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Welcome to weekend links!
This is my much-anticipated chance to share all sorts of great links and resources that I have encountered during my weekly Internet travels. I have all sorts of goodies for you today!
Did you know that April is National Poetry Month and also Poem in your Pocket Day?
The internet is buzzing with great book ideas and things to do to celebrate a love of poetry and share it with others. Here are a few of my favs:
Unique and Creative Non-Boring Poetry Books to Make You Love Poetry via What do we do all day
Celebrate poetry month with author Shel Silverstein! Get poems, activities, and fun all month long.
This site is so bright and colorful, it just makes me smile! And it has some great book ideas as well. Mrs. Wheeler’s First Grade Tidbits: Poetry Ideas
I adore these 28 Must-Share Poem images for Elementary School from WeAreTeachers! Of course, the Roald Dahl one is at the top of my favorites list:) http://stfi.re/jnaldb
Creekside Learning also had a wonderful poetry booklist for kids
What great poetry finds did you discover this week?
Before you go…
Do you know what Hans Christian Andersen liked as much as his fairy tales?
Paper! He was an addict to paper. He wrote on it, he drew on it and he use to cut in it. Just like a sculptor carves the figure out of stone, Hans Christian Andersen use to cut his stories out of paper. In fact he was a very popular paper cutter. (images courtesy of the Odense Museum)
In order to amuse his friends and their children, Hans made his very famous paper cuts. Wherever he would go he would carry his bag filled with paper and these very large monstrous scissors which he used to cut out the most elegant figures.
Would you like to create a very special item that is inspired by the paper cuttings of Hans Christian Andersen?
I’ve made a FREE off the shoulder felt story bag craft and tutorial just for this occasion! This simple craft is something the whole family can participate in creating it will make a delightful gift for the book lover in your life. I hope your little bag of tales holds as many wonders for you as ours has.
Click the image below and get instant access to this Hans Christian Andersen-inspired shoulder bag!
The post Weekend Links: Poetry Booklists for kids (and Activities!) appeared first on Jump Into A Book.
Inside Out & Back Again by Thanhha Lai (2013, HarperCollins, 262 pages, for ages 8 to 12)Synopsis (from the publisher): For all the ten years of her life, Hà has only ever known Saigon: the thrills of its markets, the joy of its traditions, and the warmth of her friends close by. But now the Vietnam War has reached her home. Hà and her family are forced to flee as Saigon falls, and they board a ship headed toward hope—toward America.
Why I recommend it: The text is spare, with lots of white space on the page. Yet the imagery is gorgeous and colorful. I could taste the papaya, see the cramped boat on which they escape, feel Hà's anger and frustration at leaving home and starting over. Hà's voice is honest and childlike. Based loosely on the author's own childhood, the story is a deeply moving one. Like Hà, Thanhha Lai fled Vietnam with her family when she was ten, and moved to Alabama. Today she lives in Kansas.
The paperback edition includes suggested activities and an interview with the author.
Thanhha Lai's websiteFavorite lines: (from a poem called
Twisting Twisting on p. 37)
Mother measures
rice grains
left in the bin.
Not enough to last
till payday
at the end of the month.
Her brows
twist like laundry
being wrung dry.
Bonus: Use this as a starting point for classroom lessons about the Vietnam War, and timely discussions about refugees and prejudice.
Have you read
Inside Out & Back Again or any other novels in verse? What did you think of them?
That is, if I'm counting correctly as I go through the tables of content. This wonderful looking trio of 
titles arrived today:
The Big Book of Exit Strategies by Jamaal May (Alice James Books, 2016)
Forest Primeval by Vievee Francis (Triquarterly Books, 2015)
Play Dead by Francine J. Harris (Alice James Books, 2016)
Just in time to enjoy during National Poetry Month.
One Hundred Sixty-Six new poems to read!
Hey, everyone, it's...You can grab that logo there, and find tons of cool ideas for celebrating poetry, on the Academy of American Poets website. Memorize a poem! Create your own anthology on Poets.org! Watch a poetry movie! Most of all (sez me),... Read the rest of this post
By:
jilleisenberg14,
on 6/15/2015
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Congratulations to Juan Felipe Herrera who has just been appointed the 21st Poet Laureate of the United States (or PLOTUS for those in the know) by the Library of Congress!
To introduce students to Juan Felipe Herrera and his body of work, we have put together a collection of resources and activities for an author (and poet!) study. We’ve structured this Author Study Unit off of Reading Rockets’ Author Study Toolkit (available as a PDF and online).
1. Set a purpose and goals for the author study
Have students read these books to find out:
- who Juan Felipe Herrera is
- how he uses his background, life, and experiences as inspiration for his stories and writing
- what themes Herrera writes about in his stories and what themes these books share
- which story (or moments in a story) the students connect to the most and why
2. Choose an author
Juan Felipe Herrera is the 21st Poet Laureate of the United States and the first Latino poet.
3. Read and respond to the books
- From where do you think Juan Felipe Herrera gets his inspiration for his stories and settings? What makes you think so? How does he include his culture and heritage in his works?
- How would you describe Juan Felipe Herrera’s writing style?
