Poetry Friday

March 25, 2011

The world of Other Responsibilities called this morning in the form of my freelance proofreading work (though, please, never expect my posts to be error-free!). The group I freelance with is wonderful, so no complaint there. Just feeling a bit like Schroeder over the keyboard at the moment, so will take a break and come back later to enjoy the Poetry Friday conversation.

Before I go, here’s a poem by Steve Kowit that feels appropriate, given the past several hours spent on patrol for typos, dangling modifiers, and (gasp!) stylistic inconsistencies and flagrant disregard for subject-verb agreement.

THE GRAMMAR LESSON by Steve Kowit

A noun’s a thing. A verb’s the thing it does.
An adjective is what describes the noun.
In “The can of beets is filled with purple fuzz”

of and with are prepositions. The’s
an article, a can’s a noun,
a noun’s a thing. A verb’s the thing it does.

Read the rest of the poem, included in the Poetry 180 project, here.

And a belated thanks to Sara Lewis Holmes, who posted from Poetry 180 one Friday a while back, which encouraged me to sign up to receive these wonderful poems. Not only are the poems inspiring, but how great it is to see mail from “Library of Congress” in my inbox.

This week’s Poetry Friday roundup is hosted by Mary Lee Hahn at A Year of Reading. Go on over and check it out!

4 Responses to “Poetry Friday”

  1. Mary Lee Says:

    Well now, that TOTALLY clears things up! We’ll have fun with this in my classroom next week!

    • Martha Calderaro Says:

      What a wonderfully ridiculous language, huh? Speaking of language, perhaps your class might appreciate the recent addition of LOL and OMG in the Oxford English Dictionary?


  2. Martha–I spent a delicious morning today at my middle son’s poetry cafe. Amazing what children create!! :)


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