Laura Shovan's Blog, page 9
March 22, 2020
#WaterPoemProject: Day 1, Irene Latham
Welcome poets, to Day 1 of our month-long #WaterPoemProject. If you’re new to this project, please read the Introduction and FAQ.
I couldn’t think of a better person to kick things off than children’s poet (and my dear friend) Irene Latham.
Irene’s poetry prompt is: The Language of Water
Irene Latham
“How does water speak? What does a lake, river, waterfall, etc. say? Use onomatopoeia (words with water sounds, like splash, sprinkle, drizzle, spray…) and/or dialogue to imagine a conversation with water.”
Get your pencils sharpened and your typing fingers warmed up. Your task is to draft a piece of writing about the language of water before the end of the day tomorrow, Monday, March 23, 2020.
If you’re doing the #WaterPoemProject with a group, be sure to share or post your rough draft, read other people’s poems, and cheer for their efforts.
Irene Latham’s latest book is Dictionary for a Better World: Poems, Quotes and Anecdotes from A to Z, with Charles Waters, illus. by Mehrdokht Amini, published by Lerner. You can find out more about Irene’s books her website.
#WaterPoemProject Series Posts:
Project Introduction
FAQ
Feedback Models
Prompt 1: Irene Latham
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#WaterPoemProject: FAQ
#WaterPoemProject FAQ
Thanks for visiting the project FAQ. Please post any questions in the comments. I will be adding to the Q&A throughout the project.
For Educators and Adults
Q: How do I find the prompt of the day?
A: Writing prompts from authors will be posted each evening on Laura Shovan’s blog and on social media with the hashtag #WaterPoemProject. Links to every post in this series will be listed and linked at the bottom of each prompt.
Q: I can’t share this with my students right now. Can I use the writing prompts later?
A: Please consider this a resource and use as you see fit. If you’d like to save it for National Poetry Month in April, during an annual poetry unit, or for Poetry Fridays, go for it.
Q: Will adults/the general public be able to comment on children’s poems?
A: My suggestion is that each classroom do this project as a closed group. However, teachers who wanted to share the project and invite adults to comment on kids’ poems could do so through a blog or other platform. If you do make your project viewable by the public, it is important to credit the authors for their writing prompts.
Q: Can I use these writing prompts again in the future?
A: Yes, with one stipulation. Always credit the authors for their writing prompts.
Q: My school is still in session. Can this project be set-up offline?
A: Yes! I recommend dedicating a bulletin board to the #WaterPoemProject. Clear it each morning and encourage students to pin up their new writing over the course of the day. Give students time to read posted writings during the day. They can write their positive comments on sticky notes, sign them, and post them on the poems.
Q: When does the project start?
A: The first prompt will be posted on the evening of Sunday, March 22, 2020. There will be 30 prompts shared by 30 children’s authors and poets and by poetry educators.
For Kids and Poets
Q: Do I have to describe water in my poem?
A: Not necessarily. The prompt of the day might make you think of a happy time, remind you of a song or a person. You’re encouraged to use all of your senses, but what you write is poet’s choice.
Q: Can I share my poem outside of my classroom or group?
A: Of course. It’s your poem.
Q: If the writing prompt includes art or a photograph, can I post or share the image my poem was written about?
A: Each author posting a daily prompt, if it includes an image, should note whether or not we have permission to share the image outside of our group. If permission is given and you post the image to a public forum or on social media, be sure to credit the artist/photographer (if known).
Q: If I really like someone else’s poem posted in the group, can I share it?
A: You must ask the author’s permission first and give credit when you post the poem.
Q: What if I miss a day or two?
A: It’s okay! Write as many days as you are able to. You can always come back later and write in response to any prompts you missed.
Q: What if I want to do this project independently? Do I have to share in a group or class?
A: The writing prompts are available to anyone who wants to use them. The only rule is: If you share, publish, or post a prompt, give credit to the author.
Q: Can adults join this project?
A: Yes. You can follow the prompts for your own writing practice or as an adult writing alongside your children or students.
#WaterPoemProject Series Posts:
Project Introduction
FAQ
Feedback Models
Prompt 1: Irene Latham
Tweet
#WaterPoemProject: Introduction
Dear Educators and Parents,
I am putting together a community poetry project for kids. Adults can play along too. [Note: This is a condensed version of this introduction. To read the full post, please visit the Nerdy Book Club blog.]
