Spring Is in the Air Skinny

Spring is in the air and buds are popping everywhere. The allergy season is sneezing its way into recognition, and kleenex boxes are strategically placed around the house. What is odd this season is that boutique boxes of kleenex are seldom seen on shelves. Quarantine life is fraught with dilemmas, this being a minor one. My husband, the masked wonder, managed to find two multi-boxed packages at Costco so allergy season can continue now that kleenex is close by.

I thought the skinny format would work nicely with a new poem and a nature photo I took a few years ago. I even found a ditty tune I created in 2016 to accompany it. 

Spring is in the air,

budding,

popping

everywhere

with

budding

springtime

wear.

Smell

nature's

budding.

Spring is in the air.

©CV, 2020

Now, please enjoy my invented ditty song, Spring is int he air, created with the app, Ditty. Unfortunately, this app is no longer in existence.

The Skinny poetry format was created by Truth Thomas in 2005. The Skinny Blog explains that "The Skinny" is a short poem that consists of eleven lines. "The first and eleventh lines can be any length (although shorter lines are favored). The eleventh and last line must be repeated using the same words from the first and opening line (The first and eleventh lines can be an; margin: however, they can be rearranged. The 2nd, 6th, and 10th lines must be identical. All the lines in this form, except for the 1st and last lines, must be comprised of ONLY one word." 

Expressing Myself Artistically

Have you ever created a ditty, a short simple poem that turns into a song?  I did in response to Jesse Anna Bornemann's invitation at Michelle H. Barnes TLD Ditty Challenge:

Find a Beatles song.

Write down as many words from the song as you can. 

Compose a poem that uses at least three words from your list. 

Don't tell the name of the song that inspired your poem.

 

Backstory:
While visiting my granddaughter this past week, I was inspired to write a poem for her about waking up in the morning. After choosing a Beatles song, I investigated new poetic forms and found the shadorma. It is defined by Writer's Digest as a 6-line syllabic poem of 3/5/3/3/7/5 syllable lines. You can see how it is broken into 6 lines below.

sweet darling
behind clouds of gray
comes the sun
welcoming
you to greet another day 
peek-a-boo hello
©CV, 2019

For fun, since my granddaughter enjoys music, I turned the poem into a ditty song using the app, Ditty by Zya. It is amazing how technology can assist a not musically-gifted writer to express herself artistically in another dimension. Below is my ditty poem song video.

Last step: I added my poem song with blog address to the padlet,  Today's Little Ditty Song Lyric Poems. The next time I visit my granddaughter we will have a poem song to hear and the video to watch.

My Little Ditty

Created by Michelle Hendenrich Barnes

Do you know what a ditty is? My colleague, Michelle Heidenrich Barnes, does for sure. Her blog site is called Today's Little Ditty and it is always filled with wonderful author interviews, poetry, and monthly creative challenges. This month, Michelle asked everyone to create "inspired ditties" based on the word ditty that was chosen by award winning children's author and poet, David L. Harrison. You can read the interview with David and the invitation to write here. 

My ditty for the challenge was sparked by a new digital tool that I found called Ditty. The app uses short bites of familiar tunes and allows you to add words. The end result is a ditty tune. Since the word ditty is defined as a short, simple song, I lifted that to create my lyrics. (Be mindful that I am not musically inclined so this is pure fun for me.)

Still feeling the love emanating from Valentine's Day, I wanted to swoon to music like my mother use to do in her time. I started our with four lines and then realized the app would only allow a shortened number of words. Below is what I settled on for lyrics. What follows is my little ditty video created via the free app, Ditty.

My Little Ditty

A short simple song

lingering tune

that makes my heart swoon.

I hope my little ditty made you smile because it brightened my day. 

This would be a fun exercise in writing for students. If you use the app in your classroom, please let me know how your students react to this app. The end result should be an engaging experience writing a short tune.