The Kids Write Night Poems

We did some free writing over the weekend, and I asked the kids to write “Night Poems.” Usually, I have little prompts for them, encouraging them to write in a certain style or to choose a specific image to concentrate on … i.e. “Make a List of Things You’d See in the Sky” or “Write from the Perspective of a Mouse…” or “Use no more than three adjectives in the whole piece!”  This time, however, I asked the kids to come up with their own ideas for what their “Night Poems” should be. In the end, each of them chose to write a couple of haiku. After that, they improvised. Here are the results:

THE KIDS WRITE NIGHT POEMS

Bea

In the Night

in the night the glow of an
owl shimmers against the
moon a fox swishes past
a brush a mouse cries for
the last time beautiful
flourescent creatures
appear scuttling crawling
on the forest floor
snakes slither past
wolves howl
a beautiful dark kingdom
comes alive
trees lit up with fireflies
stars glimmer in the sky

…
An Owl

searching silently
hunting in darkness
the owl can hear a heartbeat

….
Spirit Bear

the bear is ghostly
fishing at rivers
bark makes a dark shape on fur

…

Going to Bed

tucked in a warm room
count sheep in my sleep
slowly drifting off to dream
____________________

Toby

1.
in the night drowning
gleaming on water
in the night we are the stars

2.
I am so graceful
in the dark blue sky
shining moon sun no more

3.
you see outer space
not at day at night
all night long it is so bright

…

a shooting star gleams tonight
it is amazing and so bright
it looks like a stick of dynamite
I wish I was up there in the night
I wish I was in that gleaming light
…

in the sky every day is a belt of stars
it makes orion at night with his dog right beside
but the pincers of scorpio in the night of november
brought down all of their pride I wonder
who did it and I wonder why he is a soldier of the
hunt because he never gave up but a scorpion’s
sting brought him but where was it from in front
or behind that is what I think every night
about the guardian of the sky the belt
that will protect us night by night