I run an annual poetry writing project for adults. For one month, participants receive a daily writing prompt related to a common theme. The goal is to write and share a newly drafted poem with the group every day. It’s a way of practicing writing with others.
With so many schools closed or meeting online, I am adapting this project for kids. And to make it extra special for everyone during this stressful time, I have invited some author and poet friends to create the writing prompts for us!
The theme: WATER
The environment has been on my mind this year. Our oceans and waterways are not only at risk, they affect all aspects of life on this planet.
Water can be:
solid, liquid, gas,
weather,
a photograph,
a favorite place,
home for living things,
in the news,
a hot drink,
a cloud,
etc.
The prompts:
Writing prompts from authors will be posted each evening right here on my blog, beginning Sunday, March 22. Prompts will also be posted across social media with the hashtag #WaterPoemProject.
Posting response poems:
If school is online, use Padlet, Seesaw, Flipgrid or a similar work-sharing platform. Make a separate page for each new prompt. Throughout the day, students can add their poem drafts or videos of themselves reading what they wrote.
Sharing feedback:
Because all of the shared writing is brand new, emphasize encouraging *signed* comments using your preferred platform. Setting expectations for positive feedback is key to a successful community project. For those who post a poem, make a rule of thumb: Read and comment on at least three other poets’ drafts.
Curriculum standards:
Thanks to school librarian Linda Mitchell of Virginia for researching the learning standards related to this project. Linda Mitchell blogs about poetry and being a school librarian at A Word Edgewise.
Linda recommends the #WaterPoemProject for third grade and up because, “Writing Standards for children in third grade switch from learning to write to writing for many purposes. [Below] is Virginia’s third grade standard. These standards repeat in middle and senior level grades with more complexity. But these ideas could be used to support the project in general.”
Grade Three Standards of Learning: 3.9 The student will write for a variety of purposes.
a) Identify the intended audience.
b) Use a variety of prewriting strategies.
c) Write a clear topic sentence focusing on the main idea.
d) Write a paragraph on the same topic.
e) Use strategies for organization of information and elaboration according to the type of writing.
f) Include details that elaborate the main idea.
g) Revise writing for clarity of content using specific vocabulary and information.
Source: Virginia Department of Education, Writing 3.9. “The Standards & SOL-Based Instructional Resources.” VDOE :: The Standards & SOL-Based Instructional Resources, 2010, www.doe.virginia.gov/testing/sol/standards_docs/index.shtml.
Writing and growth mindset:
Over the years, I have come to realize that this project teaches growth mindset. It reminds us that writing and creativity are not always about outcomes (publishing, getting a grade). They are also a practice.
If you write a poem every day for a month, you are going to have some winners and some stinkers! But at the end of the month, there will be a few new pieces that you’d like to revise and continue working on.
Thank you to all of the authors who have donated their time and writing prompts to make this project happen. And thanks to Jay Shovan for providing the project logo!
I look forward to hearing about what your students and children create in response to the #WaterPoemProject.
#WaterPoemProject Series Posts:
Project Introduction
FAQ
Feedback Models
Prompt 1: Irene Latham
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March 19, 2020
Poetry Friday: A Prompt and an Announcement
Michelle Kogan is hosting this week’s Poetry Friday round up at her “blog with a frog.” Join her at the poetry pond!
Happy Poetry Friday, everyone. How are you doing in these times of social distancing and self-quarantines?
I have a DIY writing prompt for educators and parents to share with kids at home today. And I also have a BIG announcement!
Announcement first:
Due to the number of children who are learning at home right now, I have adapted my February Poetry Project for kids! The details will be posted tomorrow (Saturday, March 21) at the Nerdy Book Club website. This year’s theme for the adult poetry project was Water. It was such a rich topic that I decided to use it for young writers too.
But the thing that I’m most excited to share is that some stellar children’s authors, poets, and poetry educators will be in charge of the daily prompts! “Who?!” I can hear you asking. I’m still trying to decide whether to announce names or save the surprise. Hmm…
On to today’s writing prompt. This is one that adults (and kids) can create at home, then mail to a student or friend who is sheltering in place. It is related to the persona poem prompt that I often use in my school poetry workshops.
