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Headed to the Kerlan
One of the fun things to come out of attending ALA in Chicago last month was an invitation to visit the Kerlan Collection here in Minneapolis and a request for me to donate my rough drafts, revisions, etc., of Stampede. “The Kerlan Collection at the University of Minnesota is one of the world’s great children’s
Poetry Friday: Holding Hands with Lee Bennett Hopkins and Rebecca Kai Dotlich
Did you see the lovely essay in the new SCBWI Bulletin by Diane L. Burns about shaking hands with someone who shook the hand of…It reminded me of this wonderful experience I just had of the chain of encouragement and joy poets build. When I saw poet Tracie Vaughn Zimmer in May, she related
Cooking Up Recipe Poems (2 Original Poems)
Shhh! Don’t tell the Poetry Friday police! I’m posting a day early because I leave tomorrow morning at 5 a.m. for the airport to head to Chicago for ALA. This week’s Poetry Stretch at The Miss Rumphius Effect is all about recipe poems. On Monday and Tuesday, I wrote recipe poems for my daily poems.
Poetry Friday: Dry Sea Skin and The Best Place to Be… (2 original poems)
Summer is my least creative time of year, so I’ve been extra grateful for the Poetry Stretch challenges at The Miss Rumphius Effect recently. This week’s challenge was to write an acrostic (where the first letter of each line forms a word when you read down the left margin of the poem). It’s one of
Poetry Stretch: Obsession, by Prince Charming
This week’s Poetry Stretch over at Miss Rumphius Effect is about fairy tales. My WIP is actually a collection of poems all with a certain hook and related to fairy tales, but I can’t share one of those here. So here’s a different one, for an older teen audience. Obsession by Prince Charming I thought
Quotation Motvation: Unspoken Words
The role of a writer is not to say what we all can say, but what we are unable to say. –Anaïs Nin This quote caught my eye, since in my personal life lately, I’m struggling with things said and unsaid. When I read the quotation, I initially thought the ending was going to be,
Mail Call!
I got the nicest surprise in the mail last week–a big envelope full of thank you cards for a school visit I did recently! In April, I did two weeks’ worth of school visits in southwestern Minnesota (see a 30-second video here). My very last school of that trip was Reede Gray Elementary, where they
Plagiarism Made My Day
OK, not the plagiarism part, but an effect of it. Just recently, my husband was asking if I worry about people taking poems I post online and posting them elsewhere or publishing them as their own. The reality of that crosses my mind occasionally, but I try not to focus on that because I don’t
Quotation Motivation: Fear of Being Wrong
I often use quotations specific to poetry, but I wanted to cast a wider net today. So where did I go to find a great quotation? To Susan Taylor Brown’s collection of quotations, of course. “To live a creative life, we must lose our fear of being wrong.” — Joseph Chilton Pearce This is a
Poetry Favorite: A Few of My Favorite (B) Things! (Original Poem)
A couple of weeks ago, Tricia at The Miss Rumphius Effect participated in a challenge and shared her favorite D things, a letter assigned randomly to her by Julie Larios, who had praised P. Well, cool. I emailed Tricia to get a letter, and she sent me B. I started listing all the things
First Fan Mail
On my recent school visits, a student raised his hand and asked if I got lots of fan mail. I almost choked on my microphone. Um, no. I’ve gotten some nice emails from teachers telling me how much their kids liked a certain book or poem or something, but fan mail from kids themselves? Hardly.
Quotation Motivation: I Never Thought of It Like That
“Reading poetry to strangers is a very intimate act. It’s kind of like a poetic lap dance.” –Billeh Nickerson OK, I’ve gotten a little bit better at reading my poetry aloud in a teaching context. At young authors conferences or school visits, I share my poems and talk about the process, and that’s all good.
Poetry Friday: Bling (The Killers)
We went to a Killers concert a couple of weeks ago, and I thought I’d share some lyrics for Poetry Friday. This is the opening of “Bling,” (lyrics, I assume, by Brandon Flowers, but I can’t find proper credit on their site). “Bling (Confession Of A King)” When I offer you survival, You say it’s
Quotation Motivation: Open to the Sky
“A poem is a cup of words open to the sky and wind in a bucket.” –Naomi Shihab Nye, The Poetry Paper, no. 3, 2006 I love this definition of a poem. And today, Inauguration Day, something about it fills me with hope. I went looking for a quotation about hope this morning, actually, but
Do Nothing in 2009
OK, I finally have a theme. I’ve had 2009 goal lists done for a while now, but no theme. Drum roll, please. Ba-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-dum…My 2009 theme is DO NOTHINGI am not a do-nothing kind of person. I’m always multi-tasking, and while this makes me efficient, I think I’m missing out on some important parts of life.
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Are You Looking For?
Go to my Poetry page for:
- National Poetry Month projects through the years
- Small Reads Roundups (poems grouped by topic)
- Introductions to several favorite poetry forms