Speed Poetry

For her World Civilizations class last week Phoebe learned about Sijo poems. They're similar to haikus, but longer and from Korea. The assignment for the lesson was to write her own Sijo poem. Unfortunately, she was hit by a major case of writer's block. To help her get out of her rut I said we could practice and each write one at the same time, no pressure for it to be good or even make sense.

And then she wrote something amazing.

Here's her sijo poem, shared with her permission:

Diving into a world, one between two pages, feels like home,

I meet familiar faces, time and time again, saying hi

But shocked back into the real world, nothing more than words on a page.

I thought her poem was wonderful and I encouraged her to submit it. She did and finished the assignment more quickly than she had expected to.

And, just for fun, here's mine as well:

In my house, all the loud comes in waves and crashes on my eardrums.

Six people talking, yelling, laughing, singing at the same time.

Then night brings sleep, my house is quiet, I miss their cacophony.