The spring break has crept up on me. Perhaps you have already finished school. Here is an idea, and a natty tool, that will be useful well beyond spring time. There is much to be gained from writing poems using an existing text. For many years I have used cut up poems. Children are given all the words of a poem printed and cut from card. I usually cut phrases as well as single words so that they have a chance of experimenting with the phrasing as well as the vocabulary. They can make a poem using all or just some of the given words.
Now, with the help of a poetry collapser, you can make these quickly and, rather than have them on cut card, you have the option of making a ‘word quarry’. That is a block of words which you can mine to create poems of your own.
The collapser, and instructions on how to use it (and many more good ideas on this generous website) can be found here:
http://www.englishandict.co.uk/resources/wordlab/collapser.html
You can decide whether or not you arrange the words in alphabetical order, and whether you remove repeated words. I quite like the repetition, but fewer words might make it easier. Here is e. e. cummings’ poem, [in Just-] collapsed and in alphabetical order:
and and and and and and and and and and balloonman balloonman balloonman bettyandisbel come come dancing eddieandbill far far far from from goat-footed hop-scotch in is is it’s it’s jump-rope just lame little luscious marbles mud old piracies puddle-wonderful queer running spring spring spring the the the the the wee wee wee when when whistles whistles whistles world world
Here it is without the duplicates (at least that removes the ‘wee wee wee’).
and balloonman bettyandisbel come dancing eddieandbill far from goat-footed hop-scotch in is it’s jump-rope just lame little luscious marbles mud old piracies puddle-wonderful queer running spring the wee when whistles world
Rather than writing a long poem using all the words, try writing a series of very short poems, say of six words on two lines. You can make up other rules, there is no particular magic about six words.
You can find the original poem here:
Writing Box 