Poetic Forms, and lots of 'em

I am fascinated by new poetic forms that people create. So I thought I would include a few links here so you can explore them for yourself:

Author Helen Frost wrote her award-winning novel, The Braid, in a new poetic form which was inspired by Celtic Knotwork. Wow!

About.com: Poetry covers a number of poetic forms, like Fibonacci poems, based on the Fibonacci number sequence. Cool! Gregory K also introduces the "Fib."

Another mathematical form, the Tetractyses

Invent Your Own Poetry Form on Education World

The Rothko

If you know of another new form or if you come up with one yourself, send me information about it.

Soaring Ever Singest

excerpts from TO A SKYLARK
by Percy Bysshe Shelley (1792-1822)

HAIL to thee, blithe Spirit!
Bird thou never wert,
That from Heaven, or near it,
Pourest thy full heart
In profuse strains of unpremeditated art.

Higher still and higher
From the earth thou springest
Like a cloud of fire;
The blue deep thou wingest,
And singing still dost soar, and soaring ever singest.

In the golden lightning
Of the sunken sun,
O'er which clouds are bright'ning,
Thou dost float and run;
Like an unbodied joy whose race is just begun.

The pale purple even
Melts around thy flight;
Like a star of Heaven,
In the broad daylight
Thou art unseen, but yet I hear thy shrill delight,
...

Teach me half the gladness
That thy brain must know,
Such harmonious madness
From my lips would flow
The world should listen then -- as I am listening now.

I Left My Head

Another poem by Lilian Moore. I haven't seen an illustrated version of "I Left My Head," but it seems like you could have fun with it.

I Left My Head
by Lilian Moore

I left my head
somewhere
today.

Put it down for
just
a minute.

Under the
table?
On a chair?

Wish I were
able
to say
where.

Everything I need
is
in it.

~~~~~

Did you know?
Back in 1957, Ms. Moore became the first editor of the brand-new Scholastic Arrow Club!

Fishing Dreams

NIGHT
By Dong-Myung Kim

Night is
A lake shrouded in blue fog.
I am a fisherman
On sleep's sailboat,
Fishing dreams.

Soft Be Thy Pillow

I love this. It's especially nice read aloud.

Seal Lullaby
by Rudyard Kipling

OH! hush thee, my baby, the night is behind us,
And black are the waters that sparkled so green.
The moon, o’er the combers, looks downward to find us
At rest in the hollows that rustle between.
Where billow meets billow, there soft be thy pillow;
Ah, weary wee flipperling, curl at thy ease!
The storm shall not wake thee, nor shark overtake thee,
Asleep in the arms of the slow-swinging seas.