Resources

by Judyth Collins

What Matters and 100 Words: Two Poetry Writing Ideas
Volume 29, issue 1, page 11
Genre: Poetry
Grades: 3-12

Judyth Collins taught in the California Poets in the Schools program.

While working towards an MA in poetry, I have been teaching poetry in the schools. What follows below are my journal entries for poetry classes I conducted with fourth and fifth graders at Anthony Chabot Elementary School in Oakland, California. The journals describe two poetry writing ideas, What Matters and 100 Words.

What Matters and 100 Words: Two Poetry Writing Ideas

JANUARY 3: WHAT MATTERS (PREPARATION)

What matters? Tomorrow I begin my workshops, and I’ve decided to use as a model a poem/letter from a friend. I wrote him a simple letter asking “What matters?” He wrote back with a list of things that matter, including dogs that roll in the sand, a landlady who allows you to cut her yellow roses, and good humor in bad weather. I think this assignment might work as a first poem, just to get the kids in the mood for concrete images and details. Not just “love” or “my friends.” But what exactly do you like to do with your friends, or how does love matter? When you’ve skinned your knee and your mother kisses it? A movement may matter or a color may matter, but where is the color and what is it doing? Small objects may matter, like a pencil in a cup; a sound may matter, like foghorns on the bay at midnight. I also have my own poem about what matters, a rhythm poem with a beat and a sound, so I’ll read that to them also, and I
think we’ll also talk about matter itself. What is it? A hole with stars flying through it. Particle waves both the same and different, existent and nonexistent. Or maybe that’s another workshop I’m thinking about doing on the universe as a whole.

JANUARY 5: WHAT MATTERS (THE CLASS)

Trying What Matters in the first class, I thought, Jeez, are they just not getting this, or what? Like they couldn’t even begin to think in concrete images. I decided I’m going to
have to gear down for that class, allow them more time to think and write. It’s weird how an entire class can have a certain feel to it, and this class definitely felt like it was in slow motion.

The second class, though, was terrific, and caught on right away. I passed out a model poem based on a letter from a friend, and then read them my own poem, which I had written to serve as an example:

What Matters?

What matters? Who matters? Does it matter? What is matter?
Does the wind matter to the trees?
Does a crumb matter to the ant?
Does the tire matter to the truck?
Does love matter to me?

Time space matter is one continuum …
What matter matter matters most?
What matter matter matters least?

Does a penny matter to the bank?
Does lint matter to the light?
Does red matter to a rose?
Does love matter to me?

What’s a matter? Who’s a matter?
Is there anything the matter?
Matter splattered all over my face.
Matter hattered all over my head.
Matter tattered all over my bones.
Matter shattered all over my heart.
Does it matter?

We then wrote a group poem on the board before writing our own. When one kid contributed the line, “Runaway chickens in Illinois matter,” I cracked up. And then his classmate said, “Yeah, he’s obsessed with chickens.” Then I laughed really hard. Next time I go into that class, I’m going to investigate this further. Does he stalk chickens? Does he eat chicken all the time? Does he have pet chickens? Does he dream about chickens? I don’t know, crazy stuff, but I like the off-the-wall flavor.

This class also had a couple of reluctant writers. I spent extra time with both of them. One didn’t want to write because he said he just liked to draw. When I asked him to come up with five images that matter, write them, and then draw them for me, he did. The other kid said, “I’m not good at this.” I hunkered down with him, prodding him with questions: What’s a smell that matters? What about a color? How about something you can see? As he answered, I took dictation. He managed to come up with about six images. I exclaimed, “You are good at this! Look what you did!” He smiled a little, but I don’t think he quite believed me. He’s already marked himself as a failure. I’m always careful to tell the kids that it’s impossible to write a wrong poem, and that I don’t care about spelling. I just comment on the things I like, and say, “Great, terrific, good,” with a few urgings to use more details.

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Does the field of sunflowers matter?
The splash as I jump in a pool matters
The smell of the egg salad for my sandwich matters
The lead in my pencil matters

It all matters
It matters helping others
The winning goal matters
All the love in my family matters
The wanting of a dog matters
It matters the way I think
The rain out on the yard matters
The noise in the classroom matters
Do clean rooms matter?

-Erin Goldsmith, 4th grade

What Matters

Does it matter if my bladder is going to get cut on a platter in
Alaska?
Does it matter if my window will be shattered by a ball in my
house?
Does it matter if people will chatter on the street?

Does it matter if chickens will run away in Illinois?
Does it matter if a lot of cheese will not be eaten at midnight?
Does it matter that I caught the winning touchdown in the

Super Bowl in
Miami?
Does it matter? Yes it matters. Yes it does matter if I will lose
my bladder
in Alaska.

-Ross Allen, 4th grade

JANUARY 23: 100 WORDS

After the reading, I handed out a list of 100 words (see figure on page 14), teIIing the students to keep it face down on their desks until I counted to three, when they were to turn it over and quickly circle ten words. The guidelines were these: 1) the students could change the tense or number of any word on the list; 2) they could combine the words in fresh new ways; 3) they could include any other words in their poems; and 4) the words they circled absolutely had to be included.

I try to discourage narrative tales, but the left brain wants to make straight linear sense of things, instead of a zany chartreuse zigzag. Again we wrote a group poem on the board before writing individually. I wrote ten words from the list and asked for suggestions as to how to combine the words. Then I asked for title suggestions as well. During the actual writing, some kids managed just to make a list of rather surreal combos, using the word of between the words (something like the way Kenneth Koch’s students did in Wishes, Lies, and Dreams when they wrote “A Swan of Bees” poems, or the way surrealist poet Andre Breton did in his poem “Free Union”). I hope to build on this idea in the next lesson. Other kids came up with strong images: “the sunshine felt like a kiss,” “the tiger hammered its way through the trees,” “a shadow is like a dark pale tiger it sizzles,” and “at midnight the tiger of darkness leaps out at me.” The word tiger appealed to many of the kids. They do have tiger energy, and many of them are like caged tigers, made to copy or do math when they would much rather be roaming the night of their imagination.

After writing, I always leave time to hear the kids read their poems, and to those who are shy, I say that as far as I know, no one has ever died from reading a poem aloud.

One Million Storms

one million streaks of darkness
are flashes of lightning
one million raindrops are like streaks of lace
one million streaks of lightning
are like thin diamonds quarreling

-Peter Swaney, 4th grade

Shadows

your shadow ripples in
as you go into a pool

your shadow melting as night does

-Michael Lock, 4th grade

The Moon

the moon fell on the sky the sky fell
on the hill the hill fell on the bell I
swallowed them all and I opened
the door it was yellow and blue and wet

-Nick Howlett-Brier, 4th grade

One Hundred Words
(More or Less)

finger
fire
purple
streak
fool
ripple
book
cinder
kiss
rain
sigh
wave
river
puddle
dance
wet
bell
leaf
bubble
artichoke
red
hammer
stone
circle
music
violin
umbreIla
tongue
hiss
snap
fish
curl
flash
twist
window
listen
paper
drum
glass
balloon
poem

snow
eye
mind
splinter
whirl
wind
whisper
ribbon
swallow
bowl
tiger
bone
twist
cloud
doze
ring
velvet
splash
scarlet
water
time
shake
jigsaw
apron
tremble
spiral
clang
door
gust
glitter
chant
desert
string
spider
trumpet
open
paint
money
sleep

Fellow poet-teacher Carol Dorf gave me a list of 100 words, which I have revised so
much over the years that not one of the original words remains. The list continues to
change. This current one consists of concrete nouns, colors, and vivid verbs. Some
of the words were chosen mainly for their sound.