Friday, March 30, 2012

TRUNK TALK: An Original Animal Mask Poem

I’ve been writing animal mask poems for many years. I’ve posted a number of them at Wild Rose Reader in the past—poems written in the voices of a blue whale boasting about its size, a chick chattering about how difficult it is to break out of its shell, young frogs rejoicing about their transformation from “baby” tadpoles into “mature” adults, a toucan bragging about the great features of its enormous bill, a snake talking of the stealthy way it moves around and finds its prey.

You can read those and other animal mask poems at The Great Animal Mask Poem Post & An Invitation (April 9, 2010).


Here is one of the animal mask poems that I haven’t posted before:


Trunk Talk

My trunk is a trumpet.
It’s a hand.
It’s a nose.
It’s a siphon for water…
A neat shower hose.
It can push down a tree.
It is powerful, strong.
My trunk is prehensile.
It’s flexible, long.
It can nimbly pick up the tiniest seed.
My trunk is a dandy appendage indeed!


AN INVITATION
Maybe there’s an animal voice inside you that’s dying to speak out! Why not write a mask poem? Try it…you’ll like it!

If you DO write an animal mask poem, leave it in the comments or email it to me. I’ll post it during National Poetry Month.

BOOK GIVEAWAY
NOTE: Once again, I’ll be doing a poetry book giveaway each week during National Poetry Month.
Here’s the schedule:
First Week of NaPoMo: April 1—7 (Winner announced on April 8th.)
Second Week of NaPoMo: April 8—14 (Winner announced on April 15th.)
Third Week of NaPoMo: April 15—21 (Winner announced on April 22nd.)
Fourth Week of NaPoMo: April 22—28 (Winner announced on April 29th.)
Final Days of NaPoMo: April 29—30 (Winner announced on May 1st.)
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Heidi Mordhorst has the Poetry Friday Roundup over at My Juicy Little Universe.

2 comments:

jama said...

I love elephants and your poem, Elaine. I like how the personalities of the animals shine through in your mask poems.

I'll add the info about your PM giveaways in my master list of kidlit events.

Linda B said...

Thanks for sharing this Elaine. I'm working on a plan for non-fiction poetry and this will be such an excellent example. When I read your poem, I remembered that elephants really do do all those things with their trunks. Pretty amazing. I'm looking forward to visiting your blog during poetry month. Will be fun!