Poetry Challenge #220-Red Apple Day
No one seems to know how it came about, or why, but today, Dec 1st, 2021, is National Eat a Red Apple Day. Here’s what I do know:
Red vs. Green? Yellow wins! In spite of the prescribed “Apple a day…” apples are only the 2nd most consumed fruit in the U.S. Banana are #1.
Here’s something else: A poem doesn’t taste like an apple, but it can look like an apple, and it can be about an apple, or have apples in it, but it doesn’t have to.
Poetry Challenge #220
Wall and Red Apples
“Something there is that does not love a wall…”
Robert Frost wrote in the poem “Mending Walls”, published in 1914.
What if we changed that line to “Something there is that does not love a red apple”? Use that as the first line of your poem and see where it takes you.
Write a second verse replacing “red apple” with something else.
Set Your Timer for 7 Minutes
Start Writing!
Don’t Think About it, just do it!
Cindy Faughnan and I began this 7-Minute Poetry Challenge 2000+ days ago. Now we take turns creating prompts to share with you. Our hope is that creatives—children & adults—will use our prompts as springboards to word play time. If you join us in the Challenge, let us know by posting the title, a note, or if you want, the whole poem in the comments.
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All who subscribe, comment or share a poem will be entered in . . .
7-Minute Poetry Challenge #20-Memory Game
Do you know some poems? Did you ever have to memorize a poem for school? Have you memorized a poem just for the fun of it?
When my kids were little, they memorized Shel's poems. Lexi proudly recited her fav: Eighteen Flavors.
Memorizing poems helps you feel the rhythm and rhyme (if there is one) and forces you to look at each word more closely. Plus, you can recite a poem to get through a tough time or to put yourself to sleep. Amazing the uses!
Poetry Challenge #20
Memorize a Poem Day!
Today, instead of writing a new poem, read some favorites and pick a verse or two or the whole thing to memorize. Say it aloud! Say it in your head! Say it while walking or doing chores or waiting in line.
Some of Cindy's favorite poems—and ones she knows some or all of—include C.S. Lewis’s “The Walrus and the Carpenter”, lots of Robert Frost (“Fire and Ice”, “The Road Not Taken”, “Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening”), Tennyson’s “The Lady of Shallot”, Eliot’s “The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock” and many others.
“I never saw a Purple Cow,
I never hope to see one,
But I can tell you, anyhow,
I’d rather see than be one! ”
My favorite poems—those I can still recite—are "Hickory Dickory Dock", "Little Jack Horner" and others by Mother Goose, Lewis Carol's "Jabberwocky", "Itsy Bitsy Spider", and the inspiration for my picture book One Day I Went Rambling, "One Day I Went Walking" by Valine Hobbs.
What are your favorite poems? Click on it, one listed here, or a brand new discovery (don't we love the Internet for this?) and get to it:
- Set the timer . . .
- Start Memorizing. . .
- Surprise Yourself!
*Cindy Faughnan and I began this 7-Minute Poetry Challenge at least 690 days ago WHOA... We now take turns creating our own prompts to share with you. If you join us in the 7-Minute Poetry Challenge let us know by posting the title, a note, or if you want, the whole dang poem. Scroll down and click on the comments!