Irene Latham's Blog, page 100

FRESH DELICIOUS Fun in Florida & Georgia!

Last week I traveled to north Florida, where I stayed with my mother and her family (which includes my 3 adopted siblings), to celebrate the impending release of FRESH DELICIOUS: Poems from the Farmers' Market! Official release is tomorrow, but I was able to share the book a bit early with readers of all ages at Aucilla Christian Academy. Thank you staff and students, and especially Debbie Love for making me feel so very welcome!
The whole group performing "Fishing for a Reader" with me!

I signed bookmarks during recess.
Me with little brother James' Kindergarten class.
Me with my beautiful mama.
my 3 young siblings ready to play with their big sis!On Saturday we traveled to nearby Thomasville, GA, to the best little book store ever The Bookshelf for a special Storytime and Craft featuring FRESH DELICIOUS. Annie at The Bookshelf couldn't have made us feel more welcome, and I loved reading to the kids and sharing with them the cute watermelon and strawberry craft I adapted from a Paper Source Valentine's kit. :) AND as if all that wasn't enough special-ness, Poetry Friday friend Jan Godown Annino came, with friend Christine Poreba (who is also a poet!), and we visited and had lunch and enjoyed our time together so very much. Big thanks to all who came out and bought books and helped celebrate this new book.
Booksellers are the BEST!
Storytime!
Aren't they pretty?!
Everything feels more festive when it's written in chalk!
Me+Jan =Poet-Friends Forever!
Making a watermelon craft!
Now that's a happy strawberry....just like me :)

Sign Up Here for 2016 Kidlitosphere Progressive Poem!

Hello and Happy Poetry Friday! Be sure to visit Linda at TeacherDance for Roundup.

I am traveling today, feeling so grateful to be sharing my books with students and readers of all ages in north Florida. But I do have something important to share with you:

It's that time again! National Poetry Month (April) will soon be upon us, which means it is time again to sign up for our annual KIDLITOSPHERE PROGRESSIVE POEM. This year we are shooting for short lines, and Laura Purdie Salas will be launching our first line! The rest is up to all of YOU! I invite you to choose your day and add your information to this Google Spreadsheet.

Here's how it works:
Poetry Friday Friends and other poetry lovers are invited to join in a community writing experience during National Poetry Month (April).
What is it? a poem that travels daily from blog to blog, with each host adding a line, beginning April 1. Anyone who wants to join in the fun can sign up on the Google Spreadsheet!  First come, first served.

Once we have a schedule, I will be send via email the HTML code to include in your post and/or sidebar so that readers might follow along/look back/look forward. And feel free to snag the above graphic!
Can't wait to see where our poem will take us this year! (To view poems from previous years, click on the Progressive Poem tab above.)

Happy Poetry Friday, everyone! 

13 Women I Admire

Hello and Welcome to Spiritual Journey Thursday! Today we are talking about Julianne's One Little Word "ADMIRE." Please join us!

I am traveling today, but I did want to share a few thoughts about "admire." For me it is linked with love, being present, experiencing wonder.

Here's a quote I love:


"What would happen if one woman told the truth about her life? The world would split open." - Muriel Rukeyser

The following woman are some I deeply admire, though I know them only through their books. Each has told the truth about her lives, and it has split ME open, and it inspires me to approach the world with the same kind of courage and honesty:

Melody BeattieJulia Cameron
Joy HarjoJewelAnn LamottMadeline L'EngleSharon OldsKatherine PatersonPat SchneiderCheryl Strayed
Amy TanJeannette Walls
Jacqueline Woodson

For the Love of Words -- and BIRDS

Hello and Happy Poetry Friday! Be sure to visit lovely Liz at Elizabeth Steinglass for Roundup.
I'm especially excited to be here today because it's my birthday! Cheesecake for everyone!!!
As a gift to myself, I've invited my kind, talented poet-friend Amy Ludwig VanDerwater to come talk poetry and birds with me! Isn't The Poem Farm one of the most wonder-filled websites ever? I love learning from Amy and especially enjoy her fun, wise, gentle voice. And now readers of all ages have more Amy to love: please join me in celebrating the release of her latest book EVERY DAY BIRDS, now in flight from Orchard/Scholastic, with illustrations by Dylan Metrano.
Welcome, Amy!!
Please share a childhood memory that includes a bird or birds.
I remember caring for a robin with a hurt wing when I was four or five years old. Although I was sad that the bird was injured, I was happy to have it close and still in a box, where I could watch and “care for it” under the guidance of my mom and dad. I think that this bird died but also remember that my parents told me it had healed and flown away. They were gentle people, and I was young. This story reminds me of the beautiful and true book, THE DEAD BIRD, written by Margaret Wise Brown and illustrated by Remy Charlip.

Birds often appear in poems. Why do you think poets are attracted to birds, and what prompted YOU to write about birds?

Well, the fact that ‘bird’ rhymes with ‘word’ is quite compelling! Seriously, I have come to appreciate birds through the example of my husband Mark, who knows so much about these feathery creatures. From him, I have learned that we enlarge our worlds by the company we keep. Our passions often grow from passions of those we love. This is why I believe that passionate teachers matter greatly – they inspire fascination and curiosity in children.

