Color Poems

Red Sings from Treetops: A Year in Colors

Written by Joyce Sidman

Illustrated by Pamela Zagarenski

Houghton Mifflin, 2009

Write a COLOR POEM
On April 17th, I posted a review of Joyce Sidman’s wonderful new collection of poems entitled Red Sings from Treetops: A Year in Colors. Joyce and I invited my blog readers to write color poems and submit them to Wild Rose Reader for posting at a later date. Unfortunately, no one has submitted a poem yet—so I thought I’d send out a second invitation…along with four color poems that I wrote today. I kept to the seasonal theme just as Joyce did with the poems in her collection. That is not a requirement for your color poems.


NOTE: Joyce developed a Reader’s Guide for her book Red Sings from Treetops. The guide includes ideas and suggestions for writing three different types of color poems: a list poem, a color person poem, and a synesthesia poem. Why not check out her suggestions? You may be inspired to write your own color poem.

Here’s a link to Joyce’s teacher's guide page for Red Sings from Treetops.


My Color Poems

Spring Green
pokes out from the earth
before the last snows melt,
announces the arrival
of impatient crocuses.
It perches on tree branches
like little bitty birds,
spreads itself over the ground
in grassy velvet shawls.
Spring Green sprouts everywhere
in a dazzle of different shades
covering over the drab brown
of winter.



Summer Yellow,
is brazen and bold,
puffs out its chest in July
and shouts from its perch high in the sky:
Hot Hot Hot!
Summer Yellow
sizzles on the sidewalk,
scorches the sandy beach,
sears our skin with its molten hands.
It grows wild in dandelions
before they wither to white.
It powders the faces of daisies
with gold dust.
Summer Yellow
is tart and tangy,
tingles on the tongue...
likes to cool itself in an icy pitcher
of lemonade.



The Orange of October
shines in the face
of a harvest moon,
grows plump and round in pumpkin patches,
flickers in the angled eyes of jack o’ lanterns…
and their crooked copper grins.
The Orange of October
flames in oak leaves and asters,
smells like cinnamon and nutmeg,
tastes like sweet potato pie.


Winter White
whirls in the wind,
waltzes down from clouds,
alights with feathered feet.
It pillows the ground,
muffling the sound of footsteps
on the walk.
Winter White
wraps the rhododendron
in a fluffy shawl,
lays a feathered quilt
over the frozen pond.
Winter White
etches windowpanes
with frosty fingertips.
It whispers through icy lips,
sounds like a ghost
shivering in cold blue shadows.


If you write a color poem, you can leave it in the comments or email it to me.