You can find a full description of the persona poem workshop at Today’s Little Ditty. And I made a video where I talk through this DIY writing prompt, which you can view on Facebook.
Create a postcard. Find an image of an interesting person in a magazine or newspaper. Cut it out and glue or tape it onto a postcard-sized index card. (If you have unused postcards with images of people, that works well too.)
Add a note with a writing prompt. Some examples are: “What is this person’s story? Who do you think she is? What are his hopes and dreams? If they could speak to you right now, what would they say?”
Add a stamp and address to a young writer.
I sent this art postcard (Paul Gauguin, “Woman of the Mango”) to one of my #kidsneedmentors students. My note reads, “How are you? While school is out, I thought you might like to write about this person. Who is she? What do you imagine her story could be?
Given the stress children are experiencing right now, I might not specify that the resulting writing must be a poem. Keep it loose — this is a story starter, a poem starter, a way to get the creative juices flowing.
Sending love out to everyone. Stay in touch!
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March 12, 2020
Celebrating 10 Years of Books — Part 3
Matt Forrest Esenwine is hosting Poetry Friday at Radio, Rhythm & Rhyme.
Happy Poetry Friday, everyone. Despite the social distancing, book festival cancellations, and school closures, I’m glad we can meet online as usual to share our love of poetry.
2020 is an important year for me. Ten years ago, in February 2010, my first book was published. You can read about Mountain, Log, Salt, and Stone (CityLit Press, 2010) in Part 1 of this series.
For the next few weeks, I’m looking back at each of the six books I’ve published in the last ten years — from MLS&S and my latest middle grade novel, A Place at the Table, which comes out in May. From each one, I’ll highlight a poem.
Last time (Part 2 of this series) I talked about Life in Me Like Grass on Fire: Love Poems, the anthology that I edited for Maryland Writers Association.
My favorite cover from my time as editor of LPR.
Following that publication, I became editor of a Maryland-based art and literary journal, Little Patuxent Review. This volunteer position taught me so many things, including how to put together poems, stories, and essays so the order of pieces flow well for the reader.
During my five years on the LPR editorial staff (3 as editor in chief, 2 as poetry editor), I continued to work on book projects.
Book number three was commissioned by the Maryland State Arts Council. Christine Stewart, my then-administrator at MSAC’s Artist-in-Residence program, introduced me to another poet-in-the-schools. Virginia Crawford and I were tasked with creating a book of student poems that came out of poetry residencies.
But Ginny and I wanted to tweak that idea. We invited eight MSAC visiting poets (both of us and six others) to write up their favorite poetry workshops for the book. Each poet would have a chapter with their workshop description, plus a handful of student responses as models.
The idea was that this book, which came out in a limited print run in 2012 (CityLit Press), would be available as a free resource online. Educators could go to the MSAC website, view the PDF of the book, and replicate the workshops in their classrooms.
The book became VOICES FLY: Exercises and Poems from the Maryland State Arts Council Artist-in-Residence Program. I am happy to say that, after a hiatus, it’s available at the MSAC website once again.
I though this would be a perfect time to share VOICES FLY. Many of the writing prompts in this book can easily be shared with students virtually if your school has gone online.
Today, I’m featuring the workshop for our youngest writers, created by poet and performer MiMi Zannino, is for our youngest writers. This is an excerpt from Chapter 1: Word Pond, page 7-17. Response poems by children are at the end of the post.
Fill a Word Pond with Images, Then Go Fish
— MiMi Zannino
Early Elementary and Developing Writers
This lesson creates a whole class Word Poem and provides a Word Pond from which children can “fish” while writing an independent poem.
First, I ask students, “What is the difference between a word and an image?” An image creates a picture in your mind and it awakens your senses. We review the five senses, then discuss whether the word “the” is an image or the word “sunrise” is an image? Younger students are challenged rather than
overwhelmed when I use guided questions to generate poems.
1. Write your favorite season of the year: winter, spring, summer, or fall. (Spell the choices on the board or use other visual tools.)
2. Close your eyes and watch your season come to life, then write the first word or image that comes to your mind on the next line of your paper.
3. Now, close your eyes again and see an image of the last word you wrote—what picture comes to your mind?—write it on the next line.
(Repeat steps two and three about five more times, then guide students to specific images by asking the next set of questions.)