- What themes or topics are most meaningful to him? Why do you think that?
- Compare two of his books. Use a Venn diagram to collect ideas on how these books are similar and unique. What is the central idea of each? Is the book written in verse or prose? Compare the topic, main figures, setting, and text structure of each.
4. Research the author
- There are a ton of news articles celebrating and reporting the announcement of Juan Felipe Herrera as Poet Laureate. Build excitement and interest for students at the beginning of the unit with a couple of the articles, such as this one from the Los Angeles Times.
- As a class, create a timeline of major events in his life and keep it posted in the classroom throughout the unit. Have students explore Herrera’s website, this curated Library of Congress collection of web resources, and bios from the Poetry Foundation, the Academy of American Poets, and the Library of Congress.
- Show students this YouTube collection of videos featuring interviews with Juan Felipe Herrera or the PBS clip of Herrera reading his poem, “Five Directions to My House.”
5. Culminating projects and reflection:
Here are just a few ideas:
- Several previous Poet Laureates created projects to share poetry with the public. Have students read about the Past Poet Laureate Projects from the Library of Congress. Knowing what they now know about Juan Felipe Herrera, have students brainstorm and discuss what project Herrera might create while Poet Laureate. What topics and themes are meaningful to Herrera? What makes you think that?
- The main figures in each of these stories draw a lot of strength from a special adult in their lives. Who in your life helps you when you are having trouble, feel scared or doubtful, or have a goal you want to achieve? What advice has this person shared with you? What actions and qualities do you admire most about this person?
- A major focus for Juan Felipe Herrera in his writing is family or community. Encourage students to write a poem or paragraph about a big or small tradition that is important in their own family or community.
- Juan Felipe Herrera has written a lot on his migrant background. Encourage students to interview their parents or guardians about their family’s migration or immigration history. When did you or our family come to this city/community? Why did you or our family come to this place (was it voluntary or forced)? From where did you or our family come?What traditions does our family have?
- What does “home” mean to you? How might this word mean more than just the place where you live? What does “family” mean to you? How might this word mean more than just your mother and father? How might these words mean something different to various people?
- Have students write a letter to Juan Felipe Herrera. In their letters, students may describe which story, poem, or moment in one of his books they connected to the most and why. Students can also include any questions they are curious about concerning Herrera’s life and work.
Picture book recommendations for the author study:
Calling the Doves / El canto de las palomas
Bilingual English/Spanish. Poet Juan Felipe Herrera’s bilingual memoir paints a vivid picture of his migrant farmworker childhood and his road to becoming a writer. Calling the Doves won the 1997 Ezra Jack Keats Book Award for New Writing.
The Upside Down Boy / El niño de cabeza
Bilingual English/Spanish. Award-winning poet Juan Felipe Herrera’s engaging memoir of the year his migrant family settled down so that he could go to school for the first time. The Upside Down Boy captures the universal experience of children entering a new school feeling like strangers in a world that seems upside down at first.
Grandma and Me at the Flea / Los Meros Meros Remateros
Bilingual English/Spanish. Every Sunday Juanito helps his grandmother sell old clothes beneath the rainbow-colored tents at the remate, the flea market. Juanito learns firsthand what it means to be a true rematero, a fleamarketeer, and understands that the value of community can never be measured in dollars.
Featherless / Desplumado
Bilingual English/Spanish. At his new school or on the soccer field, all everyone wants to know is why Tomasito is in a wheelchair. His Papi gives Tomasito a new pet to make him smile, but this bird is a little bit different from the rest. Juan Felipe Herrera scores again with this sparkling bilingual story of self-empowerment and friendship. Featherless won the 2005 Independent Publisher Book Award for Multicultural Fiction.
What are your recommendations for a successful author study? Share with us!
Jill Eisenberg, our Senior Literacy Expert, began her career teaching English as a Foreign Language to second through sixth graders in Yilan, Taiwan as a Fulbright Fellow. She went on to become a literacy teacher for third grade in San Jose, CA as a Teach for America corps member. In her weekly column at The Open Book, she offers teaching and literacy tips for educators.
Since I recently received my very first real-life, official, honest-to-god blurb request, I've been thinking a lot about it. Working on it has been a bit of a revelation--it's a challenge, and a responsibility, and an honor, and lord help me it is... Read the rest of this post
Roz Chast's Poetry Month poster - request it here!I like to do the occasional link roundup, and since it's National Poetry Month, I thought it would be fun to revisit our past reviews of novels in verse. It's not a genre we tend to focus on--I'll... Read the rest of this post
It's lovely having a personal connection to poetry - and a poet. We've all known (for a given value of communicated-on-the-internet-met-in-person-only-once knowing) poet Kelly Ramsdell Fineman for quite a few years now, and though she's a less vocal... Read the rest of this post
April is National Poetry Month, and this year marks the first I really, truly feel like I'm putting my best foot forward and getting involved in the whole Event Thing. I'll be writing up an article for my freelance gig at A Place for Mom on seniors,... Read the rest of this post
By:
jilleisenberg14,
on 3/30/2015
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April is National Poetry Month. With so many forms of poetry to explore and share with students, what will you choose?
