Jane Yolen's Blog, page 13

July 1-6, 2013:

Channeling my inner Jerry Lee Lewis, I have to say: There’s a whole lot of writin’ goin’ on!

First, I have been working away on the final stuff for Girls’ Bible which Barbara Diamond Goldin, my co-author, has been feeding me. We have gone back and forth on each chapter about four times so far, compromising on some stuff, absolutely agreeing on the rest. I hope the book itself will be deliverable by July 15.

Then there’s the Afterword of about 2500 words for a Signet reprint of Kipling’s Captains Courageous which I hadn’t read since I was a child.

I worked on a picture book that surprised me as I fell asleep about a week and a half ago, called Bird Boy. it kind of crosses the opening of the animated  movie UP! (which I loved) with my long and loving marriage to my late husband, who was also the original Pa in Owl Moon. Probably needs a half- dozen more go-rounds before I am ready to send it to my agent.

Poems, too, one or more a day. Here are two of the latest, ones I quite like:

 Doorway



“This is a doorway; if you’re lucky, you go through it

as a child, aurally, before you can read, and if you are

very lucky, you become a free citizen of an ancient

republic and can come and go as you please.”

–Sara Maitland



There is a knob, of oak

or ceramic if you must;

a latch of bronze, never iron

for it would burn a fairy hand;

a golden key hidden behind the ivy

or under the gnome-shaped rock.

Grasp it firmly, or it will bite,

keys hate the sweaty palm,

the half-attempt at poking

through the waiting keyhole,

those heartless and artless tries.

The magic words begin:

Once–and the door itself trembles.

Upon–there is a puff of white smoke.

A–take a breath, for you will need it.

Time–which is all time and no time at all

for the door has sighed open

and all of the world awaits within.

© 2013 Jane Yolen all rights reserved

 

July 4 Celebration

We remember, oh we remember,

mustering the underlings,

mastering the overlords,

compromising the constitution,

comprising a nation

stating the obvious,

mis-stating the devious.

 

And here we are, celebrating it all

by blowing things up

year

after year

after year,

after

year.

©2013 Jane Yolen, all rights reserved

Also I sold a new middle grade novel with religious elements to Zondervan Kids (A Plague of Unicorns), several poems to Asimov’s, and managed to squeeze in hilarious and gossipy Afternoon Tea with friends Janie and Pam on a glorious summer day in a formal garden; tea and scones with one of my poetry editors where we discussed poetry, publishing events, and his upcoming Viva; dinner with friend Elaine at which she told me some wonderful but surprising news; visited the local Farmer’s Market, and managed to help stave off some terrible misinformation that someone had stated as fact on one children’s book listserve, making me feel a bit of a cyber hero. (Not easy for someone who is basically a Luddite!)

More anon.

© 2013 Jane Yolen all rights reserved

 

 

June 17-June 30, 2013:

Who knew Scotland could be so glorious? Two solid weeks of sunshine. One rainy midnight. Perhaps, I began to muse, I turned right when I should have turned left, and have ended up in Spain. Ah, but they speak such good English here!

I have used the time wisely–writing a lot, weeding the garden, seeing movies, going to hear a medieval opera in which my cello-playing friend Claire played in the baroque orchestra, wrote some more and some more and some more. Went antiquing with friend Debbie (scored an Arts&Crafts box for the house and some presents for others); went around the St Andrews garden scheme with friend Christine.

But mostly I wrote.

And what am I working on? As usual, a variety of things: fixing a HUGE sagging middle in the second book of the SEELIE WARS trilogy with Adam; worked on the first book of a graphic novel series (also with Adam) called STONE COLD: Hounds of Hell; worked on several parts of THE GIRLS’ BIBLE with Barbara Goldin; revised the revisions of  NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC’S ANIMAL STORIES book with all three of my kids. Backed and forthed with J. Patrick Lewis on a proposal for a second LAST LAUGHS book. Revised my poems (while waiting on Rebecca Dotlich’s poem) for a new book proposal called THE TEAPOT GOSSIP. Managed a proposal for a new BAD GIRLS type book (with Heidi) for Charlesbridge so fingers crossed there as well.Of course, the problem with working with others, is I get frustrated when they are not as fast as I am.

