They say middle schoolers are hard to figure out – well, that is certainly true of my 12-year-old son, who claims he doesn’t like poetry even though he writes really good poetry. (huh??)
I’ve shared a few of his poems here over the past few months, like THIS ONE and THIS ONE. Well, he’s back with another, and I told him I’d be sure to share it with my blog readers.
Keep in mind, he’s not writing these as part of his schoolwork – he’s writing these in his spare time, yet is adamant he’s not a fan of poetry. Personally, I don’t care if he’s unsure of his opinion, I’m just glad to see him writing it and enjoying the process!
And yes, he does love all of those – he’s a budding conservationist, whose heroes are Steve Irwin and David Attenborough! So don’t be surprised if you see him hosting a show on Animal Planet one of these days.
Speaking of poetry and writing, I had a great time this past weekend at MainStreet BookEnds, a local independent bookstore in New Hampshire! My friend and neighbor David Elliott was there chatting and signing books during the morning, and then I stopped by and did the same for another couple of hours.
Me, bookstore owner Katharine Nevins, and David Elliott
This is the store that offers personally-signed copies of all of my books – so if you go online to place an order, you can leave a note requesting the book be signed, and to whom. The owner will send me an email letting me know, I’ll zip down to the store and sign it, and it’s in the mail in about 24 hours or less! How’s that for service??
In picture book news…
e-ARCs have arrived!
These are electronic Advance Review Copies, which publishers use to pre-promote the book to potential buyers, and are about as close to final proofs as you can get before they head off to production. I can only share one spread here, but I can’t wait for you to see the entire book:
The book is my first-ever creative nonfiction book to be published, so I’m eager for people to read it – but also anxious about what they’ll think! Personally, I love the concept (which was my editor’s idea), I love the structure and tone (my idea), and I love Andre Ceolin’s illustrations (his idea, natch).
Have a wonderful weekend! And since today is Poetry Friday, I hope you’ll check out all the poetry links and fun at Teaching Authors, where Carmela is hosting the complete roundup with STEAM-Powered Poetry and an original poem from a brand-new anthology.
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Be sure to check out all the cool new picture books arriving this year from my PB22Peekaboo partners!
Create an account to add books to wishlists and be notified of special deals and dates…create custom collections…and discover and follow your favorite authors & illustrators!
I continue adding to my “Wit & Wordplay” videos ! These videos were created for parents and educators (along with their kids) to learn how to write poetry, appreciate it, and have fun with it. From alliteration and iambs to free verse and spine poetry, I’m pretty sure there’s something in these videos you’ll find surprising! You can view them all on my YouTube channel, and if you have young kids looking for something to keep busy with, I also have several downloadable activity sheets at my website.
Ordering personalized signed copies online? Oh, yes, you can!
You can purchase personally-signed copies of Flashlight Night, (Astra Young Readers, 2017), Don’t Ask a Dinosaur (Pow! Kids Books, 2018), and nearly EVERY book or anthology I’ve been part of!
Click any of the covers below to order!
Available now!
Just click the cover of whichever book you want and send a comment to the good folks at MainStreet BookEnds in Warner, NH requesting my signature and to whom I should make it out. (alternatively, you can log onto my website and do the same thing) They’ll contact me, I’ll stop by and sign it, and then they’ll ship it! (Plus, you’ll be supporting your local bookseller – and won’t that make you feel good?)
Did you like this post? Find something interesting elsewhere in this blog? I really won’t mind at all if you feel compelled to share it with your friends and followers!
To keep abreast of all my posts, please consider subscribing via the links up there on the right! (I usually only post once or twice a week – usually Tues. and Fri. – so you won’t be inundated with emails every day) . Also feel free to visit my voiceover website HERE, and you can also follow me via Twitter , Facebook, Instagram, Pinterest, and SoundCloud!
Last month we celebrated National Poetry Month with a ton of original poems inspired by my writing prompt, #PoetryCUBED – concluding last week with my own poem, “Spring.”
So today, I thought I would celebrate the birthday of a famous Scottish poet few people in the U.S. seem to know: Kathleen Jamie.
Now, granted, my Scottish heritage does make me a bit biased when it comes to European poetry, but Kathleen really is an amazing wordsmith who combines the imagery of Sandburg with the allegorical style of Frost. If you’ve not heard of her, you should:
.
Before the Wind
If I’m to happen upon the hill where cherries grow wild it better be soon, or the yellow- eyed birds will come squabbling
Kathleen was born on this very day in 1962 and had her very first book of poetry published at the age of 20! So happy birthday, Kathleen, and here’s to many more.
In other news…
I’ve discovered that amber light bulbs make you look orange…but when author copies of your new picture book finally arrive, you take a picture, nonetheless!
Author copies have arrived!Just look at that new-book sparkle…
ALSO: In honor of National Teacher Appreciation Week last week, I offered to give away TWO copies of any of my books to ONE teacher: one for them, and one for their classroom! I picked their name at random, but realized yesterday that I had neglected to announce their name here – so let me make amends right now. Congratulations to…
JENNA JOHNSON!