Here are 4 ideas for using mentor texts to guide students in poetry study.
Additional bonus: a letter to teachers from author and poet, Pat Mora, on the power of poetry.
Poem type: FOUND POETRY
Mentor Text: Etched in Clay: The Life of Dave, Enslaved Potter and Poet
Activity with students: Students select words and phrases from a primary text and use those words to create their own unique poems.
As “Primary Sources + Found Poetry = Celebrate Poetry Month” suggests, the Library of Congress proposes an innovative way to combine poetry and nonfiction. Teaching With The Library of Congress recently re-posted the Found Poetry Primary Source Set that “supports students in honing their reading and historical comprehension skills by creating poetry based upon informational text and images.” Students will study primary source documents, pull words and phrases that show the central idea, and then use those pieces to create their own poems.
This project not only enables teachers to identify whether a student grasps a central idea of a text, but also encourages students to interact with primary sources in much the same way as Etched In Clay’s Andrea Cheng. When researching Dave’s life and drawing inspiration for her verses, Andrea Cheng integrated the small pieces of evidence of Dave’s life, including poems on his pots and the bills of sale.
Lee & Low teacher’s guide
Poem type: HAIKU
Mentor Text: Cool Melons—Turn to Frogs! The Life and Poems of Issa
Activity with students: Students write haiku using sensory language and drawing inspiration from body movement, music, and art to create their own haiku.
Check out the classroom-tested, standards-aligned lesson plan Experiencing Haiku Through Mindfulness, Movement & Music by Rashna Wadia with Cool Melons— Turn to Frogs! provided by ReadWriteThink.org, a website developed by the International Literacy Association and the National Council of Teachers of English.
Additional resources:
Lee & Low teacher’s guide
Poem type: CONCRETE OR SHAPE POETRY
Mentor Text: Dreaming Up: A Celebration of Building
Activity with students: Students choose a building to describe in a poem and shape the poem to look like the building.
In Reading is Fundamental’s educator activity guide for, Dreaming Up, encourage students to try the writing activity “Shape It Up:” Let students pick a type of building and write a poem describing that building (how it looks, its purpose, etc). Students should write their poems on white paper in the shape of the building and decorate the background. (RIF)
Lee & Low teacher’s guide
Poem type: NARRATIVE POETRY
Mentor Text: Chess Rumble
Activity with students: Students compare narrative and lyric poetry and write their own narrative poem based on real or imagined experiences or events.
Check out the research-based novel study unit for Chess Rumble created by the staff at the award-winning, non-profit ReadWorks.org. Students will compare the story elements of Chess Rumble to Where the Sidewalk Ends and Keeping the Night Watch.
Next, students write their unique narrative poem—for tips “by youth for youth” check out How to Write a Narrative Poem from Power Poetry.
Further reading on using poetry in the classroom:
What are your favorite poems to enjoy in the classroom? Share with us!
Jill Eisenberg, our Senior Literacy Expert, began her career teaching English as a Foreign Language to second through sixth graders in Yilan, Taiwan as a Fulbright Fellow. She went on to become a literacy teacher for third grade in San Jose, CA as a Teach for America corps member. She is certified in Project Glad instruction to promote English language acquisition and academic achievement. In her column she offers teaching and literacy tips for educators.
Happy Spring!
Since I didn’t get to post about our 5 year blogiversary, I’ll jumping in here to say a quick THANK YOU to friends who have been with the blog since the beginning or found us somewhere along the way. I love knowing that 5-book bundles are even now winging (wheeling?) their way to 5 of you who entered our contest. Woot!
Another of my National Geographic books was released a couple of weeks ago, so it’s time for a book giveaway. If you have any kiddos in your life who like the Angry Birds or might enjoy a lively book about the Amazon rain forest and its animals, please enter. I’d love to send you a copy of Angry Birds Playground: Rain Forest.
This fourth book in the series (the third written by me) was my favorite to research. I quickly compiled a lonnng list of the amazing creatures that live in the Amazon. Narrowing it down was actually the toughest part of writing this book. Reading about some of them made my jaw drop.
-Like Hoatzin chicks. Those are born with temporary claws on the front edges of their wings. When a hawk or other predatory bird attacks a nest (which are built hanging over the water), the chicks can ploop to the water below, then swim underwater to the bank until the threat is over. Then they use those wee claws to climb back up the tree to their nest. (I couldn’t get photo permission in time for this post, but
check out this quirky, chicken-sized bird!)
-Like the wide-mouthed Amazon Horned Frog. This bugger will attack and try to swallow anything that crosses its path – including human ankles. They're so aggressive that they're often found dead with some poor, too-big-to-swallow beastie halfway in.
Photo by George Grall
-Like the Golden Lion Tamarin,
a photo of which you can see here. This fiery, red-orange (and endangered) species always looks so big in photos. Did you know they’re really only the size of a 5-year-old child’s foot?
Readers will learn about the four layers of the Amazon, the river itself, and the basin in general. Add cool lizards and turtles and insects and snakes, a few animals that consume their own … um, droppings, 5 primate species, and a frightening assortment of animals trying their darnedest to eat each other, and you’ve got one fascinating, four-layered place to discover.
