Click on the link to TeachersFirst.com and scroll down the page a bit for a quick hands-on poetry lesson featuring my poem–so wonderfully illustrated on my website by Nikki Schaefer. Of course, you’ll want to visit my acrobatic bugs in the

Writings section of my website, so you can enjoy the slideshow as well.

If you want to try an ABCEDARIAN–an alphabetic poem that uses the letters A-Z in proper order as the first letters of every line–start with only a few letters. As you become more comfortable with this poetic challenge, see how far you can go–alphabetically–with your lines. In a new Abcedarian I created below, I give myself a little leeway with an extra word, here and there, after the main letter word on a few lines. I also use two semi-invented words. (Can you find them?) That’s why poetry is so much fun–it’s puzzles and puns and wordplay all wrapped up in the coolest formats.

Give an ABCEDARIAN a try!

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