Can you believe it’s Day 15 of the #WaterPoemProject? We are halfway through our 30 days of water-themed poetry writing 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.
We have a debut author with us today! Middle grade verse novelist Chris Baron is in charge of today’s poetry prompt.
Chris’s poetry prompt is: The Hidden World of Water
Chris Baron
When we look at a beach we see a big blanket of sand stretching all the way into the water. When we scoop up sand in our hands we can start to see the grains, or some seaweed, or even a sand crab.
If we take that sand and put it under a microscope we something even more amazing! There is an entire world of objects.
Look at this remarkable photo from Geologist Gary Greenberg.
It shows minuscule grains of sand magnified up to 300 times revealing hidden treasures that are all unique.
When we look at the ocean, or a lake, or even a puddle, we see the surface of the water, but just like the sand there is a whole world hidden there.
PROMPT:
Find some water near where you are—a puddle, a stream, a bathtub, or maybe even the ocean. Write a free verse poem about the hidden world of that water. Think about the kinds of things that could be in that particular water.
Some starters:
- Think about the photo. Imagine you just scooped up a big handful of sand. Write a poem about some of the objects and how they came together.
- Write about all the objects you would find in the water you pick to write about. Describe them using lots of good adjectives.
- Write about a magical world that is hidden beneath the surface of the water
- Write about the treasures waiting to be found
- Write about whatever was frozen into a glacier
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Got your thinking caps on, poets? Draft a poem about the hidden world of water by the end of the day tomorrow, Monday, April 6, 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.
Chris Baron’s middle grade debut is All of Me, a novel in verse from Feiwel & Friends/ Macmillan. He is a Professor of English at San Diego City College and the director of the Writing Center. Baron has published numerous poems and articles in magazines and journals around the country, performed on radio programs, and participated in many readings, lectures, and panels. He grew up in New York City, but he completed his MFA in Poetry in 1998 at SDSU. Baron’s first book of poetry, Under the Broom Tree, was released in 2012 on CityWorks Press as part of Lantern Tree: Four Books of Poems (which won the San Diego Book Award for best poetry anthology). He is represented by the amazing Rena Rossner from the Deborah Harris Literary Agency. Visit Chris’s website.
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#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.
Sometimes
it’s trust you bring
to the edge of
water
that what
you can’t witness
in the moment
still rings true;
We are forever searching
the swirling worlds
beyond the eye
The sky is like that;
the moon, too;
the stars, the dirt,
my heart, this love
We are witness
to the invisible,
shaped by presence
We are witness is such a profound statement.
On the surface
it’s a brown cup of coffee,
but there’s no frothy
heart on top,
only the occasional floating
log that looks like a gator.
Underneath the glossy carpet,
a world of mystery awaits
stirred up by a passing speed boat.
From water snakes slithering
to carp fish jumping,
an invisible ecosystem
swirls busy day
by day.