Jenna chose to receive two copies of I Am Today, which I’ll be signing and getting in the mail to her soon. (Thanks again, Jenna!) In the meantime, please check out today’s Poetry Friday roundup at Imagine the Possibilities, where Rose shares an original poem inspired by the late Lee Bennett Hopkins anthology, Night Wishes (Eerdmans Books for Young Readers 2020). Not only is it a wonderful poem she’s written, but it was one of Lee’s last anthologies before he passed away and I was honored to have been invited to write a poem for it.
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Be sure to check out all the cool new picture books arriving this year from my PB22Peekaboo partners!
Create an account to add books to wishlists and be notified of special deals and dates…create custom collections…and discover and follow your favorite authors & illustrators!
I continue adding to my “Wit & Wordplay” videos ! These videos were created for parents and educators (along with their kids) to learn how to write poetry, appreciate it, and have fun with it. From alliteration and iambs to free verse and spine poetry, I’m pretty sure there’s something in these videos you’ll find surprising! You can view them all on my YouTube channel, and if you have young kids looking for something to keep busy with, I also have several downloadable activity sheets at my website.
Ordering personalized signed copies online? Oh, yes, you can!
You can purchase personally-signed copies of Flashlight Night, (Astra Young Readers, 2017), Don’t Ask a Dinosaur (Pow! Kids Books, 2018), and nearly EVERY book or anthology I’ve been part of!
Click any of the covers below to order!
Available now!
Just click the cover of whichever book you want and send a comment to the good folks at MainStreet BookEnds in Warner, NH requesting my signature and to whom I should make it out. (alternatively, you can log onto my website and do the same thing) They’ll contact me, I’ll stop by and sign it, and then they’ll ship it! (Plus, you’ll be supporting your local bookseller – and won’t that make you feel good?)
Did you like this post? Find something interesting elsewhere in this blog? I really won’t mind at all if you feel compelled to share it with your friends and followers!
To keep abreast of all my posts, please consider subscribing via the links up there on the right! (I usually only post once or twice a week – usually Tues. and Fri. – so you won’t be inundated with emails every day) . Also feel free to visit my voiceover website HERE, and you can also follow me via Twitter , Facebook, Instagram, Pinterest, and SoundCloud!
You see, my friend Carol Varsalona, a literacy advocate who participated in the #PoetryCUBED challenge, created a special National Poetry Month “Padlet” for Earth Day titled “Poetrylicious,” and shared a few of my poems. One of them was a new poem I wrote specifically for the challenge, titled “Spring.”
I didn’t actually plan it that way – but as anyone who’s written poetry can attest, poems don’t often turn out the way you expect. I had planned on simply writing a poem about spring, but as I got into it I decided to add the challenge of working within the constraints of #PoetryCUBED, and it turned out quite well, I think!
By the way, in case you don’t know, #PoetryCUBED uses the same basic premise of the TV show, “Chopped!”, where chefs compete against one another by creating dishes with specific ingredients, but with poetry:
Use the 3 images (“cubed,” get it??) below as inspiration to write a poem.
The poem can be any form, any number of lines, rhyming or not.
A reference (vague or overt) to all three images needs to be included in the poem.
Many thanks, again, to all who participated – I’ll do it again! But that’s not the only giveaway I have for you…
In honor of National Teacher Appreciation Week, I’m giving away TWO copies of any of my books to ONE teacher: one for them, and one for their classroom! If you’d like to enter, just check out my original Twitter post HERE and leave a comment and/or retweet – but don’t wait! The contest will close tonight, May 6, 2022, at 11:59pm and I’ll announce the winner this Monday. Just my way of giving back to all the folks who’ve supported me – as an author and a student!
For today’s complete Poetry Friday roundup, please head over to Jama’s Alphabet Soup, where the wonderful and inimitable Jama Kim Rattigan is hosting the festivities with a special Mother’s Day celebration. (And with Jama, you KNOW there’ll be plenty of refreshments!)
Be sure to check out all the cool new picture books arriving this year from my PB22Peekaboo partners!
Create an account to add books to wishlists and be notified of special deals and dates…create custom collections…and discover and follow your favorite authors & illustrators!
I continue adding to my “Wit & Wordplay” videos ! These videos were created for parents and educators (along with their kids) to learn how to write poetry, appreciate it, and have fun with it. From alliteration and iambs to free verse and spine poetry, I’m pretty sure there’s something in these videos you’ll find surprising! You can view them all on my YouTube channel, and if you have young kids looking for something to keep busy with, I also have several downloadable activity sheets at my website.
Ordering personalized signed copies online? Oh, yes, you can!
You can purchase personally-signed copies of Flashlight Night, (Astra Young Readers, 2017), Don’t Ask a Dinosaur (Pow! Kids Books, 2018), and nearly EVERY book or anthology I’ve been part of!