Want to win a copy? Just enter via Rafflecopter below. I’ll send one winner their very own book. Contest runs through May 16th.
Jill Esbaum
Side note #1: Farewell, Poetry Month. But if you're into rhyming picture books, I’m the guest blogger today over at
Angie Karcher’s RhyPiBoMo.
Side note #2: If you’re a picture book writer and are looking for a summer writing workshop, consider joining my author friend Linda Skeers and me at our
Whispering Woods Picture Book Workshop. Follow link for more details.
a Rafflecopter giveaway
By: JOANNA MARPLE,
on 4/25/2014
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Title: Hi, Koo, A Year of Seasons By Jon J Muth Published by Scholastic, 2014, February 25 Ages: 4-8 Themes: seasons, haiku, poetry First Haiku: Autumn, … Continue reading →
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Howdy Campers ~ Happy Poetry Month! Happy Poetry Friday! And...
Happy 5th Blogiversary to us!
Details of our Book Bundles Giveaway below
On April 22, 2009, powered by the
dazzlingly bright solar power of Carmela Martino, we started this blog.
Five years--what a fabulous ride it's been!
Five candles. And when there are candles, someone makes a wish and blows them out. So you could say that this image represents the six active
TeachingAuthors. (We're celebrating
all TeachingAuthors who have been part of our blog biography.)
Campers, thank you from the bottom of our candles for reading, following, commenting and encouraging us. You're why we do this. You're why I'm terrified everytime a post is due. We want to add something meaningful
and merry to the party! In celebration of
You, this month's drawing is for one of FIVE "blogiversary book bundles." Each bundle is a set of five books hand-selected by a
TeachingAuthor and contains at least one autographed TA book. Yay You! (Details below.)
* * *
This month, inspired by the Chicago Favorite Poem Project, each of us will share a favorite poem. One of mine is "Liberty" by
Janet Wong, from her book,
The Declaration of Interdependence--Poems for an Election Year and also included in Caroline Kennedy's
Poems to Learn by Heart) read (and reproduced below) with Janet's kind permission:
LIBERTY by Janet Wong from DECLARATION OF INTERDEPENDENCE – Poems for an Election Year
I pledge acceptanceof the viewsso different,that make us America
To listen, to look,to think, and to learn
One peoplesharing the earthresponsiblefor libertyand justicefor all.Wow, right? So much substance packed into 12 lines.
* * *
This month is overflowing with poetry! Three TeachingAuthors are celebrating in three ways:
Also, Sylvia Vardell's Texas Women University students chose poems from the
The Poetry Friday Anthology for Science: Poems for the School Year Integrating Science, Reading, and Language Arts and have made "poem movies" of them. They'll appear on
Sylvia's blog all this month. My poem "Old Water" will be featured on April 6.
And thank you, Amy, of
The Poem Farm, for hosting Poetry Friday today!
* * *
By now you're asking: "How can I enter to win a Book Bundle?
Our giveaway starts at midnight on Friday, 4/3 and ends at midnight of the day after our blogiversary, 4/23.
--You have a chance to win one of FIVE "blogiversary book bundles." Each bundle is a set of five books hand-selected by a TeachingAuthor and contains at least one autographed TA book.
--Books will be mailed directly to the winner, so winners must have a US mailing address.
--You have 3 entry options, and can enter via 1, 2, or all 3 options to increase their chances. (We DO verify that you've met all the criteria for each option. Incomplete entries will be disqualified.)
1) Tell us how you follow the blog (by "follow" we mean some sort of automated subscription service, such as via email, Facebook, Bloglovin', etc.) We have links in the sidebar to make it easy to start subscribing if you haven't already.
2) Leave a comment on THIS blog post. If you have difficulty commenting, you can submit comments via email to teachingauthors [at] gmail [dot] com. For this giveaway, you need to include in the comment either a) the title of a favorite poem OR b) the title of a favorite
TeachingAuthor blog post.
Please be also sure to include your name in the comment so we can verify you've fulfilled this option. [Some folks don't comment with their real name and we have no way of knowing who they are!]
3) Help spread the word. Share a link back to this blog post from your own blog, or from Twitter, Pinterest, or any other way we can verify online. You must include the URL of the link in the space provided.
And good luck!
a Rafflecopter giveaway posted with love by April Halprin Wayland. Monkey's on vacation.
Back in 2011 I wrote a post called Poetry Month Ideas: Try Something a Little Different (note the conspicuous disappearance of ALL the images from said post and sigh along with me). Well, time has passed but my quest to find new and interesting ways to teach poetry, aside from the standard set of haikus and limericks, continues. Today we update ye olde post with some old and new forms. If you should find yourself this month in the position of having to instruct some kids in the ways of poetry, consider doing one or more of these exercises with them:
Fibonacci Poems – Good old Fibonacci poetry. In late 2013 our beloved children’s literary blogger Greg Pincus finally published his very first middle grade work of fiction. The 14 Fibs of Gregory K dared to combine the uncombineable: math and poetry. Mr. Pincus, you see, is the creator behind this particular form. Back in 2006, long before the term “Common Core Aligned” graced this nation’s lips, Motoko Rich even went so far as to write the New York Times article Fibonacci Poems Multiply on the Web After Blog’s Invitation. As he explained on his blog GottaBook: “I wanted something that required more precision. That led me to a six line, 20 syllable poem with a syllable count by line of 1/1/2/3/5/8 – the classic Fibonacci sequence. In short, start with 0 and 1, add them together to get your next number, then keep adding the last two numbers together for your next one.” And call me crazy but doesn’t this just sound like the most CCSS thing you ever did read? Time for someone to hand Greg another book deal. A POETRY book deal.
