with summer words.

Hunt for a summer memory.

Imagine a summer you would love.

Paint a picture of summer with words.

Listen to every line and do a sound check.

Find some sizzling summer similes to use.

Hunt for things you to do in summer or eat.

What about the place you like to go in summer?

What is your favourite summer mood? Write a poem and hide that mood in the poem for me to guess.

 

 

Challenge Number Two: small poems

I love writing poems that use only a handful of words.

Every word has to count.

Your poem might paint a little picture.

Does it sound good?

You could try writing a couplet poem: just two lines that might hide or use tricky rhyme or no rhyme.

You could try writing a haiku: 3 lines and can be 5 syllables, 7 syllables, 5 syllables (doesn’t usually rhyme).

You could try writing a limerick.

You could write a small poem that is surprising.

You could write a small poem that is funny.

You could write a small poem that is thoughtful.

You could write a small poem that makes a pattern with words.

 

 

SEND your poem to paulajoygreen@gmail.com

DEADLINE Monday November 28th

Include your name, age, year and name of school. You can include your teacher’s email if you like.

P l e a s e    p u t   ‘Summer poem’ or ‘Small poem’ in the subject line of your email.

I will pick some favourites to post on the blog and have a book for at least two readers and maybe even a book for a class.

I will do two posts on  Wednesday 3oth November.

October Poetry Challenge: some favourite imaginative poems

… I am bit late posting these as I have in bed with a sore throat …

What a lot of fun you had using your imaginations – to get them sizzling and bouncing and popping in poems. Sometimes the poems made me laugh out loud. But imaginative poems can also be thoughtful, show you different ways of seeing the world. Invent worlds. Imagine how other people do things.

I couldn’t post all the amazing poems – so here is a selection of some I enjoyed.

I am sending a copy of The Letterbox Cat to Oscar and to the class at Greenhithe School.

Do try my last challenge of the year that I am posting tomorrow.

I posted Daniel’s poem first as I loved the way he imagined a world with no imagination!

 

Without Imagination

Imagine a world

Without imagination

There would be no inventions

No new things

No modifications

No songs

No pictures

No stories

No adventures

No fun at all

I am glad I cannot imagine

A world without imagination

 By Daniel L, Age 8, Year 3, Adventure School, Wellington

 

I got a terrific bunch of poems from Greenhithe School. They all zinged with imagination. What great fun you had writing these! Here are just a few:

 

Have a Look

A moment in time

is like a lime sitting still

on the windowsill.

The sun is brightening

As the lime is ripening.

Then the moment passes.

By Ferguson Mc, Age 10, Year 5, Glenhithe School

 

When the Pie Danced with the Tie

 

The pie danced with the tie when the bread turned red

The pie danced with the tie when a rock ate the clock

The pie danced with the tie when my hand joined a band

The pie danced with the tie when Jill ate the hill.

But did those things really happen?

No.

The pie never danced with the tie.

By Maria S, Age 10 years, Year 5, Glenhithe School

 

Brussel Sprout Land

What if the world was made of brussel sprouts?

People would be passing out

from the smell.

You wouldn’t be able to write.

You wouldn’t be able to play a ball sport because the ball would keep disintegrating.

Your house would keep rolling around and

you wouldn’t be able to watch TV.

Just a brussel sprout.

By James D, Age 9, Year 5, Greenhithe School

 

And here are some poems from all over New Zealand:

 

Imagination
I went to bed and closed my eyes
and I saw red and suddenly my bed
lifted off the ground and my room turned
oval round.

I floated out of bed and through the ceiling
and saw rainbows and werewolves and foxes and monsters.
Suddenly I dropped back through the ceiling and my Mum peeked
through the door and told me off for making too much noise.

Oscar Mc, Age 8, Fendalton Primary School

 

Coloured World

If the sky was green
What about the trees?
Would they be green too?
Or would they be blue?

Would the seas be purple?
Or would that make everyone gurgle?
Would they revolt,
With orange lightning bolts?

If the sun was indigo
Would we need some mistletoe
Made out of red teacups,
Brewed by Monkeys DeluxeⓇ?

So I must say,
Be careful on your way,
In hope you don’t meet,
Some flowers with very yellow feet.

By Freya D, age 12, Tamatea Intermediatee, Napier

 

 

Writing

Hands gripping pencils,

breaking through paper.

Imagination racing.

Words into sentences,

sentences into paragraphs,

paragraphs into stories.

This is writing.

Jonathon Y, Gladstone School, Auckland

 

What If?

What if the world was made of cheese?
Would cheddar be the land, would edam be the seas?
What if all 3 of your little black cats?
Owned an illegal black market for purple top hats?

What if a pug called Swipp Woolly Lee?
Ruled over the world, how crazy would that be?
What if your granny was a world renowned thief?
And her hideout was under the great barrier reef?

What if all milk tasted like trash?
Would the dairy industry suffer a financial crash?
What if it was impossible to flush the loo?
Would the whole wide world smell like poo?

What if your teacher worked for some top secret spies?
Could she spy on you using robotic flies?
What if you lived in the sewer of a train station?
Thank goodness this only in our imagination.

