Free Verse: Animal Friends

1Read the poem: The Squirrel on the Wall

• Up and down the garden wall
• the little squirrel runs,
• its tail held high
• like a striped flag.
• It waits, very still,
• behind the mango leaves,
• for one fallen crumb of bread.
• Then quick as lightning
• it grabs it
• and is gone.

crumb: a very small piece of bread or cake. grabs: takes quickly.

2What is free verse?

• There is no regular rhyming pattern.
• There is no regular rhythm.
• Some lines are short and some are long.
• Free verse still uses beautiful words and pictures, like similes.

3Similes in the poem

• "its tail held high like a striped flag": the tail is compared to a flag
• "quick as lightning": the squirrel moves very fast

These similes help us see the squirrel and feel how fast it moves.

4Little writers, big dreams

Keep a portfolio (a file of your work): your shape poem, your acrostic poem, your simile poster and your own free verse about an animal. At the end of the term, display them in a class exhibition.

Try it: write 6 to 8 lines of free verse about a cat, a crow or a butterfly. Use at least one simile.