So I worked on some new stuff of my own, a picture book called BIRD BOY and another picture book called WILD IN THE CITY but both are pretty saggy in the middle so slow going there.

Wrote a lot of poetry–for my now 260+ subscribers to the daily poems, and reworking two major adult poetry books. (Well, major for me, not for anyone else.) THE BLOODY TIDE political poems for HolyCow!–mostly titivating and moving poems around. And a book of poems about the writing that began life as THE BLUE LINE, morphed into THE TREES COMMIT, took a side jaunt as SISTER COYOTE’S FIELD GUIDE TO THE WRITING LIFE and seems to have found its voice as SISTER FOX’S FIELD GUIDE TO THE WRITING LIFE: Poems About Being A Writer.  About fifty poems in each book. Both editors–Jim Perlman and John Patrick Pazdziora have been incredibly attentive and helpful as I flap about trying to write the poems and then write them better and then fall about in passionate fits trying to make them better still or move or remove them or adding new material. I can hear them muttering to themselves, “Finish, damn you!” but both of them are just plain too nice to say it aloud.

Saw the first glorious full color picture for THE STRANDED WHALE as well as the dummy. Candlewick will be bringing this out, I assume ither late 2014, or early 2015.

And saw the book dummy for a proposal for a book I wrote, HOW TO TAKE THREE TROLLS TO TEA with pictures by Tara Chang. And a couple of other projects are moving closer to being contracted for (I’m looking at you, Bonnie V and Yolanda!)

More anon.

 

Interstitial Moment: Constantly Re-inventing

This is an updated repub:

People are always surprised at how much I write. They think I am constantly inventing. What they don’t seem to notice, though, is that what I am constantly inventing is myself as a writer.

By this I mean it is difficult to pigeonhole me. Am I a picture book writer, a fantasy writer, an historical fiction writer, a poet, a music book writer, a writer of nonfiction, a writer of pedagogical books?

Yes. I. Am.

I used to tell people that I had written everything but cookbooks, sports books, and hard science. And then I wrote FAIRY TALE FEASTS with my daughter, a cookbook based on fairy tales, and MOON BALL about a boy who learns how to finally hit a ball in a dream game with the All Stars who are actual stars. And having broken those barriers once, I did it again, writing JEWISH FAIRY TALE FEASTS with my daughter, and ALL STAR: The story of Honus Wagner. But I haven’t written hard science yet, though much of my nonfiction and a lot of my poetry is about natural science.

It is the very act of writing lots of different books that have done two very important things to my writing life. The first is that I am never bored, but constantly inspired. And secondly, this has consistently energized a writing life of fifty years.

Let me explain. . .

I often say that the reason I write in so many different genres is that I have a low threshold of boredom. And that is an amusing way of telling people that if I really wanted to repeat and repeat myself, I would have taken a job in a factory. At least then I would have been assured of a regular paycheck. I know some authors are comfortable doing the same book or series over and over. Or the same genre. And publishers will tell you—more or less accurately—that this is the way to build a dedicated readership. But it is not for me. I love to try new and difficult things. Learning new things is a way of keeping young. The latest for me is the graphic novel. The learning curve alone was steep, but now I am working on my fourth one and soon it may be time to try something else. An opera? Maybe. A full Broadway musical? Probably not. A major motion picture? Not sure I have the chops for that. But I never ever say never.

