Thirty-one days of writing and sharing slices at Two Writing Teachers
Update on the MMP tournament at Think Kid Think. Here are the two poems:
1-drag
Squirrel Drag
by Jone Rush MacCulloch
Drag a squirrel from his warm bed.
He’ll roll over playing instead
’til he smells baked cinnamon bread.
Drag a squirrel from his dark lair.
He’ll share fresh snickersnacks on hand
’til he hears The Bumblesnap Band.
Drag a squirrel from his parkland.
He’ll despair ’til his dance with Clare.
vs.
16-homogeneous
Tennis, anyone?
by Julie Krantz
Methinks it stinks that something so ingenuous
as ‘home’ or ‘homogeneous’
is farther from ‘homogenous’
than ‘tennis’ is from ‘tenuous.’
And though I’m fairly game to try
to challenge this distinction,
I hope you will excuse me—
or is that ‘recuse’ me?—with a ‘bye.’
Julie won the round. I think she was brilliant with using homogeneous (so glad I didn’t have that word).
This year the authletes had to win two do the three voting venues. Julie won in the public vote and the authlete vote. I was thrilled to win the classroom vote.
The biggest win though was writing a poem under pressure, playing with rhyme schemes and rhythm. My poem actually started with dragons sipping tea (for another post). I want to write poems for kids therefore I’m playing with forms and rhymes more. It’s actually quite fun.
Jone Rush MacCulloch 
Love the idea of authletes-thinking about the mental stamina it takes to compete in competitions like this under pressure and being creative at the same time. I liked both poems.
I love the idea of authletes! Do you have more writing on this? What a great concept. If you do, please contact me at mitchthinks2012@gmail.com. I’d love to hear more about it!
Thanks!
Rich
Authletes, I like that term. I haven’t heard it used before!
I lost by a few votes, but didn’t win the classroom one, Jone. There was a big conversation on the blog about just who we are writing for, the ages, etc. I loved the doing too, and now can sit back without the pressure and watch and cheer! Congrats on the doing too!