4. Close your eyes and imagine your favorite bird: visualize its colors, feathers, beak, talons. Now write the name of the bird on the next line.
5. Watch the action of the bird and write down one or more verbs or action words that describe the way the bird is moving.
6. Close your eyes and imagine your favorite sea creature. Write it.
7. Watch the action of your sea creature and write a word that describes the way it moves underwater.
8. Close your eyes and imagine your favorite body of water: pond, lake, stream, ocean. Write it.
9. Close your eyes and imagine your favorite time of day: sunrise, noon, sunset, dusk, midnight, twilight, moonlight.
10. Close your eyes and write the name of someone who is with you in the poem: grandma, uncle, cousin, pet.
(Add other “image” prompts appropriate to the grade level, ability level, and connections to curriculum.)
This writing exercise helps children track their thoughts and link one image to the next. It is also helpful for students to form a thought, write it on paper, and create a flow of ideas before they evaporate.
The Word Pond workshop can be connected to a specific part of the school curriculum, such as a science unit on butterfly life cycles. I direct students to images from the content they learned in science, which we list in their word pond: butterfly species, action verbs to describe their motion, plants that butterflies eat and on which they lay eggs, butterfly habitats, colors that
describe their wings, and other images in nature that share the colors of a butterfly.
WORD POND
Monarch
Tiger Swallowtail
Buckeye
flutter
dip
bask
zinnia
milk weed
clover
sunrise
sunset
Students can write these poems in the “voice” of the butterfly. With some groups, I focus the students’ attention on the mood butterflies conjure in our minds. Students will usually include “a calm mood” among others and can use an opening line such as, “When I want to be calm.” Other groups write their butterfly poems as a guessing game.
Younger students often need a handout that guides writing and keeps them on track. This visual aid can be used for all students, or just those who are not yet able to write independently.
Can You Guess? (couplets)
I have two antennae that point _______________.
(choose: east and west OR right and left).
I have four wings the color of ________________
____________________________________.
I have six legs as thin as ___________________
____________________________________
(choose a simile).
I drink nectar from a _______________ blossom.
I _______________ and _________________
(write two action verbs) over the ______________
______________________ (write a habitat).
I whisper to the world: ____________________
(write your message to the world).
I am a _________________________ butterfly.
(Write your butterfly species).
Voice of Butterfly
I am a Silver-spotted Skipper butterfly
fluttering beautifully around sunflowers.
I bask on a rock in the afternoon.
At dusk, I close my eyes and rest.
Josias D. Bordon-Alvarez, Grade 2
Laurel Woods Elementary School, Howard County
Teacher: Maria Pisca, 2011
Voice of a Butterfly
When I want to be calm,
I become a Monarch butterfly.
I flutter my orange and black and
white wings.
I dip my straw into a
milkweed blossom.
I dance around a zinnia.
I lay eggs under a tulip leaf.
I bask on grass under
the sunshine.
Za’Daiya Harrod, Grade 2
Laurel Woods Elementary School, Howard County
Teacher: April Williams, 2011
I hope you enjoyed this sample from VOICES FLY. The book is organized by age group: Workshops for younger students are in the first few chapters. Those appropriate for middle through high school are toward the end of the book.
In the “Celebrating 10 Years of Books” series:
Part 1: Mountain, Log, Salt, and Stone
Part 2: Life in Me Like Grass on Fire: Love Poems
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February 27, 2020
Celebrating 10 Years of Books — Part 2
Karen Edmisten is this week’s Poetry Friday host. She’s celebrating Leap Day with poetry links from around the kidlitosphere.
Happy Poetry Friday and happy almost Leap Day! Do you know any Leap Day babies? How do they celebrate?
2020 marks a huge anniversary for me. Ten years ago this month, my first book was published. You can read about my poetry chapbook, Mountain, Log, Salt, and Stone (CityLit Press, 2010) in Part 1 of this series.
For the next few weeks, I’m looking back at each of the six books I’ve published in the last ten years — from MLS&S and my latest middle grade novel, A Place at the Table, which comes out in May. From each one, I’ll highlight one poem.
A few months after my first poetry chapbook was published, I heard from my friend and former critique group buddy Ally Machate.