Now let me walk you through the second—how writing in a dozen or more different genres has kept my writing career alive for well over half my life. It may be helpful to other writers to know that. As an editor and a writer, I have seen too many really good writers flounder when the genre they love and have been successful in—be it sweet sixteen books or gentle/quiet picture books, kids horror novels or westerns—have died the True Death. Yes, occasionally these genres get resurrected. Fantasy was declared dead a year or two before Harry Potter, by foolish, cynical book folks. Now it rules the YA and middle grade lists. Historical fiction for both children and adults seems to go in seven-to-ten year cycles. Books for boys get pumped up every five years or so. Multicultural, multi-racial books get vitamins shots every now and again.  HEATHER HAS TWO MOMMIES began the gay liberation of children’s books though gay authors and illustrators have been the backbone of children’s books for ages, the authors writing bestselling books with no visible out gay content, like WHERE THE WILD THINGS ARE and GEORGE AND MARTHA and HARRIET THE SPY. Well, not visible to the ordinary eye at least.

But when an author is incapable of adapting to the changing faddish genres, when they are flummoxed by new ideas or new delivery systems, when they cannot write in more than one style or other than one type of book, they may have a career that can be measured in mayfly days or against the short vocation of a ballet dancer.

Without meaning to, I dodged that bullet from the start. My first five books included a nonfiction book about lady pirates, a rhymed concept picture book, a tongue-in-cheek fairy tale, and a pun-filled picture book about a little witch who could do no magic. Book number five was a realistic novel about a black child from the ghetto sent to spend the summer with a Quaker farm family. Along the way he rescues a horse bound for the glue factory. And as I began, so I have kept on, until in 50 years (yes, this year is my 50th continuous year in publishing) I have published 335 books, but who’s counting?

The moral of this tale? Reinventing oneself as a writer is (at least for me) the only way to go. It keeps the brain spinning with fascinating forays into unexplored genres. It means finding new ways to say old things and old ways to say new things. What I lose in dedicated fandom, I more than make up in longevity and introducing my readers to a backlist that they can grow up with, from baby books like MOUSE’S BIRTHDAY and HOW DO DINOSAURS SAY GOODNIGHT, to more sophisticated picture books like OWL MOON and MY UNCLE EMILY to chapter books like WIZARD’S HALL and on to YA books like THE DEVIL’S ARITHMETIC, BRIAR ROSE, GIRL IN A CAGE, and SWORD OF THE RIGHTFUL KING, and SNOW IN SUMMER OR CURSE OF THE THIRTEENTH FEY.

A reader can even go with me into adult books.

And what a time, what a glorious time, I have had writing them all. Every single one of them. Even the ones that haven’t sold yet, and those that may never sell in my lifetime. Because I have grown with the writing; reinvented and reinvigorated my mind, my heart, and kept myself young. Seventy-four years young. . .and still counting.

 

Interstitial Moment:

Centrum Wisdom

Years ago, I was teaching at Centrum Writer’s Conference in Port Townsend, WA. The speakers were amazing, the students ate it all up which was just as well since the food was incredibly bad.  Everyone complained. Finally the head cook (I hesitate to call him a chef) remarked grumpily to us, “You writers. . .you publish one book and you think you’re a regular Van Gogh.”

Well, what he said went viral in the only way something could in those days. Everyone talked about it, wrote about in their (actual) journals, and in their poems, stories, etc. My class even made me a broadside illustrated with a painting of my cottage. When I got home I had it framed.

A Regular Van Gogh. Alas, how prophetic now that poor (in all senses of the word) cook was. What with e-books and self-publishing and celebrity children’s books, there are a lot of folks out there who think that once they self-publish, they are a Regular VGs.

What we are missing, in our rush to democratize the arts,to make sure everyone gets an equal chance at foisting their prose or their daubs or the off-key karaoke onto the international stage is the sense of the hard work involved, the endless restructuring, reinvention, re-visioning. No one in the arts simply does something once. Though it may look easy, we who paint, write, dance, sing spend hours exercising the muscles of our craft.

Stand in the wings—as I did as a child watching the Balanchine dancers come off stage. From the audience they looked as if they floated through the air effortlessly spinning, leaping, launching themselves at a partner. But in the wings, when Melissa Hayden—who had just danced so gloriously—was away from the lights and passing me in the wings, she was red-faced, sweaty, huffing. Then she took a deep  breath, squared her shoulders, and leaped back onto the stage.

