This week we’ll explore writing poetry.

Erm, excuse me. “Poetry” is such a broad topic. This week we’ll explore rhyming, and poetry topics — what do you want to write a poem about?

Take a blank piece of paper, and make a list. Write down things you enjoy doing. Write down things you enjoy seeing, hearing, experiencing. Write down things that make you laugh. Then pick one. Write down lots of words that have to do with your topic. Write down how it feels to experience it. Now choose some of your favorite of these words, and find some rhymes.

How do you find rhymes for a word? My favorite method goes like this: Take the end of your word, and go through the alphabet, attaching each letter in turn to the beginning of your word-end. For example, if my word is “kitten”, I would do this:

aittin, bitten, citten, ditten, eitten, fitten (fittin’? fit in?), gitten, hitten (hittin’?), itten, jitten, kitten, litten, mitten, nitten, oitten, pitten (pit in?), quitten (quittin’), ritten (written!), sitten (sittin’, sit in), titten, uitten, vitten, witten (wit in?), xitten, yitten, zitten.

Don’t forget about blended sounds! blitten, britten (Britain!), flittin’, glitten, gritten, clitten, kritten, plitten, pritten, slittin’, spittin’, thitten.

Obviously, not all of these are real words, but there are some good possibilities here. bitten, fit in, mitten, hittin’, quittin’, written, sittin’, slittin’, spittin’, are all things you could associate with kittens.

My kitten

Was hittin’

And slittin’

A mitten

Big enough

That she could fit in.

She was spittin’.

She’d bitten

Without quittin’.

And that’s all I’ve written.

And now, for the announcement!

The St Croix Falls Public Library will be putting together a kids’ summer literary journal! This is your chance to get your writing published! Write a short story, write a poem, draw a comic, anything that tells a story. You could even enter things you’ve written as exercises for this series of blog posts. Email it to me at lturpin@scfpl.org . All accepted entries will be published by the library in a literary magazine. Thanks to Amy Klein at SCF Elementary for helping with this project!