Maryland Writers Association, which we were both members of, was planning a poetry anthology. Would I be interested in editing the book? I would be working with Ally and another MWA member, Gary Lester. The two of them would be the publishers, managing the process.
I said yes! MWA was the first writing group I got involved with when my husband and I moved to Maryland. Through this organization, I’d made writing friends, participated in a critique group, and began to feel like a real author. I would be editing the book as a volunteer, but I was thankful for the hands-on experience and the opportunity to give back to MWA.
Ally, Gary, and I decided to give the book a theme: love poems. But this anthology wasn’t limited to traditional romantic verse. Submissions from the MWA membership could cover any aspect of love: love of friends and family, love of art, love as we age, love of nature, etc.
It was important to me that this book to reflect the community feel of MWA, so I asked several poets whose work I admired to captain the different sections. Poets like Ann Bracken, Shirley Brewer, Dennis Kirschbaum, and Fernando Quijano III helped make final selections for these themed chapters, wrote introductions to each section, and consulted with me on the order of pieces.
Available at Amazon and at MWA publications online.
There were certainly ups and downs, but it was a joy to work on this book, which ended up included 100 poems by 50 Maryland authors. For months after the anthology was published by MWA Books (2011), contributors from all around the state hosted group readings.
We got to know each other at these events and began to feel like a tight-knit group. So much so that a few years ago, we had a fifth anniversary reading celebrating Life in Me Like Grass on Fire: Love Poems.
Though I won’t be covering it in this series, editing Life in Me had a profound impact on my life. A local literary journal, Little Patuxent Review, was looking for a new editor — a position I’d end up taking on for the next three-plus years.
Here is one of the poems from Life in Me that has stayed with me. A group of my women poet friends were talking about how important female friendships are in our lives. The poem that I sent them was B. Morrison’s “Christine.”
Christine
By B. Morrison
Forty years of friendship: We cling to our coasts
as white buildings cling to valley walls, connected
by frail walkways. Sometimes we meet: D.C., Princeton,
Seattle, Portland once, at the end of the trail.
Sharing a bottle of wine in our hotel room, talking as we once talked
after curfew, relating stories of friends lost or far away,
who was still married after all this time and what that meant–
we two who would not know. I think, you said,
it’s having someone who remembers the things you do.
Later we whispered between our beds, counting over the dead,
and if life is so short then what dreams must we toss,
like furniture dragged from Boston in covered wagons,
so we can get to the end.
In the morning ice glazed the city, twigs and stones
encased in treacherous shells. We held each other’s hands,
slipping and sliding to the square. We stood and saw
the glitter of the Sunday sun; we breathed the thin sharp air.
The journey has not ended. Ice melts. Stone remains.
You, I said, you do that for me.
Posted with permission of the author. Find more of B. Morrison’s work here.
Celebrating the publication of Life in Me Like Grass on Fire: Love Poems with Gary Lester.
I’d like to dedicate this post to Gary Lester, who passed away unexpectedly in the summer of 2019. He was a kind-hearted man and I’m grateful that I had the chance to work with him on this wonderful book.
Next up, we’ll take a look at the book poet Virginia Crawford and I co-edited for the Maryland State Arts Council, Voices Fly. It’s available as a free PDF at the MSAC website!
In this series:
Celebrating 10 Years of Books, Part 1 (Mountain, Log, Salt, and Stone)
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February 24, 2020
Celebrating 10 Years of Books – Part 1
2020 marks a huge anniversary for me. Ten years ago this month, my first book was published. It was a poetry chapbook, Mountain, Log, Salt, and Stone. (CityLit Press, 2010)
Since then, I’ve gone on to edit and co-edit two more books of poetry for adults, write a verse novel for kids, and a middle grade novel. This May, my sixth book will be published — A Place at the Table, co-authored with my friend Saadia Faruqi.
For the next few weeks, I’m looking back at each book. From each one, I’ll pull a poem to highlight. Thanks for coming on this journey into the past with me!
It was January 1, 2010. My family and I were in an airport, on our way home from a holiday visit to see my parents, when I got a call from Gregg Wilhelm of CityLit Project.
CityLit was starting up a chapbook competition named for poet and Baltimore icon Clarinda Harriss. When Gregg said my book had won, I think I asked him to repeat himself several times. I couldn’t believe it. (Interested in learning more about the Harriss Poetry Prize? Here you go!)