I never forgot that. Or that before her performance she—along with the rest of the NY C ballet company, had taken a barre class stretching and straining and warming their muscles so that they could go out and make it all look easy..

Writers do the same. We stretch. We strain, We come out of a chapter red-faced, huffing, square our shoulders, and get down to the next chapter. And the next.

Put bluntly, the Arts are not for wimps.

 

June 1-June 16, 2013:

So after a wonderful graduation party for Maddison–90 people, both inside and outside folk at Heidi’s house, lots of food, friends, Adam and Karl on guitars, no bears (more on bears later) and a soccer game in which Adam tried to keep up with high school and college players and ended up injuring his ankle. Oh, and two house-fulls of overnight guests (Heidi’s and mine). After which I made my way to New York.

There I visited my agent to discuss lots of things like books, e-books, foreign rights, movie deals, etc. And no there was no real news but lots of discussions. I stayed over at my friends Delia and Ellen’s apartment uptown.

And then after two days of this, I took the train to Newark Airport and flew off overnight to Scotland with nary a bump, thump, or lump. And no sleep either, oh well.

Picked up as usual by the ever-wonderful Deborah Turner Harris and after a long nap, managed to get to their house with a bottle of wine for dinner and a natter.

For some reason it took me nearly a week to recover from jetlag. But I also in the first week and a half have managed to write a lot of poetry, revise all my new poetry books, meet for lunch with my Scottish (well he’s American but living in St A) poetry editor, had tea with Christine Crow and her family, went with friend Marianna to Crail Open Studios where I found a simply wonderful children’s book illustrator and started a book for her.

I have also had lunch with Janie Douglas (we bumped into one another at the bank), as well as got an impromptu hug from my wonderful gardener Mr McGregor (yes, a children’s book writer with a gardener name Mr. McGregor, thank you Beatrix Potter!), had another old friend, Jack BEck, Scottish folk singer and book story owner with his lovely wife Wendy Welch, came over for te. I went for a day into Edinburgh for some shopping and tea with an old friend, and started rewriting the first half of the new fantasy novel with Adam because it is seriously sagging. Oh–and worked away like two friendly  beavers with Barbara Diamond Goldin on our GIRLS’ BIBLE. And sent some proposals out for new books. And, and, and, and.

Yes I am busy. Yawning. Productive. Yawning. Traveling. Yawning. Oh and did I mention yawning?

And I promised bears. Well, Heidi took a picture of one in her back yard. Neighbors in Massachusetts all reported the bear (or bears) heading through their yards as well. And Heidi took pictures of a coyote behind her house in the tall grass, too. That’s one busy yard, my darling daughter. It’s much tamer here in St. Andrews.

Mini-Essay:

 

 

 

The Anatomy of a Poem

I thought I would walk you through my process of writing a poem. Though each poem carves its own way, they all have some similarities in the revision process, and—as I often quote (though I thought for years it was Ciardi who said it but found out last year from a a friend that it was Ciardi channeling Valery) “A poem is never finished, it’s abandoned.”

Well, I haven’t abandoned this one. . .yet.

This particular poem began with a picture posted on Terri Windling’s blog Myth and Moor. The picture is of a gnarled old tree in Devon, think Arthur Rackham, think every spooky, twisted Ent you have ever envisioned.

And these lines came to me:

 

The tree is the mystery,

its roots knotted

as surely as love.

 

I thought I was going to write a whole poem about that tree. The next three lines–about the leaves hanging heavily and some awful metaphor about fruits of ardor or some such–were so quickly erased, I have only a vague memory of how bad they were.

Then the poem took off in its own direction. They do that, you know.

 

The same blog entry featured Terri’s dog, a lovely and friendly female black lab mix named Tilly, which is why (I think) the poem ends the way it does.

As soon as I gave it a title, the rest came out in a rush.

