Issue 12.1.23 ~ how you look at it
mirrors, lenses
Welcome to
WHISPERshout Poetry Magazine, Issue 12, Number 1, 2023!
It is decidedly December! We’re back, publishing new original poems by kids ages 4-12 here at WHISPERshout! We publish a handful of poems each month, often with accompanying artwork and sometimes photos, and WE ENCOURAGE YOU TO SUBMIT YOUR WORK, and to comment on what you read here.
Our issue this month features poems by older elementary poets in grades 3-6. See how their writing encourages us to look at things in new ways—from close up or far away, from unusual perspectives.
The first two poems are ekphrastic poems, which means they are written about another piece of art—in this case, a photo of a car’s side view mirror. John-Robert leaves out punctuation, but his line breaks help us make sense of his ideas about decisions we make “when the roads get dark and the air gets cold.”
POEM #1
“on a road” by John-Robert - 6th grade, LA
POEM #2
”The Rear View’s Point of View”
Kailyn, 5th grade, LA
Kailyn writes with the same exact photo in front of her, and her poem comes out in the voice of…the mirror itself! This poem is moving in more than one way.
POEM #3
“Flavors” by Ronin C. - 3rd grade, MD
In this poem, Ronin imagines the stars as something edible, just as we sometimes say the moon is made of cheese. Look carefully at his pinhole art to see an arm reaching to grab a chunk out of the moon, “out of the heating orb”! This is a great example of a question poem.
POEM #4
“Meebkin” by Ian K. - 3rd grade, MD
In our final poem, Ian helps us look closely at the details that make a favorite character distinctive. Notice how he compares Meebkin’s eyes and pupils to globes and moons, and how “wrists” and “spin” and “infinitely” are all so full of short i sounds!
Those are our four poems about point of view for this issue. Let us know what you liked by leaving a comment below! Look for our next issue in January…and if we receive poems from more of YOU, maybe there will be two issues in December.
Thanks for reading!
The Editorial We
If you are a teacher developing a poetry habit in your classroom, you might find that each issue is a complete lesson in itself!
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