Rhyming Acrostics

Every now and then, I like to challenge myself by writing acrostics that rhyme. Here are some of the rhyming acrostics that I’ve written to date:

Changes suits to suit

His locus. Abracadabra! Hocus-pocus! He’s

A clever

Master of disguise…a trickster who can fool the

Eyes! This

Lizard with a fashion flair takes his wardrobe

Everywhere. Predators don’t stop

Or stare.

No one even knows he’s there.

Fiery flowers bloom

In the night:

Roses, carnations…chrysanthemums, too,

Emerald green, red,

White, and blue. Silvery fountains spill

Out of the sky.

Rockets of gold sizzle and sigh.

Kaleidoscope colors cascading in space,

Showering glitter all over the place.

Cans of people,

Automobiles

Roaring down roads on

Silver-capped wheels.

Claw-handed critter

Races sideways, skitters

Across the sea-washed land…

Beachcombing in the sand.

Dawn, dressed in a bright blue robe

And golden slippers,

Yawns awake. Stars scurry away.

Breaking into song, birds

Rouse the sun,

Eager to start

A new day. Morning bounds out of bed with delight,

Kicking off the dark cover of night.

Silent sidekick, shape shifter who

Hides in the darkness…

A copycat mimicking everything you

Do. Sunny day playmate frolics in the light.

Oh, where, oh,

Where does it go at night?

Words

Hushed

In soft velvet

Sounds

Patter into your

Ear

Revealing deep secrets that no one

Should hear.

Here are two slightly different versions of a MARCH acrostic that I wrote recently:

Melting snow, mellower days,
A brighter sun with warmer rays,
Robins
Chirping. Beat the drum.
Hallelujah! Spring has come!

Melting snow, mellower days,
A brighter sun with warmer rays,
Robins
Chirping. Let’s all cheer.
Hallelujah! Spring is here!

Why not try writing a rhyming acrostic yourself? If you do, leave it in the comments and I’ll post it later this week.

FYI: I’ll be sharing the “twosomes” that people wrote and have submitted to Wild Rose Reader tomorrow.

Reminder: Wild Rose Reader’s poetry prize for the second week of National Poetry Month is Twosomes: Love Poems from the Animal Kingdom, which was written by Marilyn Singer and illustrated by Lee Wildish.

Click here to read my brief review of Twosomes—and some of my own “cuddle creature couplets.

MARCH: Two Versions of an Original Acrostic Poem

I sometimes like to write rhyming acrostics. Here’s one I wrote about the month of March last week:

Melting snow, mellower days,
A brighter sun with warmer rays,
Robins
Chirping. Beat the drum.
Hallelujah! Spring has come!

Here's a slightly different version of the March acrostic that I wrote this morning:


Melting snow, mellower days,
A brighter sun with warmer rays,
Robins
Chirping. Let’s all cheer.
Hallelujah! Spring is here!

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At Blue Rose Girls, I have an acrostic poem titled Crocus.

Ben has the Poetry Friday Roundup at The Small Nouns.

POETRY FRIDAY: The Subject Is Grass

Last year, my husband bought one of those old-fashioned push mowers. Recently, I decided to take over the chore of mowing our lawn. I had never liked the gas-powered mower we had years ago—and I had trouble with our electric mower’s cord always getting in my way. But I love cutting the grass with the push mower. It’s great exercise for me--and much less boring than pumping on my exercycle while lifting weights. I do the front lawn one day—and the back yard the next day. I'm a bit obsessive about the way I cut and trim the grass...but our lawn has never
looked better!

With grass on my mind, I give you two original poems—a “things to do” list poem and an acrostic—as well as a favorite poem on the subject by the great Valerie Worth.


THINGS TO DO IF YOU ARE GRASS

Live on a hillside meadow.
Grow tall
and golden as summer sun.
Hide fluffy field mice
and a symphony of crickets.
Welcome wildflowers,
honeybees, and butterflies.
Drink the fallen rain.
Bend and sway
to the rhythm
of the wind
and dance.


Green carpets the ground,
Reaches over the hills, blankets the broad valley,
And across the wide prairie, stalks of tall golden grain
Sway in the wind
Singing the song of the plain.



grass
by Valerie Worth

Grass on the lawn
Says nothing:
Clipped, empty,
Quiet.

Grass in the fields
Whistles, slides,
casts up a foam
Of seeds,

Tangles itself
With leaves: hides
Whole rustling schools
Of mice.

Book Recommendation
All the Small Poems and Fourteen More
Written by Valerie Worth
Illustrated by Natalie Babbitt

This wonderful poetry classic is a compilation of four of Worth’s earlier collections—Small Poems, More Small Poems, Still More Small Poems, and Small Poems Again—and it includes fourteen additional poems. Every elementary teacher should have a copy of this paperback book in her classroom collection.

