A Writing Kind of Day

It’s easy to make one,
lying on your back in the newest snow.
You move your arms like wings.
Later you forget about your creation,
go inside for a mug of hot chocolate.
That’s when she rises from the snow
takes a feathery breath, tries out her wings.

So begins a poem about making a snow angel, but it might also refer to the mysterious way that a poem comes into being and takes on a life of its own. In this new collection, Ralph Fletcher shows us how you can write a poem about almost anything: a baby sister, a Venus’s-flytrap, a failing grandmother, a squished squirrel, grammar homework, and more. These poems take us inside the creative process as they reveal both the playfulness and the power of poetry. More than anything, they invite us to pick up pen and paper and write some poems of your own.