State poet laureate shares poetry writing with Park Orchard students
State poet laureate Kathleen Flenniken talks poetic inspiration with fourth graders at Park Orchard Elementary Thursday.
MOSES LAKE - What is a poem about?
Well, it can be about anything, Kathleen Flenniken told fourth graders in Maura Moore's class at Park Orchard Elementary School Thursday. Flenniken is the Washington poet laureate and was in Moses Lake to give a lecture; she spent much of the day at Park Orchard, talking to the students about writing poetry and tapping imagination.
Since a poem can be about anything, the fourth graders had some trouble coming up with just one thing. Flenniken came prepared with a list; maybe the kids could write about pets, she said. Maybe even an imaginary pet - the kids suggested a mix of black panther and jaguar, or maybe a unicorn.
Or maybe a poem could be about a haunted house, with - well, Flenniken asked, who's in the haunted house?
The kids suggested a witch would be a perfect occupant of a haunted house. "What is the witch doing?" Flenniken asked,
Flying around, the kids said. Flying around her dining room, and - and - hey, a dining room has a chandelier, the kids said. "Maybe she's dusting her chandelier with her broom," Flenniken said.
A zombie might live in a haunted house, and one of the boys said the zombie could - well, that was kind of gross. Flenniken said gross actually is OK in poetry, but it's not appropriate all the time and everywhere. The gross stuff should be saved for poems written at home, she said.
The kids suggested the haunted house could have dark magic in it, but how, Flenniken asked, would people know it was dark magic? Well, it would be dark sparkling dust with scary creatures in appearing and disappearing, the kids said.
A poem can be about a dance floor, and the characters out there; an owl doing a chicken dance, or somebody wearing an Afro, the class suggested. Flenniken asked who was the wearing the Afro. Why, a dog, the kids said.
A graveyard is a good spot to find poetic material. "Ooooh," the kids said. A graveyard with dancing bones, a zombie dog, a skeleton trying to find his head.
After the kids came up with a bunch of ideas - cupcakes made of hair and underwear that come alive among them - Flenniken asked them to write their own poems. She came up with one requirement. "Each line has to be a little bit interesting," she said.
Flenniken visited third, fourth and fifth grade classrooms during the day. She was appointed as state poet laureate in 2012 and will be in the post through 2014.