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At Blue Rose Girls: Sticking with the "grass" theme, I have a poem by Robert Wrigley entitled Mowing--which is really about more than cutting a lawn.

Kelly Polark is doing the Poetry Friday Roundup this week.

DRAGONFLY: An Original Acrostic

I've been blogging "light" lately. I've had lots of things to do. Recently, I got a ton of wonderful children's books for a baby shower that my daughter Sara and I are going to on Sunday. Wednesday evening, my husband and I celebrated his birthday with Sara and her fiance. (We had Beijing duck, maki, tempura.) I went shopping and found a beautiful pink suit for my mother to wear to Sara's wedding. Yesterday, I picked up my mother-of-the-the bride dress. I also went to the bridal shop with my daughter last night when she got her gown "bustled." Later, Sara came to my house for dinner.

Here's the dress I'm wearing to Sara's wedding.

I got it in purple.

Here are the shoes I got at Macy's on sale recently.

I hope I can walk down the aisle

in them without spraining an ankle

or falling on my face!
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I haven't had much time for writing poetry book reviews or extensive posts about poetry--so here is another poem from my unpublished collection Spring into Words: A Season in Acrostics:

Down here in the pond, I’ve waited for months…years,
Remained a nymph.
At last the season has come for me to
Grow wings, to shed the shell of childhood.
Onward and upward!
Now I’m ready to emerge
From my watery world, to
Look to the future…the blue sky above, to leave all my
Yesterdays behind.


At Blue Rose Girls, I having a poem by Jenny Joseph entitled WARNING--which begins: When I am an old woman I shall wear purple.

The Poetry Friday Roundup is over at The Cazzy Files.

JUNE: An Original Acrostic

We had the most beautiful weather this past Memorial Day weekend. It was sunny, dry, and warm. I did yard work, sat outside on my back deck and read, and visited with one of my nieces on Saturday and Sunday. (My husband and my niece's family were up in Maine.) I brought dinner to my niece's both days. We couldn't sit outside on Saturday and eat the eggplant lasagna that my husband had made before he left because of the pesky mosquitoes. It was breezy on Sunday...so the little bloodsuckers weren't around to annoy us as we sipped mojitos and ate homemade lobster rolls. YUM!!!


Here's an acrostic to welcome the new month:

Just as spring grows weary, Mother Nature
Ushers in a brand
New season of sun and fun.
Everyone cheers for summer and the end of school.

APPLE TREE: An Original Acrostic

I thought I’d attempt a two-word acrostic for my unpublished poetry collection Spring into Words: A Season in Acrostics. The two-word acrostic, Apple Tree, is also a mask poem.

I chose to post Apple Tree today for my mother. Last year, we had to have the apple tree in her backyard cut down. That made her sad because my father and her father had planted the tree there many years ago.


A cloud of
Pink blossoms rests in my branches.
Petals, like flakes of fallen snow,
Litter the
Earth below me. My new leaves flaunt their green.

Thousands of honeybees come to visit, flit
Round me, sip my nectar, powder their legs with my pollen.
Every year it’s the same when spring arrives in the orchard.
Every year I burst into bloom and buzz with life.



Note: I’d like to thank all of you who left kind words for my mother and me at my Poetry Friday posting on May 7th. This past week has been a bit easier than the previous week. My mom had a good Mother’s Day—with lots of visitors. She’s going through a period of adjustment now—as is our family. Fortunately, I’m not far from the facility where my mother is now living so I can visit with her often.

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Jama has the Poetry Friday Roundup at Alphabet Soup.

Spring Sings with Yellow: Two Original Poems

I was trying to figure out what my poetry post would be today. I’ve been really busy lately with a couple of writing projects, making arrangements for our reading council’s spring dinner meeting in mid May, and with plans for my daughter’s upcoming bridal shower and her wedding this summer.

I went looking through my poetry manuscripts to see if I could find a “bright” spring poem. It’s really gray and chilly where I live today. Spring seems to be in hiding…again. I decided to post a poem that would brighten my day. I selected POLLEN from my unpublished collection Spring into Words: A Season in Acrostics. Reading POLLEN inspired to me to write another “yellow” poem for the season. My new “yellow” poem is still in its rough draft stage.

Powder

Of life. Yellow…

Like lantern light,

Like butter on bread, like the yolk of an

Egg, like a nugget of gold…or a

New star born of cosmic dust.

Spring sings with yellow—
Daffodils trumpet the color in a world growing green
Forsythia bushes explode into golden clouds
Dandelions light our lawn like little suns
Daisies flaunt their pollen-powdered faces…
Everywhere I look
Yellow is singing out its bright song.

