105 Ways to Give a Book

Poetry Friday: Summer Poem, Summer Contest

Today I have an original summer poem, but it’s not really my poem — it’s yours. I took all the entries so far for my Summer Contest and pulled them together into one poem. It involved a little tweaking, a few interesting line breaks, and some added imagery. I’m not a great judge of these things, but I think it’s pretty good.

**** CONTEST **** CONTEST **** CONTEST ****

Keep submitting your ideas for enjoying the summer, and I’ll pick someone at random to win the book Cassie Was Here. And I’m sure I’ll come up with something to send off too. (Pssst. Anyone have something cool I can send to the winner?)
Summer

Eating watermelon off the rind,
and spitting out the seeds.
Floating on your back
in the nearest body of water,
and gazing up at the summer clouds
as they drift from one animal shape
into another.
Sitting on the screened-in porch,
a breeze blowing,
reading a great book
for once
ignoring
all the things to do,
knowing there will be
more time
more time
tomorrow.
Eating lemon chills at the zoo,
or taking time for a book shopping spree.
Bouncing on a soft springy tundra,
rolling down a hill,
and eating blueberries
right off the bushes
the way the bears do.
In the far, far, north,
gliding on the deck
when it’s midnight
and the sun’s
still shining.
Scrunching toes in the sand,
playing with the little crabs,
collecting tiny shells,
and hoping for
the perfect sand dollar.
Seeing forward to the point,
when the book
is abandoned,
and the blanket is grubby,
and you still can’t force yourself
to leave the rhythmic
soughing
and sighing
of the sea.
Not bad, huh? Mentor Texts & More is doing the Poetry Friday Round-Up this week and is also collecting reviews for an upcoming Picture Book Carnival.

I’ll be reading me some Harry Potter today, tomorrow, and Sunday. Or so it seems. Apparently, it is harder to read at a baseball game than one might think. So I’ve got some catching up to do. Please be sure to see the song that Hank Green did at Brotherhood 2.0 about waiting for the Harry Potter book. It is really amazing. I made it my business to suggest it to MuggleNet and the Leaky Cauldron and GalleyCat and a few other places. Why not do the same in the name of the NerdFighters? (Oh, if you are not a Brotherhood 2.0 watcher, I should mention that NerdFighters as a name is from the vblog. It’s not like I’m getting some complex or something. On the other hand, I did bring a book to a major league baseball game, so perhaps I need to admit something to myself.)

9 comments:

tanita✿davis said...

What a cool idea!

You totally would rock teaching junior high English. This was my favorite type of assignment.

Anonymous said...

Nerdfighters! Hoo-ah! Good work, you, sending links to Mugglenet and Leaky Cauldron! (I sent the link to Cheryl Klein.)

MotherReader said...

Thanks, TM. Can you tell me how to make the CONTEST thing bigger in Blogger and maybe red too? You know, since I stole it directly from your site. Maybe with more submissions I can do a whole new poem.

Kelly, definitely go NF! Love that you send it to Cherl Klein.

If you're into the Brotherhood 2.0 video - Kelly and anyone else - I suggest also sending the link to the places I did. I'm sure that the more they hear about it, the more likely they are to mention it.

Bill said...

Hey, show a little confidence in your editor, eh?

The CONTEST text is now larger and red.

(And just because I could, I centered it, added a little drop-shadow effect, and adjusted the baseline on the asterisks to better center them relative to the other text.)

Emy said...

Can I donate a pair (or even a couple?) of custom-decorated flip-flops?

Andromeda Jazmon said...

What a great poem! I love how you blended everyone's ideas together. I just went back and added my summer fun thing.

Elaine Magliaro said...

MR,

Well...that's what I call a fine "found" poem. I bet you never thought you'd be writing poems for your blog. I guess you could go by the name of MotherWriter now.

Little Willow said...

LOVE THIS!

Mary Lee said...

Lovely poem! Just lovely. And quite worthy of every summer sentiment we sent to you!