April - National Poetry Month

Josh and I had a fun time with a picture book I found in our library and used to celebrate April as National Poetry Month. The book is titled Paint Me a Poem: Poems Inspired by Masterpieces of Art by Justine Rowden. One side of the book is a picture of a masterpiece and on the other side the author has written a poem inspired by that painting. Some of the poems were silly and fun and some were more thoughtful. Some rhymed and some were free verse.

I had Josh try his hand at doing this very same thing. As we were ending our study of the painter Jan Vermeer, I had him write a poem about his favorite Vermeer painting, A Lady Writing. (We became very familiar with this painting after reading the book Chasing Vermeer by Blue Balliett.)

Here is his poem:

Letters can hold secrets just like the thick gray fog.
Sometimes smothering secrets
That make you want to hide yourself in that thick gray fog.
But still others can hold secrets that make that face of yours
turn a cheery red,
That make you want to jump out of that thick gray fog and
Smile to the unknowing world
That does not know what secrets lay just behind that pleasant face of yours
That made that smile so.
Now before I go,
I would like to ask you,
What secrets wait for you in this letter from me.