Newspaper Blackout Poems – I’ve enjoyed this form for years, but it wasn’t until I tried it out on a couple different groups of kids that I saw how effective and interesting it can be. Consider it a forced found poem. The poet’s job is to find a newspaper article or horoscope and to blackout everything except the words in the poem. Intrigued? Read a whole swath of them here. Kids, as it turns out, are preternaturally gifted in this area. Some glom onto the form instantly. Others need some help. Whatever the case, just be sure you have enough black markers on hand when you try this. Here’s a rather erudite example:
Reverso – Best illustrated by children’s book poet Marilyn Singer. She perfected the form in books like Mirror Mirror and Follow Follow (though I harbor a very great love for her Nixon reverso in Rutherford B.: Who Was He?). The poet writes broken lines down and then uses the same lines but reverses them to tell the other side of the story. Example A:
Single Word Poetry – I call it this because insofar as I can tell Bob Raczka made up this kind of poetry and I can’t find it in existence anywhere but his book Lemonade: And Other Poems Squeezed From a Single Word. Basically you take a word and then turn the letters in that word into a poem. To read it, your eye has to follow the letters down the page in a very specific order or the poem won’t make any sense. See, here’s an example:
Can you see it saying “A silent lion tells an ancient tale”? Because that’s the poem and it’s a darn clever one too. Try this with your kids if you want to, y’know, watch their heads explode or something. It’s poetry as codebreaking as far as I can tell.
Snowball Poetry – According to BoingBoing, “A ‘Snowball’ is a poem ‘in which each line is a single word, and each successive word is one letter longer’.” In other words, not too different from a Fibonacci poem in that math is involved in some way.
Spine Poetry - Though he didn’t originate the form (I don’t think) I still consider Travis Jonker the king of the Spine Poem. If nothing else his post yesterday should prove that. Spine Poems, as you may know, are poems that come out of the judicious placement of one book on top of another. My favorite recent example (by Travis):
But seriously, go to his site to see what he’s done. It’s breathtaking.
Any other peculiar forms of poetry come to mind? Let me know about ‘em!
Around here we love April– springtime starts to peek around the corner, summer vacations don’t seem quite so far away, conference season kicks into gear, and last but certainly not least, it’s Poetry Month!
There are so many reasons to love poetry– it evokes emotions, feelings and sensations. The rhyme schemes, vocabulary, free verse– it’s all so rich and powerful. And when we think of poetry, novels in verse might not usually jump to the front of our minds. But one of our most acclaimed books last year was a novel in verse: INSIDE OUT AND BACK AGAIN, by Thanhha Lai. While there were many (many!) reasons I loved this Newbery Honor-winning book, one of the things I loved most while reading was the beautiful, poignant, and at times hilariously funny language. And the coming-of-age immigration story that sticks to you like glue after reading doesn’t hurt either…
Enjoy and share this poem from INSIDE OUT AND BACK AGAIN (now available in paperback!) and enjoy Poetry Month!
I’m quilting it all together today with Jimmy Santiago Baca. He’s here on Male Monday this first Monday in April: Poetry month. From his biography:
Baca has devoted his post-prison life to writing and teaching others who are overcoming hardship. His themes include American Southwest barrios, addiction, injustice, education, community, love and beyond. He has conducted hundreds of writing workshops in prisons, community centers, libraries, and universities throughout the country.
Welcome April, month of poetry!
Ten
from Healing Earthquakes (1989)
If it does not feed the fire
of your creativity, then leave it.
If people and things do not
inspire your heart to dream,
then leave them.
If you are not crazily in love
and making a stupid fool of yourself,
then stop closer to the edge
of your heart and climb
where you’ve been forbidden to go.
Debts, accusations, assaults by enemies
mean nothing,
go where the fire feeds you.