The judge was a wonderful poet named Michael Salcman. He invited me to his house, gave me some tips for revision before the book was typeset, and ended up becoming my mentor and friend.
It was the beginning of an amazing time in my life. Winning the Harriss Poetry Prize opened so many doors for me. It led the Maryland Writers Association to trust me with a big editing project — an anthology of poems written by Maryland authors.
But that was still down the road. In spring of 2010, my family and friends came out to hear me read with Maryland Poet Laureate Stanley Plumly at CityLit Festival. What a thrill! Sadly, Stanley passed away last year. It was an honor to read with him.
I will always be grateful to CityLit Project, Gregg, Michael, and Clarinda for choosing my book for publication. And I’m looking forward to returning to CityLit Festival next month as part of a kidlit panel.
Here is the title poem from Mountain, Log, Salt, Stone.
Mountain, Log, Salt and Stone
The mountain is taller than I,
halfway to the ceiling of our new living room.
This is how carpets are delivered,
piled in long, round rolls.
Put a penny in your mouth and you’ll smell them:
acrid and heavy and new,
sour and exciting.
With my brother, I skate over the wood floor in socks,
try to crash the mountain of carpets.
Climb it and we are king and queen of a log pile.
We cannot fell or budge them.
These logs have no rot,
no rings to mark the fire or flood.
The disasters are all ahead of us.
When Dad is away we eat fast food,
French fries at the new stone hearth.
In two years our brother –
the child my mother is carrying –
will bang his chin on this stone
and nearly sever his tongue with his teeth.
There will be blood on the rug,
the salty taste of it in the air.
But tonight the scent of salt and oil
is good. Furniture is scant.
We gather on the floor around the fire.
The young painter stands by the window.
He has stopped rolling the walls
and joined us for dinner.
My mother is somewhere in the room.
The painter watches her.
He has dark hair and the youthful,
slender form my father has outgrown.
I watch the way his mouth moves
when he looks away from my mother.
The muscles of his back are taut with longing.
Less than ten years in this country,
her accent still fits like an egg in her mouth.
The painter is not the first to mistake
her round, elegant vowels for virtue.
I want her to take offense, to fire him.
But she is as kind and inattentive to him
as she is to anyone. Angry for her sake,
I begin to love my mother
with a viciousness the painter can’t know.
I pull her to sit with us by the fire,
meals spread on our knees,
and let the warm salt dissolve on her tongue,
until it burns there like a pungent kiss.
Next up, we’ll take a look at the anthology Life in Me Like Grass on Fire: Love Poems, and the wonderful sense of community it created for contributors.
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February 20, 2020
Poetry Friday: Facts vs. Opinions vs. Robots
Thanks to Cheriee Weichel for hosting Poetry Friday this week! You’ll find links to book reviews, original poems, and more at her blog, Library Matters.
Hi, Poetry Friday friends. Are you ready for a robot invasion?
I have a new robot friend. Its name is Po-M. Po-M Bot is helping me with this week’s post.
Meet my newest pal, Po-M Bot.
We recently received a book from a robot-loving friend, author-illustrator Michael Rex. It’s called FACTS VS. OPINIONS VS. ROBOTS.
As an educator, I love this book!
One of the poetry workshops I run with young writers is a persona poem. (Instructions on how to run the workshop are at Today’s Little Ditty).
I give each poet an image of a person to start with. Then we use a t-chart and record the FACTS we can observe about the image on one side, and the things we imagine about that person (OPINIONS) on the other.
Mike uses robots to show readers the difference between a fact — “there are three robots on this page” — and an opinion “the red robot is the most fun.” (Po-M Bot agrees with that opinion.)
This is a useful skill for children, especially today. Being able to discern a fact from an opinion sets a foundation for how kids interact with social media, news, and infotainment.
Speaking of facts, I read an article about robots recently and it inspired a poem.
“If You Want a Robot to Learn Better, Be Jerk to It”
Matt Simon, Wired Magazine, 11-6-2019
(Article is here)
Robots aren’t people
their feelings don’t get hurt
when someone takes their ice cream cone
or mocks their new plaid shirt.
Wait … Robots don’t wear plaid.
They’re metal, bolts, and brains
following computer codes.
