Welcome to the progressive poem! Each year during the month of April, the kidlit poetry community comes together to create a poem, with each blogger contributing one line before handing it off to the next intrepid poet. The progressive poem was originally the brain-child of Irene Latham, and now Margaret Simon organizes this effort. Thanks to both of you!
So far our poets have used their brushes to paint a perfect spring day. I love all the visual, painterly words of the first stanza. I was happy that Denise hurried us outside, in the middle of all that springtime glory, as she started the second stanza with a quicker beat. So where to go next? Since the first stanza celebrates the visual and the plant kingdom, I think I will add in another sense and notice some animals. Here’s the poem to date, with my line in bold:
Open an April window
let sunlight paint the air
stippling every dogwood
dappling daffodils with flair
Race to the garden
where woodpeckers drum
And now it’s Jone Rush MaCulloch’s turn to add a line. I hope you’ll follow the progressive poem’s journey throughout the month. Click on the links below to travel along with our April poem!
- April 1 Linda Mitchell at A Word Edgewise
- April 2 Tricia Stohr-Hunt at The Miss Rumphius Effect
- April 3 Robyn Hood Black at Life on the Deckle Edge
- April 4 Donna Smith at Mainely Write
- April 5 Denise Krebs at Dare to Care
- April 6 Buffy Silverman
- April 7 Jone Rush MacCulloch
- April 8 Janice Scully at Salt City Verse
- April 9 Tabatha Yeatts at The Opposite of Indifference
- April 10 Marcie Flinchum Atkins
- April 11 Rose Capelli at Imagine the Possibilities
- April 12 Fran Haley at Lit Bits and Pieces
- April 13 Cathy Stenquist
- April 14 Janet Fagel at Mainely Write
- April 15 Carol Varsalona at Beyond LiteracyLink
- April 16 Amy Ludwig VanDerwater at The Poem Farm
- April 17 Kim Johnson at Common Threads
- April 18 Margaret at Reflections on the Teche
- April 19 Ramona at Pleasures from the Page
- April 20 Mary Lee at A(nother) Year of Reading
- April 21 Tanita Davis
- April 22 Patricia Franz
- April 23 Ruth at There’s no such thing as a Godforsaken town
- April 24 Linda Kulp Trout
- April 25 Heidi Mordhorst at My Juicy Little Universe
- April 26 Michelle Kogan
- April 27 Linda Baie at Teacher Dance
- April 28 Pamela Ross at Words in Flight
- April 29 Diane Davis at Starting Again in Poetry
- April 30 April Halprin Wayland at Teaching Authors
Looking for more April poetry? Check out Jama Rattigan’s 2025 National Poetry Month Kidlitosphere Events Roundup.
Buffy, a late, but heartfelt comment on our character enjoying the start of our sweet bird band.
Here is my frightfully late comment on your line 6, Buffy: I’m very happy to have some fauna join the floral species already enumerated in our poem, and I’m liking the economical, rhythmic lines we have going. I can feel a “hum” coming on…
Rat a tat tat!!! Woodpeckers at work. Nice, Buffy!!
Janet Clare F.
LOVE it, Buffy! We have had so many woodpeckers drumming this Spring (lots of leaning/weak trees for their pursuits after Helene, I guess…) our dog barks at them. Terrific addition! Thank you!
The drumming is a nice new sensory for this spring day. Love it.
Nice, Buffy! Concrete and interesting.
Sounds and animals — both good additions!
I’m loving this poem so far. I loved the imagery and rhyme of stanza one and now racing through your garden, yet stopping to hear a woodpecker. Thanks for adding in the sound imagery.