Turn your attention to the magic of whores,
grief, addicts and drunks, until you stumble upon
that shining halo surrounding your heart
that will allow you to violate every fear happily,
be where you’re not supposed to be,
the love of an angel who’s caught your blood on fire
again, who’s gulped all of you in one breath
to mix in her soul, to explode your brooding
and again, your words rush from the stones
like a river coursing down
from some motherly mountain source,
and if your life doesn’t spill forth
unabashedly, recklessly, randomly
pushing in wonder at life,
then change, leave, quit, silence the idle chatter
and do away with useless acquaintances
who have forgotten how to dream,
bitch rudely in your dark mood at the mediocrity
of scholars who meddle in whimsy for academic trifles–
let you be their object of scorn,
let you be their object of mockery,
let you be their chilling symbol
of what they never had the courage to do, to complete, to follow,
let you be the flaming faith that makes them shield their eyes
as you burn from all sides,
taking a harmless topic and making of it a burning galaxy
or shooting stars in the dark of their souls,
illuminating your sadness, your aching joy for life,
your famished insistence for God and all that is creative
to attend you as a witness to your struggle,
let the useless banter and quick pleasures
belong to others, the merchants, computer analysts
and government workers;
you haven’t been afraid
of rapture among thieves
bloody duels in drunken brawls,
denying yourself
the essence of your soul work
as poems rusted while you scratched
at your heart to see if it was a diamond
and not cheap pane of glass,
now, then, after returning form one more poet’s journey
in the heart of the bear, the teeth of the wolf,
the legs of the wild horse,
sense what your experience tells you,
your ears ringing with deception and lies and foul tastes,
now that your memory is riddled with blank loss,
tyrants who wielded their boastful threats
to the sleeping dogs and old trees in the yards,
now that you’ve returned form men and women
who’ve abandoned their dreams and sit around
like corpses in the grave moldering with regret,
steady your heart now, my friend, with fortitude
long-lasting enduring hope, and hail the early dawn
like a ship off coast that’s come for you,
spent and ragged and beggared,
if what you do and how you live does not feed the fire
in your heart and blossom into poems,
leave, quit, do not turn back,
move fast away from that which would mold your gift,
break it, disrespect it, kill it.
Guard it, nurture it, take your full-flung honorable
heart and plunge it into the fire
into the stars, into the trees, into the hearts of others
sorrow and love and restore the dream
by writing of its again-discovered wild beauty.
source
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A little over a month ago, I saw Norene Cashen read and really loved one of her new poems. She's been kind enough to allow me to post the poem here at the EWN:
WAR
By Norene Cashen
I’ve never seen peace.
I’ve seen a foxhole, combat boots, a drill sergeant
and a gun. I’ve heard the gun rattle
and talk and talk and talk
in its fast language, the clink of brass casings
spit out after each syllable.
I’ve seen girls in dog tags and dust
crawling under the barbed wire of the world
as if their mothers waited for them
on the other side, but there is no other side.
That’s what you learn.
There’s only more war.
There’s war outside and inside
war speeding on the highway
to get to work on time.
There’s war in our mouths, our hair,
our eyes. The best wars are in the movies
where we eat popcorn and tell ourselves
nobody dies. Then somewhere in the middle
of Afghanistan a boy from Wisconsin
is smeared inside a turret
just like the old poem says. It’s possible
we’re all walking cages
and it’s our job to keep ourselves closed
to keep the violence
from shaking out of our bones.
April was a month of
POETRY MADNESS in the Riverside Library. We started out by looking at 64 poetry books from the library. Rotating from one table to the next, students chose a poetry book they loved. The top 16 books made it to our Poetry Bracket.
Then, each week, we looked at the challenges on the board--reading poems, sharing thoughts and voting on which book we liked best in each challenge. Each week, a few books moved to the next level of the bracket while others were knocked out. Until we were down to just two books. The two books in our final challenge were
LOOSE LEASHES by
Ron Schmidt and Amy Schmidt and
SCARUM FAIR. LOOSE LEASHES came out the winner and the kids were thrilled. This has definitely become the new favorite poetry book in the library this year.
I definitely learned (again) that kids LOVE funny poems. They like the others if we introduce them but left on their own, they are drawn to poems that are mostly fun. I was amazed though by how many kids stuck by their less popular choices. It as fun to see individual students find poetry books and poems that struck them for some reason--not understanding why everyone didn't see what they saw in the poem.
The process was a good one and the talk around poetry was different because of Poetry Madness. Every week, kids would come into the library, eager to see which books had won, which were left. There was informal talk about the books--they knew titles and poems.
My favorite moment of the whole month of Poetry Madness happened on Friday when the last group of 2nd graders was examining the chart. Many were cheering about Loose Leashes. Others were looking back at the books that didn't make it, talking about the ones they wished had gone farther in the bracket. One second grade boy said, "I don't know why, but I really wanted STEP GENTLY OUT to win." I said,"Oh, I loved that one too. Why did you like it?" He said, "I don't know. I guess when I read it, I felt peace." Everyone nodded and agreed. What an insightful comment. It was then that I realized that the small conversations around Poetry Madness had made a difference to lots of kids.
In the midst of Poetry Madness, we also celebrated POEM IN YOUR POCKET DAY. Since we had spent so much time looking at 64 great poetry books, it was fun to see the variety of poems that kids chose to c
What a poor job I've done covering National Poetry Month. On its last day I finally remember to point out that Black Lawrence Press is selling all of their collections at a fifty percent discount this month (ie, order today!):
Thing 1:
I sent my booklist to KU last night to see if the folks there have time to copy and collate it before Saturday. (KU Children's Literature Conference, remember? Register now.) And, of course, as soon as it was sent off, I thought of no less than five books I should add to the list. Sigh. This is the way of the world. I know that on the road on Saturday morning, I will think of at least 2 or 3 more.