MUD: An Original Acrostic for Spring

I'm posting a little late again today. I have lots of things on my list of things to do lately!

Here is another apoem from my unpublished collection Spring into Words: A Season in Acrsotics:

**********

Messy, mushy, mucky

Ucky, oozy, wonderful, wet

Dark chocolate dirt perfect for pie making

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Here's a picture of my daughter's Yellow Lab Jack. Jack LOVES mud!!!

Jack says:

Rolling in mud is the bestest fun there is!

I don't know about you--but I LOVED making mud pies when I was little.

SHOWERS: An Original Acrostic for Spring

My contribution for the 21st day of National Poetry Month is Showers, a poem from my unpublished collection Spring into Words: A Season in Acrostics.

Softly, raindrops come to call. Can you
Hear them gently tap-tapping
On the
Windowpane, on the roof with an
Even, steady beat…
Repeating the song that April loves to
Sing?

DAISY: An Original Acrostic

I love daisies. They seem unpretentious flowers to me. I also love how the name for the daisy comes from the term "day's eye." That is what gave me the idea for the following acrostic.

Day’s eye, wide
Awake, standing
In a meadow
Staring at the sky—its bright
Yellow face turned toward the sun.

Photograph by Ian Britton

HIBERNATION: An Original Acrostic

Two weeks ago, I posted March, an original poem from an unpublished collection of acrostics about spring. Today, I have the second poem in the collection for you. It’s about a mother bear sensing the arrival of a warmer season—and thinking about taking her cubs out into a world they’ve never seen.


How long have
I slept? How long has it
Been since I’ve
Eaten? I hear the river running again. I must
Rouse my cubs from their slumber
Now…open their eyes to the wonders of spring,
Awaken them to a new life. It is
Time to take my children out
Into the sunlight,
Out into a brighter world they’ve
Never known.

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At Blue Rose Girls I have a Poem titled Cold Spring by Lawrence Raab.

The Poetry Friday Roundup is over at Becky’s Book Reviews.

MARCH: An Original Acrostic

I got a late start with my Poetry Friday plans. We had a wild wind and rainstorm here yesterday. I lost Internet access. Fortunately, I figured out how to get my wireless reconnected this morning by turning off all our computers, pulling out the connector to the router, and rebooting the modem. So relieved! I can't live without the Internet and email.

Now on to POETRY...

Last September, I was reading through all the acrostic poems that I had written. Several of them touched on the theme of spring. That gave me the idea to write a collection of spring acrostics that takes one through the season from March to June. The collection now contains twenty-one poems. It includes acrostics about the following subjects: hibernation, crocus, bud, sky, peeper, showers, puddles, mud, seeds, apple tree, pollen, nectar, and dragonfly. Some of the acrostics still need a bit of work.

As spring is waiting at the door and March is raring to go, I thought I’d post the first poem in the collection, which is tentatively titled Spring into Words: A Season in Acrostics.

Maybe I’ll
Arrive
Roaring like a lion and
Chase spring away with my frosty breath until I
Hear April purring in my ear.

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At Political Verses, I have a new post: Two Rhyming Verses for Creationists.

At Blue Rose Girls, I posted February Twilight by Sara Teasdale for my mother who turned 92 on Wednesday.

Jone has the Poetry Friday Roundup at Check It Out.

MOUSE: An Original Acrostic Poem

Mice have been characters in many memorable children's books--Leo Lionni's Frederick, Stuart Little, Beverly Cleary's The Mouse and the Motorcycle, and picture books by Kevin Henkes--including Owen, Chrysanthemum, Lilly's Purple Plastic Purse, and Julius, the Baby of the World.

With cute little literary rodents in mind, I give you the following acrostic that I wrote many years ago.

Mitten-footed forager

Out on a midnight adventure,

Unheard, unseen, in the whisper-soft dark,

Scurrying about the house,

Eking out a meal.

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At Blue Rose Girls, I have Winter Dusk by Walter de la Mare.

Mary Ann's got the Poetry Friday Round Up at Great Kid Books today.

Summer Acrostics

Here are two of my original acrostic poems about summer—both acrostics begin with the letter C.



Claw-handed critter

Races sideways, skitters

Across the sea-washed land…

Beachcombing in the sand.




Chirping in the dark, their song

Resonates

In the still air. A

Chorus of summer night strummers in concert with

Katydids

Entertaining warm evenings with

Their

Symphony of wings.



For more summer acrostics, get a copy of Stephen Schnur’s Summer: An Alphabet Acrostic. The book is beautifully illustrated with hand-colored linoleum block prints by Leslie Evans. Art and text make a perfect pair in this poetry book that would be great to share with a child/children on a hot summer day--or a warm summer evening.