As for why poets like birds so much, I believe that the glory of flight draws us in. Birds are small and mighty. They travel, and they make swooping motions in the sky, just as we make swooping marks on paper, not quite sure of where we will go. Birds and writing: both speak to the free part of our spirits.


What species of bird do you most identify with (OR: wish you were more like)?
I would like to think that I am something cute and tough, like a chickadee. But others might say I am like an annoying parrot who keeps on talking when I should be quiet!


What species of bird do you see every day at The Poem Farm?
We see many chickadees, tufted titmice, tree sparrows, cardinals, and a few kinds of woodpeckers. (red bellied, hairy, pileated, and downy) . We have blue jays, goldfinches, and many red tailed hawks. We see vultures and crows and others too. I love to watch our feeders, and I am thankful to Mark for keeping them full. When I am home alone writing, these small birds are my friends.



Anything else you would like to share?

Two not-to-miss bird picture books include SUBWAY SPARROW written and illustrated by Leyla Torres and WELCOME, BROWN BIRD, written by Mary Lyn Ray and illustrated by Peter Sylvada. I love stories about birds; they are endlessly interesting and mysterious.






If I were a bird, I would fly to Alabama to give you a birthday hug! Thank you, my dear friend, for having me here today. xoxo-------------------------------------- Wasn't that fun?! Click here for an older post of Valerie Worth poems about birds. And now, an original bird poem that appears in my book of poems for adults THE SKY BETWEEN US:
Life Without Birds
You appear just before dawnto ask what it’s likewithout you. I push through
the quicksand, gaugingthe weight of forestas it presses against my body,
a whole country of spruce,pine, and cedar surrounding me.I don’t want to burden you
with what you’ve done,so I say I miss the birds.Is there any deeper truth?
No wings flashing fromblackberry brambles, no careful nest in the eaves,
no graceful, raucous Vs.The loss of songis the part I won’t admit,
no matter how tenderlyyou press your fingersagainst my eyelids.
- Irene Latham
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Hear me read it on Soundcloud! (For some reason the embed code isn't working...grr)

In Which I Learn from an 85 Year Old Woman

Hello! This Spiritual Journey Thursday we are discussing Violet's One Little Word: MINDFULNESS. Please join us!

Mindfulness for me means two things:

1. Looking inward

2. Without judgment

Instead of looking outward, it's looking inward: how am a feeling, what sensations are affecting me right now -- what do I see, taste, touch feel, hear?

It's thinking about eating while I eat - or really not even thinking about it, just experiencing it.

It's resisting the near constant urge I have to multi-task and be efficient.

It's taking one thing at a time, easy does it, going slow.

Just observing, accepting, without attaching any sort of right or wrong or good or bad or ways to improve.

It's shifting the focus from being controlled by the realities in one's life to controlling how we relate to those realities.

Being where I am, who I am, right now.

I think we can all learn a lot from 85 year old Nadine Stair, who answers the question, "How would you have lived your life differently, if you had the chance?"

Read her poetic answer here. (There are merry-go-rounds!)

And here's another version that appeared in Reader's Digest magazine, attributed to Don Herold.

Movie Monday: THE INEVITABLE DEFEAT OF MISTER AND PETE

Recently we watched at home THE INEVITABLE DEFEAT OF MISTER AND PETE. My husband, who enjoys surfing through the choices (I hate that part!) said he read this movie's description, and he knew right away it was a movie I was likely to  enjoy.

He was right!

It's about two kids -- Mister & Pete -- whose mothers are both junkie prostitutes, and their struggle to survive the projects in Brooklyn, alone, for a summer.

It's mostly Mister's story, and what a performance by Skylan Brooks! You believe in this kid, you see his pain, all the ways he struggles, and how he's got that big ol' heart underneath all his worries and hunger and poverty and lack of parental support. And he's got Pete, who at first annoys him, but who by the end of the movie has become the most important person in Mister's life. These two kids stick together. And when eventually the thing Mister fears the most comes to pass, there's a silver lining, and the movie ultimately ends on a hopeful note.

Great movie for those of us writing middle grade fiction about tough subjects. See it for yourself on Netflix.

Meanwhile, we also watched with our youngest son FIGHT CLUB and PRIDE & PREJUDICE. Good times!

Just one week until the Oscars....

In Which I Am Twitterpated

Hello, and welcome! Today for Spiritual Journey Thursday we are all sharing thoughts about my 2016 One Little Word: DELIGHT. Please join us!


To find out why I selected DELIGHT, please see my original post. Now that we're nearly two months into the year, I can report that I've found it rather easy to incorporate delight into my daily experiences. Delight, for me, is rooted in wonder and curiosity. There is so much to marvel at in this world, so much magic, so much to be grateful for...

The other day when I was walking at the park I witnessed a young mother chasing her giggling toddler-daughter. That little girl was running as fast as she could, laughter burbling out of her, and she kept looking back to see her mother coming after her. THAT, I thought, is delight.