The poster is so pretty!
Thing 2:It's still Poetry Month. Isn't that great?
Every year I can hardly wait
for a month about rhyming and pictures in words.
Images, noises, train tracks and birds!
Talk to my heart. Listen to mine.
Poetry month is fine, so fine.
Over at
AdLit.Org, it's all about Poetry Month, with ideas and activities for getting adolescents engaged.
The AdLit newsletter alerted me to
Colorin Colorado's celebration of Poetry Month. Check that site out for booklists for young poets of all ages.
By:
Betsy Bird,
on 4/16/2012
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Durn. This is what I get for not doing a Fusenews in a while. A whole plethora of good stuff! Let’s see what we can use up in a single day, eh?
For the record, if you haven’t read these Hunger Games comics (in the style of Kate Beaton, no?) then now’s the time. They’re surprisingly good.
Good old poetry month. From spine poems to 30 Poets / 30 Days the celebrations are magnificent. Go ye, seek out and find.
- I won’t normally link to podcasts but this recent Scriptnotes that covers how a screenwriter options a novel he wants to adapt includes a discussion of older children’s books that were considered for screen adaptation. FYI!
- On the one hand they’re 9 Barbies Based on Books. On the other hand, if that Edward doesn’t sparkle and glow in the dark then I hope the people who purchased him got their money back. Thanks to bookshelves of doom for the link.
- When I worked the reference desk I got a lot of Stumpers. Folks would ask me to come up with a beloved book from their childhood and I would try to figure it out. If I couldn’t find it I’d take down all their information and ask PUBYAC on their behalf. If that didn’t work I’d suggest Loganberry Books, even though they charge money. Would that I had known about Whatsthatbook.com. A free site where folks post their stumpers and other folks answer them, it’s pretty cool. Sometimes I just like hearing the wacky descriptions. Current favorite: “Young girl reading to an older lady, girl almost gets caught in quicksand”. I hate it when that happens.
- Hello, under-a-rock denizens. J.K. Rowling’s newest book is going to be released. Hope you like community politics!!!
- Do Childish People Write Better Children’s Books? Dude, if you want to walk up to Maurice Sendak and inform him that he is childish, be my guest. I’m just gonna go hide behind this sturdy concrete pillar over here until the spatter of your remains stops with the spattering.
I’m lucky enough to teach a graduate course in poetry for children and young adults again this spring. It’s such fun to dig deep into all kinds of poetry published for young people and usually quite an eye-opening experience for my students. I also try to involve them in sharing their new knowledge with the world at large whenever possible. This year, I’ve arranged for them to interview poets via email with a focus on poets who have new books out in 2012. We’re using the "Five Question Interview" format based on the model that Roger Sutton, Editor of Horn Book Magazine, initiated in his many interviews with children's book authors and illustrators (many of them LIVE at ALA conferences). I wrote him for permission to use this format and he kindly agreed. I’m calling it our 5Q Poet Interview Series.
Since there are only 5 questions, I told my students that they need to be good ones-- not just "where do you get your ideas," etc. And they should focus specifically on the new poetry book out this year and not just on writing in general. However, in several cases the 2012 books are/were not available yet, so my resourceful students did all they could to find out as much as they could. What follows is the list of poets, 2012 poetry books, and student interviewers that we will be featuring on my blog every day throughout April, in honor of National Poetry Month.
A big Texas thank you to each of the poets for participating in this project with us and to my students for their hard work and enthusiasm (they were so excited to have this “intimate” contact with famous poets!). Thanks to the publisher’s reps who helped smooth the way and even share ARCs and books when possible. What a great collaborative effort. Here we go in alphabetical order (hey, we’re in Library School—we alphabetize!):
April 1: Kate Coombs. Water Sings Blue: Ocean Poems. Interviewed by Mary Virginia Meeks.
April 2: Jill Corcoran, Ed. Dare to Dream… Change the World. Interviewed by Lindsey Chesser.
April 3: Margarita Engle. The Wild Book. Interviewed by Rebekah Espinosa.
April 4: Sid Farrar. The Year Comes Round: Haiku Through the Seasons. Interviewed by Katelyn Verrill.
April 5: Douglas Florian. Poem Runs; Baseball Poems and Paintings. Interviewed by Dori Pruzan.
April 6: Douglas Florian, the Sequel. Unbeelievables: Honeybee Poems and Paintings. Also interviewed by Kristin Edstrom.
April 7: Helen Frost. Step Gently Out. Interviewed by Emily Felker.
April 8: Davi
By:
Betsy Bird,
on 3/23/2012
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I swear that every time my computer goes on the fritz I feel like I’m walking underwater for days on end while it’s in the shop. I can’t do email effectively, I can’t update Goodreads, I can’t do anything without feeling like it’s all fake until that little laptop is returned to my knees where it belongs. It’s a sickness, man. Not healthy in the least. But now that it’s back I can’t help but be thrilled! Woot and woo-hoo and other “woo” related forms of cheering. Now on to the news . . .