At first I wrote the whole thing without any stanza breaks, possibly because the time I would have had to take making the spaces was possibly the sinkhole that would eat the poem before I got it down paper. When I am writing in a white hot heat, I rarely remember much of what I have just written. And whole it always needs careful pruning after, there is usually some good stuff I’d hate to lose.

And then I let it sit for several hours.

Some poems sit half-baked for days, weeks, months. Some are done and dusted in the first rush of poetics. Some never get out of the starting gate. If this essay were a poem and not a journal entry, I would never let this many unattached metaphors live in the same place. But I digress.

In the next round, I began to break the lines apart. Why? Because with that many discrete metaphors, each needed breathing space. Separating them helped emphasize them individually.

It’s easy enough to skip lines when reading prose. When reading poetry, skipping can be easier. The lines are shorter, faster to race across. Dense poetry without line breaks positively invites skipping. But a poet doesn’t break lines without good reason. My reason was that I was offering a tasting menu to my readers, andI needed to encourage them to get to the final, longer, key stanza, the one that tells the reader what the entire poem has been about. The shorter early pieces are discrete, pretty, but we are heading for the punchline, the pinchline, the one that wakens you into the actual dream.

And so I got this:

 

The Mystery

The tree is the mystery,

its roots knotted

as surely as love.

 

The spring flowers are the mystery,

without calendar or clock

they announce the season.

 

The rill is the mystery,

holding trout in its deepest,

darkest heart.

 

The fern is the mystery,

knowing how to uncurl

with no teacher but the sun.

 

The path is a mystery,

worn down by many feet

yet still willing to support them.

 

The gate is no mystery at all

for we have put it there

to signal that house is near,

though dog has but to lift his snout

to know we are already home.

 

 

I posted it on Terri’s blog. Then I let it sit again until it was time.

Time?

It was time to read it aloud again, not once but several times through, testing each small stanza with a combination of logic (Is the true to the nature I am describing? Is it leading me in the direction I want to go? Is it the way the poem wants to go? Are those two roads compatible? Can I cut any words out? )

Eventually I got here:

 

The Mystery

 

The tree is the mystery,

its roots knotted

as surely as love.

 

The spring flowers are the mystery,

without calendar or clock

they announce the season.

 

The pond is the mystery,

holding trout in its deepest,

darkest heart.

 

The fern is the mystery,

knowing how to uncurl

with no teacher but the sun.

 

The path is the mystery,

worn down by many feet

yet still willing to support them.

 

The gate. . .

                  the gate is no mystery at all

for we have put it there

to signal that house is near,

 

though dog has but to lift his snout

to know we are already home.

 

All poems ©2013 Jane Yolen all rights reserved

 

Let me tell you about the changes and why. Or at least as much of the why as I know. The rest is the true Mystery. And I would have to kill you if I told you! (Actually, a lot about writing a poem is a mystery to the poet as well.)

As you can see, much stayed the same, though I changed the mystery to a mystery over and over again, re-reading it both ways in silence and aloud until I was sure I wanted it to be the. It needed to be particular, not general, a singularity not one of many mysteries.

I decided while rill is a prettier word, and a bit old-fashioned which suits the idea of the poem’s numinous reach, trout really don’t hide in rills which are the fast-running part of a river, but in the hidden places of pools and ponds. And I am still actually wrestling with whether to use pool or pond. Pool/holding have a nice slanting rhyme thing working for them but pond is bigger in meaning. And I am also not sure about deepest, darkest which may be too over-used and too childlike (I am a children’s book writer after all!) for what I am doing here.

And as you can see, I changed the form of the final lines to signal how different they are from what came before. Perhaps I’ve done too much breaking apart, and I’m still wrestling with that as well. But you may find this last interesting or amusing, or both at once: I originally ended that section with the dog lifting his nose, not his snout. Eventually, I decided that nose was too refined and too human-like and I wanted him to be all animal, sniffing out the meaning of home faster than we humans who—after all—have to set a gate there to remind ourselves that we have come home.

This second version (though it is possibly about an eighth version) is the one I sent out to my daily poetry subscribers. Still, it’s clear to me I’m not yet done with this poem. But I haven’t abandoned it.

