I love Ralph Fletcher’s writing books for kids, and this one is no exception: A Writing Kind of Day: Poems for Young Poets (Wordsong, 2005). I have not had much time for actual writing lately–just lots of writing-business-related tasks. Ugh.
So I’m feeling like my ideas and neglected projects are scurrying around under the floorboards, just like in this poem.
Lost Poems
I wrote a bunch of poems,
stapled them together,
took them to a friend’s house.But they somehow slipped
through the floorboards
and disappeared.I never got those poems back.
I tried to rewrite them
but they weren’t the same.One night two months later,
sleeping over my friend’s house,
we heard restless sounds,strangle listtle noises
that my friend insisted
were nothing but squirrels or mice.But I pictured my lost poems
scurrying on little feet
between the floors.–Ralph Fletcher, all rights reserved
Isn’t that great? I love how restless those poems are, how eager they are to find their way home. Do you have any lost writing projects keeping you up at night?
April Halprin Wayland at Teaching Authors has the Poetry Friday Roundup today!
I don’t even need floorboards to lose my poems (or thoughts)! They slip away from me at an alarming rate!
They’re like mercury, right? Slippery and impossible to hold. Or maybe like greased pigs:>)
Such a great book – and I do love the idea of poems scurrying just beyond our grasp…. Thanks for sharing!
Glad you liked it, Robyn!
Love this. I need a general writing-related-idea catcher! (And I totally relate to those times when the business side of it all usurps the writing side.)
True–it’s not just poem ideas that scurry away. I guess it’s better that we have too many ideas to keep track of than not enough…
I love anything by Ralph Fletcher. The poem catcher tool would be devine.
He’s terrific, isn’t he?
So like Fletcher, to catch the process exactly. Poems fly right by sometimes, with nary a landing. Thank you!
Yes! My brain needs sticky fly-paper (poem-paper) to catch them!
I often lose them before they even get on paper. Then I can hear them scurrying around.
I know! It’s like we need a poem-catcher tool–maybe just some good sharp cheddar and a few minutes to sit and think…