One day last week my good friend sent me a picture of a chicken with feathers sprouting out of the top of its head, called a "frizzle":


DELIGHT.

Anytime I see pictures of babies or animals or babies with animals -- delight.

And it's changing me, this focus on delight. It's helping me stay in the moment, take it easy, to not be so judgmental or striving. It's also helping to reconnect me with my young, carefree self... I bought the other day a shirt that has brought me so much delight:


It's Flower from the movie BAMBI! I adored this story as a child, and when I saw these tunics on the sale rack at Kohl's, I just smiled and smiled! And yes, I brought one home. :) It brought back all those memories, all my favorite lines... like Flower's classic: "You can call me 'Flower" if you want to."

And what about that great made-up word "twitterpated?" That comes from BAMBI, too. Being twitterpated is one of my most favorite feelings in the world!



So, yes. DELIGHT. I am loving this word and the impact it is having on my life. I look forward to your thoughts!

So You Want to Write a Children's Book?

Hope to see you there!

Movie Monday: ROOM

What to say about ROOM? We braved the busy Hwy. 280 Valentine's Day traffic to eat supper and trek across town to see this movie at the only theater where it was playing... if I had to do over again, I think we would just stay in! Which is kind of the perfect segue to the movie.

5 year old Jack was born in ROOM, the shed with a skylight where his mother lives as a captive of "Old Nick," who visits every night and brings them Sunday treats -- except when he decides not to, and instead cuts the power and leaves Ma and Jack to freeze or starve.

On the one hand it's a terrifying portrait of what cruelty humans are capable of, and on the other it's an inspiring look at the power of a mother's love to create something beautiful for her child, even in the midst of horror and despair.

Ma tells Jack he will love the world, and she coaches him on what he needs to do to help them get out of ROOM. He's scared, so scared -- not just of the unknown, but of leaving Ma. He's only 5, and she's all he's known. I leave it to you to watch the movie and find out what happens.

I knew what was going to happen because I read the book by Emma Donoghue the year it came out. I have said more than once to others that the novel really like two books in one: the part inside Room, and the part outside. The movie version was more cohesive, and it reminded me of another book: GOODNIGHT MOON by Margaret Wise Brown.

Maybe I thought of this book when I read the novel, but I don't remember making that connection back then. It's so touching, Jack's need to name things and greet them and say goodbye to them... so very child-like, and a good reminder to those of us writing for children. There is magic in everything when we're children, and part of our job as creators of books for children is to re-discover that magic. (Writing this as a reminder for myself, as I continue revising a dear-to-me verse novel!)

ROOM has been nominated for a few Oscars, including Best Picture. I don't think it will win -- really think Leo diCaprio and REVENANT will carry the night -- but please do see this movie, with a loved one tucked close beside you.

The Ostrich in Love & a Poem

Hello and Happy Poetry Friday! Be sure to visit Kimberley at Written Reflections for Roundup Also, lovely Robyn asked me a few questions this week related to the weather -- please put on your flip flops (or fluffy scarves!) and take a gander!

It's Valentine's weekend, and I've got love on my mind... okay, I pretty much always have love on the mind! Today I want to share one of my most favorite love stories as found in the 1981 Caldecott Award winning book FABLES by Arnold Lobel.... and an ostrich poem.  Read on!

The Ostrich in Love - A Fable by Arnold Lobel
On Sunday the Ostrich saw a young lady walking in the park. He fell in love with her at once. He followed behind her at a distance, putting his feet in the very places where she had stepped.

On Monday the Ostrich gathered violets as a gift to his beloved. He was too shy to give them to her. He left them at her door and ran away, but there was a great joy in his heart.

On Tuesday the Ostrich composed a song for his beloved. He sang it over and over. He thought it was the most beautiful music he had ever heard.

On Wednesday the Ostrich watched his beloved dining in a restaurant. He forgot to order supper for himself. He was too happy to be hungry.

On Thursday the Ostrich wrote a poem to his beloved. It was the first poem he had ever written, but he did not have the courage to read it to her.

On Friday the Ostrich bought a new suit of clothes. He fluffed his feathers, feeling fine and handsome. He hoped that his beloved might notice.

On Saturday the Ostrich dreamed that be was waltzing with his beloved in a great ballroom. He held her tightly as they whirled around and around to the music. He awoke feeling wonderfully alive.

On Sunday the Ostrich returned to the park. When he saw the young lady walking there, his heart fluttered wildly, but be said to himself, "Alas, it seems that I am much too shy for love. Perhaps another time will come. Yet, surely, this has been a week well spent."

Love can be its own reward
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And now for an original Ostrich poem! Remember how my OLW for 2016 is "delight?" I've been trying to bring that sense of fun and lightness to my writing!


When Ostrich Gets an Itchby Irene Latham
When Ostrichgets an itchhis feathers start to twitch.
He hitches uphis wingsand buries his headin a ditch.
And that's whenOstrich getsbewitched:
his world flips,itch by itchby itch.
Sky? Earth?
When Ostrichgets an itchhe can't tell whichis which.