Summer: An Alphabet Acrostic
Written by Steven Schnur
Illustrated by Leslie Evans
Clarion, 2001

Here is Schnur’s acrostic poem for the letter C:

Close by
A glittering
Blue lake, high
In the mountains,
Nestles a fishing lodge.

Other acrostics in this collection include the following: awning, beach, daisy, hike, idle, mosquitos, picnic, tide, vegetables, and zodiac.


Click here to view some of the book’s interior pages.

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At Political Verses, I have a poem about the resignation speech of Alaska’s Governor entitled Sarah Palin’s Swan/Duck/Goose Song.

At Blue Rose Girls, I have a poem entitled Anniversary by Cecilia Woloch.

Jama Rattigan has the Poetry Friday Roundup this week.

A Tortoise Acrostic & Fables in Verse

Check out Tricia’s Monday Poetry Stretch - Acrostics at the Miss Rumphius Effect. Here is my “Aesop’s Fable” acrostic, TORTOISE. I’ve also included a couple of recommendations for two children’s pictures books that have fables written in verse. You can read the Poetry Stretch Results here.


TORTOISE
by Elaine Magliaro


Take it easy,

Old One. Hare is

Resting beneath a willow

Tree dreaming

Of the finish line—dreaming he is champion.

It is not to be, Old One. You are wise and know

Slow and steady wins the race

Every time.



FABLES IN VERSE

A Sip of Aesop
Written by Jane Yolen
Illustrated by Karen Barbour
Scholastic, 1995

Yolen retells thirteen fables in verse in this book that provides us with just a “sip” of the more than two hundred moralistic tales attributed to Aesop. The morals of the fables—which include The Hare and the Tortoise, The Lion and the Mouse, The Fox and the Grapes, and The Grasshopper and the Ants—are also written in rhyme. Yolen’s verses scan well and are fun to read aloud to children—especially those who are familiar with fables.

Here is an excerpt from The Mice and the Council and its moral.

It begins:

The mice called a meeting
At which they all sat
Discussing the way
To get rid of their cat.

“Poison!” one cried.
(A real silly suggestion.)
Hanging and shooting
Were out of the question.


And it ends:

“Good plan,” said one old mouse,
A fine diplomat.
“But answer me—who will go
Bell that mean cat?”


The MORAL:

To make a good plan
Is but half a solution.
How close are the words
Execute—execution.

Yolen includes a bit of information about Aesop in the back matter of the book.

Barbour’s illustrations are bright and saturated with color. They provide a fine complement to Yolen’s “fabulous” verses.

The Hare and the Tortoise and Other Fables of La Fontaine
Translated by Ranjit Bolt
Illustrated by Giselle Potter
Barefoot Books, 2006

Jean La Fontaine was a French poet who lived from 1621-1695. He is best known for the fables he wrote in a series of twelve books. He adapted his poetic tales from fables by Aesop as well as fables from the Panchatantra.

This book includes a number of familiar fables: The Hare and the Tortoise, The Town Mouse and the Country Mouse, and The Grasshopper and the Ant. It also contains some fables that are less well known: God and the Animals, The Pumpkin and the Acorn, and The Bat and the Weasels.

All the fables in the book are written in a series of rhyming couplets. Here is an excerpt from The Grasshopper and the Ant as an example:

The grasshopper had sung his song
All the delightful summer long
Instead of gathering in supplies.
Now only did he realize,
With winter coming on, that he
Could not have supper, lunch or tea!
He couldn’t find a scrap of food,
The cupboards in his larder showed
Not even one small worm or fly.
He had it, he was high and dry.


Giselle Potter’s spare, stylistic illustrations, done in gouache, serve as a fitting backdrop for the moralistic tales. They never intrude on the text; they enhance this fine compilation of translated fables in verse.



MORE FABLES
Aesop’s Fables from the University of Massachusetts
From the website: Since 1994 Professor Copper Giloth has assigned her students in Art 271, Introduction to Computing in the Fine Arts, the task of illustrating the traditional Aesop's fables alongside their own retellings of the fables in a modern setting. This collection gathers together artwork from several semesters.

Here are links to two different versions of The Hare and the Tortoise:

Animated Traditional Version of the Hare and the Tortoise (1999) Illustrated by Kit Lee

Animated Modern Version of The Hare and the Tortoise (1999) illustrated by Kit Lee

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At Political Verses, I have poems from Frances Richey’s book The Warrior: A Mother’s Story of a Son at War. The post includes a video of Richey and her son speaking with Jeffrey Brown on the Online NewsHour Poetry Series.

At Blue Rose Girls, I have a poem by Jack Spicer entitled Psychoanalysis: An Elegy.

Tabatha A. Yeats has the Poetry Friday Roundup this week