By Jackson S, 12, Year 8 Tamatea Intermediate School, Napier

 

Running Away

When Imagination ran away with me

He took me by the hand

And led me away on an adventure

Adults wouldn’t understand

 

He showed me glorious green forests

And silvery snow capped mountains

Ancient ruins and relics

And exploding fantastical fountains

 

He took me to a magical world

Where dragons roam

Cauldrons foam

And children save the world alone

 

He showed me what the world could be

If no one put restraints on me

Gemma Lovewell, Age 10, Year 6, Adventure School, Wellington

 

Imagination Sampler
Painting,
The colorful rainbow flows onto the paper,
White never to be seen again.
Summer,
A shield of sun protects me from the rain.
Clouds,
Icing the bright blue sky.
Monkey,
The love for bananas is never enough.
Cross country,
A soft patter of feet as you pass the finish line
Jellybean,
Ant size but giraffe size in flavor.
Letter,
What kind of message does it carry?
Ice Cream,
Deliciousness slips down my throat.
Holidays,
Every corner you turn fun is blocking the way.
Rainbow,
The colours never end.
Stars,
The skies necklace
Crown,
Queen of jewels.
Lipstick,
Paint covers your lips like a hat.
Your brain the imagination station.

Evie J, Age 11, Selwyn House School, Christchurch

 

 

The    Best    Creation    Ever!

a small computer with a hard shell to protect it,

two projectors to sense where it’s going,

Many engines to work different parts,

all close together to stay running,

a cage, able to hold the many engines in place,

a pipe for fluids, to keep on moving,

a hole on each side of the computer to hear and interact.

A squishy yet solid material, all over,

Layers of soft material, covering everything, to make it look even better,

This machine is the best creation ever!

It is you and me…… Human beings.

 
Winter Dragon

Cold biting fingers and nose
Snow white on the trees and ground
Sun rising in golden robes
Setting the snow alight

Movement out of the corner of an eye
A snow sparkle on bluish white scales
Crest of icy horns
Arctic blue eyes
Sparkling white wings

A gasp escapes an open jaw
A dragon turns
Cold air escaping an open maw
Eyes glittering
Joined for a moment
Sun turned white scales gold

Leaping up into the air
Breathing ice on frozen trees
Rising higher
Caught in golden light
Then vanishing in the sunrise

Running feet to a small house
Excited voice shouting
I saw the winter dragon!

by Sarah-Kate  Age 11 Homeschooled

 

October Poetry Box Challenge – Imagination leaps

 

 

I love letting my imagination set sail when I write poems (amidst a thousand other things).

So for October, I challenge you to write a poem with a dollop of imagination.

I suggest letting your poem sit for a few days before you send it to me so you can spot things you might like to improve – or mistakes.

 

Here are some tips and starting points:

Ask some what if questions. What if I could fly? What if the world were made of broccoli?

Imagine you are a character from a book.

See things in the real world completely differently. A world of tall things. A topsy-turvy world.

Invent some animals as I did in my poem ‘Anifables.’

Write an ordinary poem about ordinary things but then give it an extraordinary ending.

Imagine something strange happens in your back garden.

Imagine you have a secret.

Invent a new food or tree or machine.

Imagine you meet a famous person.

 

….. or surprise me … with your own imagination             l   e   a   p

 

Hunt for really good detail before you start writing your poem.

Listen to every line.

Test out three very different endings.

Remember to give it a title.

 

How will you set your poem out?

Hide a surprise in your poem somewhere.

 

Imagine something that happened in history very differently.  Like landing on the moon.

 

h a v e     f u n    !

 

SEND your poem to paulajoygreen@gmail.com

DEADLINE Friday October 28th

Include your name, age, year and name of school. You can include your teacher’s email if you like.

P l e a s e    p u t   ‘Imagination poem’ in the subject line of your email.

I will pick some favourites to post on the blog and have a book for at least one reader and maybe even a book for a class.

I will post on  Monday 31st October.

 

 

 

Poetry Box Challenge: t r a v e l p o e m s

 

Awhile ago I saw Lonely Planets held a world-wide poetry competition for children to write travel poems … poems about favourite places (it’s over now).

So this month I challenge you to write a poem about another place (not the suburb you live in).

It might be another town or city or country. It might be another suburb. It might be a tourist attraction. A mountain, a river, a forest, a paddock, a street, an ocean, a museum.

It might be what you ate there or did there or saw there. The best pasta or ice cream or noodles.

It might be somewhere or something you would like to show a visitor in your own place.

 

You might have been there and can use your experience.

You might not have been there but can do a little research/reading/asking. In this case you can use your imagination to play with what you discover.

How can you give your poem that extra zing?

 

1. use good detail
2. imagine you are taking a photo with words
3. hunt for surprising things about this place
4. write your poem as though you are telling someone about the place
5. use your senses
6. play with how you set the poem out
7. try writing a poem postcard about the place
8. write about the place as a poem letter
9. write two words that sum up the place then don’t use the in the poem. Find other words to show how the place is beautiful and fun for example.
10. think about the ending. Try three then pick your favourite.
11. remember children of all ages read this blog (I don’t publish poems that might disturb young children)

 

 

Have fun! Read your poem out loud. Don’t send it to me straight away. Keep it for a day or two then see if you want to change anything.

 

SEND your poem to paulajoygreen@gmail.com

DEADLINE Wednesday September 28th

Include your name, age, year and name of school. You can include your teacher’s email if you like.

P l e a s e    p u t   ‘Travel poem’ in the subject line of your email.

I will pick some favourites to post on the blog and have a book for at least one reader and maybe even a book for a class.

I will post on  Friday 30th September.