Who cares if they’re called names?
And they don’t eat ice cream.
Not Mint or Rainbow Cream.
I must have seen an ice cream-eating
plaid-bot in a dream.
Originally, this poem had the robots eating donuts, but after Po-M Bot and I read Mike’s book, we made a small revision.
FACTS VS. OPINIONS VS. ROBOTS is a fun, informative book to add to your elementary classroom or home library. Maybe it will inspire your young poets to write some robot poems of their own.
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February 6, 2020
Poetry Friday: Words of Protest
Laura Purdie Salas is hosting Poetry Friday this week! You’ll find links to poetry posts from around the world at Writing the World for Kids.
This week, I’d like to thank Margarita Engle for her activism and advocacy during her term as Young People’s Poets Laureate and beyond.
I recently read her sweeping history of Latin Americans in what is now the United States, Dreams from Many Rivers: A Hispanic History of the United States Told in Poems. I shared the ARC with my #BookExpedition group.
Dreams from Many Rivers reminds me of S, Margarita’s verse history about the building of the Panama Canal — one of my favorite books by her. Like that novel, Margarita’s new book is narrated in poems by a series of voices, some historical, some invented. But Dreams from Many Rivers is larger and more powerful in scope, covering several hundred years. Margarita turns a poet’s eye on genocide, discrimination, and assimilation, while also giving voice to heroes and pioneers of Hispanic culture.
Thanks to Margarita for giving me permission to share this poem from the book today.
WORDS OF PROTEST
Isabel González
New Jersey, 1935
After the court case
that denied my citizenship
back at the turn of the century,
I decided to fight for the rights
of puertorriqueños
with heartfelt letters
to the New York Times,
writing over and over,
always defending justice,
with words as my only weapons.
Now, when I open the newspaper to read
my own protests, I see shocking articles
about events in California, where children
born American are being deported to Mexico.
What does it take to be fully accepted?
We know the truth — we belong here.
We’re citizens.
By Margarita Engle
Shared with permission of the author.
This poem speaks to me on many levels. It echoes my profound disappointment in the policies of our country’s current leadership. It mirrors conversations and experiences I’ve had as co-author of a book about two families going through the citizenship process (A Place at the Table). And it reminds me to believe in the power of words — of poetry — to make a difference, to change people’s minds and hearts.
Thank you, Margarita.
Read more about civil rights activist Isabel González at History Comes Alive.
Margarita and I talked about Silver People at my old blog, Author Amok. You can read that post here.
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January 30, 2020
Poetry Friday: Michael’s Monsters
Jone Rush MacCulloch is hosting Poetry Friday this week at Deo Writer. Stop by for links to poetry hijinks!
About a week ago, my poet friend Michael Rothenberg messaged me. The message was this:
Art by Michael Rothenberg. Shared with permission.
This looked to me like a monster in need of a poem. So…
Monster Poem #1
After artwork by Michael Rothenberg
A monster bought the house next door.
When it moved in, I wasn’t sure
just how this creature, tall and wide,
would squeeze its blobby form inside.
Its lips went first, then purple hair,
then six pink feet climbed up the stair.
It wore a jumpsuit, denim blue.
I called out, “That looks great on you!”
The monster turned, gave me a nod,
and blew green bubbles – which was odd.
But maybe that’s how monsters say,
“Hello, new friend! I’d like to play.”
Laura Shovan
And then this cutie arrived in my in-box:
Art by Michael Rothenberg. Shared with permission.
How could I resist?
Monster Poem #2
After artwork by Michael Rothenberg
Monsters don’t have birthdays.
I think that is unfair!
And so I planned a party
for our friends in Monster’s lair.
I made him a tiara and
a necklace strung with flags.
All our friends brought tasty food
and gifts in bright pink bags.
Surprise! the guests all shouted
but Monster wasn’t scared.
He laughed and hugged each friend
and said, “I never knew you cared.”
Laura Shovan
Michael and I are both getting a kick out of this collaboration. I hope there will be more monsters and monster poems in our future.
Michael Rothenberg is a poet, artist, and activist. He is founder of 100 Thousand Poets for Change and the Read a Poem to a Child initiative. He’s also my buddy! Read Michael’s bio here.
You can see more of Michael’s (non-monstrous) artwork at the online magazine Otoliths.
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