Almost exactly a year ago I posted a list of writing-related things for which I am grateful on this blog. It is a lovely list and almost everything on it remains a solid and beneficial impact on my life… writing or otherwise. I thought I might make a second edition of this list, but after reading the original, I’m hard pressed to come up with anything that I didn’t already include.

So instead, I’ll leave you with a Gratitude poem.

Yep, you heard me right. I said a POEM.

I’m currently playing around with ideas for a novel in verse. A novel in verse is a story told entirely in poems. A few of my favorites include When My Sister Started Kissing by Helen Frost and The Crossover by Kwame Alexander. I’ve confessed before that I hold no English degree. Similarly, I have zero training in poetry. But, like anything else, I’m diving in head-first and willing myself to figure it out as I go. My favorite kind of poem that I’ve discovered in this process is called a Golden Shovel Poem.

A Golden Shovel Poem borrows a line from another piece of writing, one that inspires, resonates or speaks to the reader. This line becomes the theme of the new poem. The line also makes up the last word of each line of the new poem. It sounds confusing, but it’ll (hopefully) all be made clearer by my example below. If we could follow the instructions of the poem, I’d be incredibly grateful.

I hope that as you read this, you are surrounded by things that make you happy… family to fill your heart, faith to fill your soul, food to fill your tummy and words to fill your life with wonder, perspective, reflection and my favorite, stories.

I’m grateful you chose to stop by my blog today.

Happy Thanksgiving,

Amanda Zieba

P.S. If you’d like to read a few more seasonal poems, you can do so here, here and here.

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