It's Friday! – Time to Look Back ...

Over the weekend I’m going to look at what I have written since we started and see if I can make my poems better. You could do the same with your poems.

Here are the notes I made for two of mine…

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Here is my butterfly haiku. If it was your poem what changes would you make?

Peacock Haiku

Purple butterfly

lands soft on gritty concrete 

fleeting grey shadow.

And here is the free verse cat poem. I could make it longer or shorter or try and turn it into a rhyming poem. I haven’t given it a title yet…

I'm looking up at

a stripey cat sitting

on our fence

she's staring at something

her tail is twitching –

can she see what I see?

I see bare branches of trees.

It's spring and it's sunny.

I can see other trees

bright green with new leaves

clouds and bright blue sky

over the roof of 

our neighbour's house –

and a stripey cat

sitting on our fence.

I could make each line longer, like this:

I'm looking up at a stripey cat sitting on our fence,

she's staring at something, her tail is twitching –

Can she see what I see?

I see bare branches of trees. it's spring and it's sunny.

I can see other trees bright green with new leaves

clouds and bright blue sky over the roof of 

our neighbour's house –

and a stripey cat sitting on our fence.

I think the word ‘sitting’ in the first line might be better if I change it to balancing. Also I might put something about what the cat is looking at. A bird? Something glittery, glinting in the sun?

I’ve used the word ‘bright’ twice and it’s a word that does’t tell you very much about the colour I could see in the photo of the cat (see 24th March Use a Photo to Write a List Poem) so I might change that.

Remember you don’t have to have full sentences in a poem – I might take some words out.

Lots to think about! Enjoy your weekend!

Lucinda Jacob