 

 

May 20-May 31, 2013

Busy, busy, Ms. Yolen. Several strands of busy–meetings, writings, eatings, graduations leading to parties. Whew!

Meetings: my critique group met once, the illustratorss’ group met once (at my house, which meant cleaning up and feeding the multitudes).

Eatings: had dinner with one of the children’s writers/illustrators small group; lunch with Ralph Masiello, tea with the DiTerlizzi crew, dinner with a video crew (more about that in next paragraph)m then son Adam arrived and family dinner ahead of Maddison’s graduation party.

Video crew hired by Open Roads publication, an e-book company producing 10 of my out of print books with additional materials (including said video.) Dinner when the crew (two of them, Kai and Alex) arrived, then one full day and one not quite so full day of shooting which included hours of interview, then hours of pick-up shots such as a gorgeous long shot from the top of Mount Sugarloaf to show a view over the Pioneer Valley where I live, me walking through the Owl Moon woods and up the stone path to my house, me draped over David’s tombstone, and the like.

Writing: LOTS of work. Mostly revisions of poems for GRUMBLES FROM THE TOWN and for a new book possibly called THE TEAPOT GOSSIPS, both with Rebecca Dotlich. New poems (possibly) for adult poetry books, CRONE and MAIDEN. Getting a package of designer spreads for two proposals–ARCH:  A SPAN OF FOOT POEMS and LUNCH BUNCH  poems about how animals eat. I wrote the chapters on Naomi/Ruth and Esther for the book GIRLS’ BIBLE (provisional title) that Barbara Diamond Goldin and I are writing, then revised both of them heavily after getting her feedback. Discussed some neecessary revision and forward motion of the second Seelie Wars book (still untitled) with Adam. Worked on lists of things to discuss with agents when I am in New York.

The rest of the two weeks were down to Maddison’s Baccalaureate, her actual graduation (she is a Cum Laude scholar) and then her party preps. That party and all my own preps for going off to Scotland in the next journal entry. Hard to write in the flurry of such prep since none of it can be put off!

Here’s a new poem (I  have still kept up my one-a-day regime. This one is from May 23:

 

How to Know Things

 

“You know only what your heart allows you to know.” 
–Amy Tan (Saving Fish from Drowning 
)
 
Look sideways, at shadows, sometimes aura
tells more than the center can.

Look backwards where his(story) lies.

Look slantwise where all the truth is told, not once
but many times.

Look at the circuit, never the straight line.
Poems always takes the circuitous path.

Look at the earth rather than the sky.
Birds leave passage in dust not on clouds.

Trust your heart but only after your ears, your eyes
have done the Sherlock thing.
The heart only allows you to know
what it wants, not what is, nor what will be.

©2013 Jane Yolen all rights reserved

 

And this one is from May 26:

 

Graduation Day

 

There is nothing gradual about this,

though we have known it was coming,

prepared for years, and yet like death

it surprises us.

We speak in aphorisms

about next steps, life’s openings,

the roads taken and not taken,

but all the while the heart cries silently:

Stop, stay, never leave, only because

we are the ones stopping, staying,

we are the ones who are left.

I do not

remember such drama with my own

parents who drove me to college

and dropped me there without a blink, fleeing

back with their remaining child who had

another four years to go.

I do not

remember such drama with my own

children, as we packed their trunks

with their dreams, our hopes, extra

underwear, a hundred dollar bill neatly

tucked out of sight.

So why this over-

whelming grief, crushing regret

for the grandchild who has already

cut the strings, set the sights, shown us

the little deaths between her living

and our lives.

Oh–that!

 

© 2013 Jane Yolen all rights reserved

May 17-May 19, 2013

I promised, so here it is.

On the 17th, a dozen or more children’s book authors and illustrators donated our time to speak to kids at the Newtown, Ct. schools. I was in a middle school where I presented to two assemblies of eighth graders. At the same school was Tony diTerlizzi. Around the town were other authors, such as Neil Gaiman, John Sciezka, David Shannon, Mo Willems, Jerry Pinkey, Christopher Paolini and the like.

