Kerry says ~ Let's Go back to School!

Greetings to all toads, followers and friends. Due to a small mix up in our monthly challenge, I am jumping the gun this week and Hannah will take my turn next week with her Transforming Nature prompt.

Today, I am inviting you all to visit the Ladysmith High School poetry blog somewhere i have never travelled, which features the work of my students.  In September, I challenge four of my classes (Grades 8 - 11) to put in a combined effort to produce a total of 300 poems in 30 days. In exchange for their efforts, I am posting their work to the blog. To date, I have posted 127 poems, with more to capture in the remaining days of September and into October.

It is very difficult to motivate young writers in these times of electronic communication, especially if the work will not be graded but is for extension of creative thinking only. However, I have found that young minds are eager for challenge. I make some suggestions of form to get them started and the junior classes were given guided poems (one of which was based on the Simon and Garfunkel song, I am a Rock). However, I do encourage them to explore their own themes and to express themselves in free verse.

Here are a few examples of short forms:

Sevenling (He Adored Time) ~ Nolulama Msomi

He adored time
Preferred my music on a fortissimo
loved the crisp of a fine apple

However I could not hold a note
but could write him jazz pieces
and smell the pungent smell of his cologne

but he hated flowers

(Grade 10)


Tanka
Pine Trees ~ Nerisha Maghoo

Snow coated pine trees
diamond needles light the aisle,
enchantment filled me.
Midwinter's allure at prime,
arms frolic with gusty tune.

(Grade 10)


Unrhymed Sonnet
She is the Addiction ~ Ndabezinhle Gumbi

She is the addiction of my very own thoughts
The light and missing piece to my dark soul
like a beautiful bouquet carefully wrought
The majestic being that makes my life incomplete but whole

Her flaws perfectly placed in their position
The reason that sunlight becomes irrelevant
because she brightens up my day; the intrusion
of my concentration but yet she is so distant

She warms my heart and my thoughts but my body feels cold
Too distant for my hands to touch
Too distant for me to hear her sweet toned voice;
Too distant for me to do much

I paid love's price, I felt painful and weary
but that would never change because I loved her too deeply

(Grade 11)


THE CHALLENGE

Today's challenge is more of an invitation to explore the posts of September 2015 on somewhere i have never travelled, select a poem of one of the young writers as inspiration for your own poem and help us to complete our target of 300 poems in 30 days. Feel free to quote lines from the poem and to provide a link back to the poem you have chosen. I will post links to your poems on our blog. I would also encourage those of you whose children are still at school, to allow them to participate in this challenge.