Wordle Inspires Poetry--Thanks Mary Lee

Fill your poetic well with poems today at PaperTigers.

I start with a thank you to Mary Lee! I too am participating in the Teachers Write camp this summer and saw yesterday's prompt--pasting some of your own text into Wordle to discover common themes. I never thought to use poetry but Mary Lee did!  Today, I am taking her suggestion to paste some original poems into Wordle and then create a new poem using the words presented. If you haven't already, go see her's here, (brilliant)!

First Wordle
I love the words that were bolded. Clearly I love them since they apparently appear the most frequently in the writing I pasted together. (That is what Wordle does, takes your most used words and makes them stand out).

Second Wordle: Sames words but a different arrangement.

For extra fun, I picked apart a few sets of words that clumped themselves together, I love these.

Pine 

snow

 feeds 

branches

Alone

 babble 

berries

 balance

Fight 

ahead

colors

flee

So, this was fun, tricky and took a bit of back and forth writing for me. Here is the poem I discovered waiting in the word piles.



Though carefully
I watch

young

made brave.

Delicate eyes fall
exhale
wait.

Never alone
miles hope
journey
unafraid.

I watch
though carefully

wonder
wait.


I had several images swirling as I tried to write this. First it was my daughter during her tonsillectomy recently, where I watched  a very little girl approach uncertainty in a very brave exterior. Then I thought of it as the way I scaffold young writers, the uncertainty there, the waiting and waiting and wonder that circulates in a school year. Then I thought of seedlings growing, probably because the word grow was staring at me and I couldn't find a way to use it, (ironic I thought). And so, it could probably mean many things, and will probably mean something else tomorrow.


Hey...still here? If you have some chalk and a little extra time on your hands tomorrow, or even if you don't, find a moment or two and chalk some poetry! Come back here and check out what others powder up on the driveways and sidewalks of our world. Want to know what the heck I'm talking about, click here!