We were there in support of both the children and the teachers/librarians who were still shell-shocked and exhausted from sorrow, fear, worry. I like to think that we lightened their burden or at least shed a little light into some of the dark corners. It was an incredibly moving experience.

I’d driven down with Angela diTerlizzi, and stayed overnight with Bruce Degan and his lovely wife. Bruce and I had done nine books together, including the Commander Toad series. Old friends, the three of us talked long into the night.

The next day, the 18th, was all about ballet. Granddaughter Maddison was in three ballets, two performances, and as a graduating senior–one of  five at the ballet school–it meant there wasn’t a dry eye in our row.

The 19th it was all about Maddison’s senior prom, five of her BFFs were over to get makeup done, hair done, and then the show-off of all their finery. Maddison looked like a ’40s film star which my late husband, a huge Veronica Lake fan, would have loved.

 

So did I have time for any writing? So glad you asked.***I managed about seven adult poems, in various stages of revision.

***Revised the chapter on Esther for a book about Biblical women with Barbara Goldin

***Revised Adam’s chapter for our second book (not titled yet) in the Seelie Wars trilogy

***wrote a bunch of children’s verses for a project with the Springfield Symphony

And boy! are my wings tired.

 

March late, 2013-May 18, 2013

There is no way, of course, to catch up on all that has happened in the past two months. Suffice to say lots of poems were written; a trilogy (graphic novel, noir mystery, Edinburgh 1930′s, gargoyle playing a Nero Wolf role) with son Adam was sold; I traveled a lot, four ecosystems later I was so filled with sinus allergies I couldn’t breath; doctor (against my better judgement and my expressed opinion) put me on Crestor which nearly killed me (only slight exaggeration) so I stopped the pills and changed doctors; however as you will have noticed,  I am still here to tell the tale.

Only I haven’t been telling you the tale because. . .because. . .Well, yes, I have been busy. Yes, I have been traveling. Yes I have been sick.

But yes, I have ignored you, dear readers. I would beg your indulgence but I don’t deserve you.

Yesterday, with a lot of good children’s book author and illustrators (like Tony deTerlizzi, David Shannon, Mo Willems,  Brian Selznick, John Sciezka, Jerry Pinkney, Dan Yaccarino, others) I spoke to kids at the various Newtown Ct schools for free. We were trying to bring hope, healing to the kids and their teachers. I think we helped some. It was an emotional experience and we will all be processing it for some time. I am wiped out.

So know I have been embarrassed by the time that passed without a journal entry. I actually lost the link for a while, but now  I have–with the help of my son Adam who is my websmaster–reconstructed it again. I will be off in two weeks to Scotland where I will have three months to try and rebuild our wonderful connection, writer to reader again. Trust me, I will not be so silent again.

I have missed you, too!

I Forgot the Poems, So Here They Are:

Another Spring: A Pantoume

 

If I never see another spring–

the green thrusts of daffodils,

the violin curl of ferns–

I will still remember them.

 

The green thrusts of daffodils,

the scatter of crocuses.

I will still remember them

when I am under earth.

 

The scatter of crocuses,

like children in a playground,

when I am under earth

will still look the same:

 

like children in a playground.

The violin curl of ferns

will still look the same

(even if I never see another spring).

 

©2013 Jane Yolen all rights reserved

 

 

Intimations of Spring

 

Yes, snow blankets meadows.

Yes, the wind is chill.

Yes, branches are all bare of buds.

And still. . .and still. . .

 

Color tinges twigs,

birds chorus at the dawn,

the sun is rising early,

my heart goes on.

 

©2013  Jane Yolen all rights reserved

 

The Coral Lesson

The coral does

its sexy dance

when moonbeams lead it

to romance.

 

In this short poem

there is a moral:

be as receptive

as the coral.

 

©2013 JAne Yolen all rights reserved