Happy Poetry Friday! Write your own Lingo Poem--and then sing it to your cat!

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Howdy, Campers!

Today's poem and writing prompt/Writing Workout is below.

My fellow bloggers have covered the topic of Digital Learning fabulously (scroll below).

Today, I want to list some of the ways I use these new tools...

~ Every day I use an online thesaurus and rhyming dictionary to write my poetry.

~ I decided which version of Ashoken Farewell I wanted to play at a recent tribute to the journalist Daniel Pearl by watching different versions on YouTube; then Freda Sideroff posted a snippet she'd filmed of me and hammer dulcimer player, Phee Sherline at the tribute concert (what goes around comes around!...)



I learned how to pronounce author Jon Scieszka's name (and lots of other authors and illustrators names) by listening here.(hint: it rhymes with the soda, Fresca)

Raise your hand if you get overwhelmed.  Do you?  Whew!  And I thought I was the only one.  Well, JoAnn is right. I just need to try one new thing. And I'm going to change the adjective: try one small thing.

So...here's my poem, based on an old song. But just one verse, not all of them. That's my one small thing!

(listen to the song on this video first, so you know the tune, then read the new words...)

THE BLOGGER BEARS' POETRY FRIDAY

by April Halprin Wayland

with apologies to Jimmy Kennedy and John W. Bratton 

If you go onto the internet

You're sure of a big surprise.

If you go onto the internet

You'd better go in disguise.

For every bear who hopes to express

Will gather there to write on Wordpress

Today's Fri-day, when every bear posts a poem!

Poem time for blogging bears

The Kidlit blogging bears are having a lovely time today.

Watch them, catch them unawares,

And hear them rhyming on their holiday.

See them tweet their permalink

They love to click in sync

And never have any cares.

At night they share on Mister Linky

now they can go to bed

Because they're tired little blogging bears.

If you go onto the internet

You're sure of a big surprise.

If you go onto the internet

You'd better go in disguise.

For every bear chewing sunflower seeds

Will gather there to read RSS feeds

Today's Fri-day--when every bear posts a poem!

poem (c) 2012 April Halprin Wayland

Writing Workout: Sing a Lingo Poem!
What's a Lingo?  A Lingo is a poem based on the lexicon of a particular field of interest. Period.

1) Pick a song you love to sing (I used my favorite song book for ideas, Rise Up Singing--in folk music circles it's known as The Song Book)

2) Daydream about a profession or hobby that fascinates you.Weaving? Blackjack? Riding horses? Gymnastics?  Plumbing?  I chose blogging.

3) Search for a glossary of words for that profession or hobby.

4) Pick out the most interesting words and put them at the top of your page.  In the poem above, I picked these words:
feeds, link, pingback, internet, blogging, podcast, post, rss, search engine, URL, spam, subscribe, entry, sidebar, tags, ping,permalink, Mister Linky, Poetry Friday, Kidlitosphere, dashboard, Blogger, Wordpress, LiveJournal, blogiversary, reciprocal link, link love, navbar, bookmark, tweet, facebook, draft, schedule

5) Find ways to fit some of these words to the beat of your song. You probably won't use more than a few words, but it's nice to have a big selection.  You can see that I only used a handful of my words.

6) Make liberal use of a rhyming dictionary.

7) Make sure you've installed AdBlock Plus (which is free) or the ads on this site (and most sites!) will drive you crazy (at least they drove me crazy!)

5) Sing your song to your cat.

6) Sing it to a friend.

7) Sing it with your friend!

The end.

Poetry Friday is hosted at Check It Out today.  Thanks, Jone!

...and for heaven's sake, write with joy!

poem and drawing (c) 2012 April Halprin Wayland