- First off, I’m pilfering this next link from the always amusing and informative Jennifer Schultz. Because I am a member of PEN here in New York I’ve been vaguely aware of the efforts to help New Orleans rebuild post-Katrina (the Children’s/Young Adult Book Authors Committee helped move an elementary school library from St. Joseph’s School in Greenwich Village, New York City, to the Martin Luther King Jr. School in New Orleans and have continued to aid that school ever since). The New Orleans public libraries themselves haven’t been on my radar as much. Jennifer filled me in on the matter:
“Yesterday’s Times-Picayune (New Orleans’s newspaper) had an excellent article about the rebirth of the New Orleans Public Library system, which was devastated by Hurricane Katrina. Ever since they started to rebuild the libraries, their motto has been “Building Back Better.” The NOPL libraries were okay—they’ve always had strong community programming, but there was a lot of room for improvement—but drastic improvements were never going to be in the city’s finances, until Katrina came and they had no choice but to literally start over with many of their libraries. They didn’t want to just rebuild what they had—they wanted to take this unusual and tragic opportunity to make a strong and community-oriented system for the city. They wanted to make them public transportation-friendly, since many residents rely on it, technologically savvy, environmentally-friendly—you name it. This is their website: http://nutrias.org/ (The nutria is a pest —they are great at destroying wetlands-and a source of humor in Louisiana-Louisianians can have a dark sense of humor. They had a rather colorful governor years ago who suggested that folks should hunt and eat the nutrias in order to cut down on their numbers, and they’ve been sort of a joke ever since. Nutria fur is marketed as “guilt free fur,” etc).”
Thank you, Jennifer! Fantastic info. I can’t wait for ALA to return and to get to see the city (and it’s libraries!) firsthand.
Detroit Poetry is kicking a little rear end these days!
Today's Poem of the Day at Verse Daily was Terry Blackhawk's "The Burn," from her most recent collection, The Light Between.
The Light Between is also slotted as the 7th Best-Selling contemporary poetry collection for the week of March 4 according to the Poetry Foundation.
The number 1 Best-Selling contemporary poetry collection? 
Allegiance by Francine Harris.
What do these two books have in common up there among the collections published by FSG and Random House, Ecco, W.W.Norton and Random House; written by Billy Collins and Philip Levine, Mary Oliver and Patti Smith?
These two collections are both recently published by Wayne State University Press (Detroit, MI) and written by women in Detroit.
Two of Terry Blackhawk's previous collections have recently been contracted to join Dzanc Books rEprint Series as eBooks in the coming months (Body & Field, and Escape Artist).
By:
Betsy Bird,
on 3/15/2012
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I was going to spend a lot of time on this Fusenews. Then I picked up Doug TenNapel’s Cardboard and lost most of my evening in the process. So it goes. I really am going to have to be brief today. To sum up:
The Battle of the (Kids’) Books rages on in earnest! Wish I’d submitted my bracket this year. So far the winners make sense to me.
- Opinions I do not share. #1: “Here is a list of eleven children’s books that still have value in a writer’s adult years.” I might agree with you if you meant that Rainbow Fish makes for an excellent source of protein. #2: “Ten Tips for Avoiding Terrible Children’s Books.” This may actually be the strangest collection of children’s book-related advice I’ve seen in years. I live in hope that I misread it and that this is all the stuff you’re supposed to avoid, not do.
- Stephen Fry + a pub called The Hobbit = lawsuit city. Actually, you don’t even need the Stephen Fry part.
- It’s spine poem time! With Poetry Month right around the corner you just know you want to partake. Spine poem it up!
- Of course THIS month is Women’s History Month. So I wrote a little guest blog piece just for the occasion where I noted the little known historical heroines making their debut in juvenile print this year.
- Speaking of apps n’ such, did you know that over in Italy where the Bologna Book Fair takes place there is now a Bologna Ragazzi Digital Award? In incredibly good idea. International apps. A whole new world.
- New Blog Alert: New to me anyway. We Too Were Children, Mr. Barrie which describes itself as “Being a Compendium of Children’s Books by Twentieth Century ‘Adult’ Authors Currently Out of Print”. It’s beautifully done. Go see.
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I believe the first to do Spine Poetry was Nina Katchadourian’s with her Sorted Book Project which she began in 1993. (http://www.ninakatchadourian.com/languagetranslation/sortedbooks.php).
Another suggestion for teachers would be to invite children to try to tell a story in verse a la some of the books they have read. That is, a series of separate free verse poems that provide a narrative arc.
Thanks for pointing folks to Nina Katchadourian, Monica – that’s definitely where I first saw that form of poetry. Thanks for spreading the word Betsy!
Great ideas here! I especially love Spine Poetry, and look forward to Travis Jonker’s roundup every year.
Great blog post with fun poetry examples! I’m a huge fan of Greg Pincus, Marilyn Singer and Bob Raczk. And I’ve been seeing more Snowball Poetry around, cool!
Also, Joan Bransfield Graham’s new book, The Poem That Will Not End is perfect to share with children, librarians, and teachers. A great selection of poetic forms and voices with definitions in the back.
Thank you for sharing poetry ideas during the month of April,
Paige