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It’s Day 11 of our #WaterPoemProject — 30 days of water-themed poetry prompts from your favorite children’s authors.

If you’re looking for National Poetry Month writing prompts, we’ve got you covered. Start with Day 1 and you’ll have poetry prompts from now through the end of April.

New to this project? Please read the Introduction and FAQ. Or you can watch this video of me describing how to participate. It’s on the YouTube channel Authors Everywhere.

I’m happy to welcome my friend, author Kara Laughlin to share a writing prompt with us today.

Kara’s poetry prompt is: Frozen Fog

Kara Laughlin

You’ve seen ice. You’ve seen fog. But have you ever seen ice fog?

Ice fog is a kind of freezing fog that happens only in very cold places. Fog is usually like a cloud on the ground—tiny droplets of water hang in the air, making it hard to see and getting everything wet. Ice fog contains tiny needles of ice. Freezing fog covers everything it touches with a thin layer of ice. This can be dangerous for driving, but it makes for beautiful walks outside.

Today your challenge is to write a frozen fog poem in two voices. In a two voice poem, the writer imagines two different speakers talking about the same thing from different points of view. They are usually written in two columns and read by two people, each reading down one column.

You might write about frozen fog:

  • in the voices of a driver and a walker.
  • in the voices of the ice and the fog.
  • in the voices of Spring and Winter.
  • in the voice of the fog and the voice of a tree getting covered by ice.

Here is a video that explains freezing fog (and shows a forest covered by it):
https://youtu.be/kksN1-U6J9U

Here are some two-voice poems by Paul Fleischman:

https://sites.google.com/site/childrenspoems/paul-fleischman

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j-5t8lFIzI4

***

Your task is to draft a two-voice poem about freezing fog before the end of the day tomorrow, Thursday, April 2, 2020.

If you’re doing the #WaterPoemProject with a group, be sure to share or post your rough draft, read other people’s poems, and cheer for their efforts. Or leave your poem here, in the comments.

Kara Laughlin is the author of over fifty nonfiction books for kids (some under the pen name Juniata Rogers). When she isn’t writing, she volunteers as a Girl Scout leader, Odyssey of the Mind coach and Sunday School program coordinator. Find all four of her weather books here.

***

#WaterPoemProject Series Posts:

Project Introduction
FAQ
Prompt 1: Irene Latham, The Language of Water
Prompt 2: Elizabeth Steinglass, What Would a Raindrop Say?
Prompt 3: Linda Mitchell, Found Haiku
Prompt 4: Shari Green, Fogbow Fibonacci
Prompt 5: Margaret Simon, The Taste of Water
Prompt 6: Heather Meloche, The Shape of a Wave
Prompt 7: Amy Ludwig VanDerwater, A Water Memory
Prompt 8: Laura Shovan, Rainy Day Opposites
Prompt 9: Kathryn Apel, Silly Solage
Prompt 10: Buffy Silverman, A Watery Home
Prompt 11: Kara Laughlin, Frozen Fog
Prompt 12: Debbie Levy, Jump into a Limerick
Prompt 13: Joy McCullough, What Are Water Bears?
Prompt 14: Linda Baie, Frozen Water Skinny
Prompt 15: Chris Baron, The Hidden World of Water
Prompt 16: Michelle Heidenrich Barnes, Water Wordplay
Prompt 17: Susan Tan, The Sound of Water
Prompt 18: Mike Grosso, Waterplay!
Prompt 19: R. L. Toalson, Wishing Well
Prompt 20: Margarita Engle, Ode to the Shore
Prompt 21: Faye McCray, Poem in a Bubble
Prompt 22: Meg Eden, Surprising Connections

Please support the #WaterPoemProject authors by buying their books from your favorite independent bookstore.

4 responses to “#WaterPoemProject: Day 11, Kara Laughlin”

  1. […] trying to post a poem every day to celebrate. I wrote this draft this morning in response to Kara Laughlin’s invitation to write a poem about ice fog in two voices. Kara’s prompt is part of Laura Shovan’s […]

  2. […] Rainy Day Opposites Prompt 9: Kathryn Apel, Silly Solage Prompt 10: Buffy Silverman, A Watery Home Prompt 11: Kara Laughlin, Frozen Fog Prompt 12: Debbie Levy, Jump into a Limerick Prompt 13: Joy McCullough, What Are Water Bears? […]

  3. […] Rainy Day Opposites Prompt 9: Kathryn Apel, Silly Solage Prompt 10: Buffy Silverman, A Watery Home Prompt 11: Kara Laughlin, Frozen Fog Prompt 12: Debbie Levy, Jump into a Limerick Prompt 13: Joy McCullough, What Are Water Bears? […]

  4. […] Rainy Day Opposites Prompt 9: Kathryn Apel, Silly Solage Prompt 10: Buffy Silverman, A Watery Home Prompt 11: Kara Laughlin, Frozen Fog Prompt 12: Debbie Levy, Jump into a Limerick Prompt 13: Joy McCullough, What Are Water Bears? […]

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Laura Shovan

Laura Shovan is the author of the award-winning middle grade novel, The Last Fifth Grade of Emerson Elementary. Her second book, Takedown, is a Junior Library Guild and PJ Our Way selection. Look for A Place at the Table, co-written with Saadia Faruqi, in 2020. Laura is a poet-in-the-schools Maryland.

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