Click any of the covers below to order!
Available now!
Just click the cover of whichever book you want and send a comment to the good folks at MainStreet BookEnds in Warner, NH requesting my signature and to whom I should make it out. (alternatively, you can log onto my website and do the same thing) They’ll contact me, I’ll stop by and sign it, and then they’ll ship it! (Plus, you’ll be supporting your local bookseller – and won’t that make you feel good?)
Did you like this post? Find something interesting elsewhere in this blog? I really won’t mind at all if you feel compelled to share it with your friends and followers!
To keep abreast of all my posts, please consider subscribing via the links up there on the right! (I usually only post once or twice a week – usually Tues. and Fri. – so you won’t be inundated with emails every day) . Also feel free to visit my voiceover website HERE, and you can also follow me via Twitter , Facebook, Instagram, Pinterest, and SoundCloud!
To say this week is a busy one is an understatement; in addition to helping my wife with her dogsitting business by travelling half an hour to a client’s house three times a day (whew!), I’m also gearing up for the New England SCBWI’s annual Spring Conference, which begins (virtually, alas) this afternoon.
And by “gearing up,” I mean finalizing my presentation, ‘Tight Language, Loose Narratives: Crafting a Non-Traditional Picture Book.’ This will be a slightly-updated version of an in-person workshop I presented at LitYoungstown’s Fall Literary Festival in Youngstown, Ohio, last fall, using my books I Am Today, Once Upon Another Time, and others to show how one can create a picture book manuscript without the standard Freytag’s Pyramid or Rule of Three’s and that sort of thing. However, being virtual, timing is crucial – so I’m hoping I won’t run too long!
I’ve also been collecting more and more #PoetryCUBED poems from blog followers, as we celebrate National Poetry Month with this little ol’ writing prompt that I brought back after a too-lonig hiatus (read the post HERE to learn more)!
Before I get to this week’s entries, though, I wanted to give a shoutout to the Instagram account inquiring.minds.grow, who shared a wonderfully positive, supportive review of my newest picture book, I Am Today (POW! Kids Books) calling it “simplistically powerful and brilliant.”
(Wow, thank you so much!)
Now for the poems! As I’ve stated before, #PoetryCUBED is based on The Food Network show, “Chopped!”, where chefs compete against one another by creating dishes with specific ingredients. After a series of elimination rounds where chefs’s dishes are judged and the chefs are “chopped,” one chef is declared the winner.
#PoetryCUBED uses the same basic premise, but with poetry:
Use the 3 images (“cubed,” get it??) below as inspiration to write a poem.
The poem can be any form, any number of lines, rhyming or not.
A reference to all three images needs to be included in the poem – it can be vague, if you want, but it needs to be there!
Email your poem to me at Matt (at) MattForrest (dot) com and I’ll share them here – and at the end of April, one name will be drawn at random to receive your choice of a free, personally-signed copy of ANY ONE of my books!
I’ve had such an incredible response to this challenge, I’ve been sharing readers’ poems here throughout the month – and here are more!
Pretty diverse responses to the challenge, wouldn’t you say? Impressive! Since this is the final week of #PoetryCUBED, I’ve put all of our entrants’ names in a random drawing and our winner is…
KARIN FISHER-GOLTON!
Congratulations, Karin! You win a free copy of any one of my books, personally-signed, if you’d like! (You can read Karin’s creative double-acrostic poem in last weeks post HERE)
Carol Varsalona, who also submitted a poem last week, is sharing a bevy of beautiful springtime poems at her blog’s Padlet this week, including my second response to this #PoetryCUBED challenge. Be sure to check them out! Meanwhile, Jone MacCulloch is hosting this week’s Poetry Friday roundup with her contribution to Tabatha Yeatts’ new poetry anthology Imperfect II, so for all of today’s poetry links and fun, stop by her blog and say hi!
Be sure to check out all the cool new picture books arriving this year from my PB22Peekaboo partners!
Create an account to add books to wishlists and be notified of special deals and dates…create custom collections…and discover and follow your favorite authors & illustrators!
I continue adding to my “Wit & Wordplay” videos ! These videos were created for parents and educators (along with their kids) to learn how to write poetry, appreciate it, and have fun with it. From alliteration and iambs to free verse and spine poetry, I’m pretty sure there’s something in these videos you’ll find surprising! You can view them all on my YouTube channel, and if you have young kids looking for something to keep busy with, I also have several downloadable activity sheets at my website.
Ordering personalized signed copies online? Oh, yes, you can!
You can purchase personally-signed copies of Flashlight Night, (Astra Young Readers, 2017), Don’t Ask a Dinosaur (Pow! Kids Books, 2018), and nearly EVERY book or anthology I’ve been part of!
Click any of the covers below to order!
Available now!
Just click the cover of whichever book you want and send a comment to the good folks at MainStreet BookEnds in Warner, NH requesting my signature and to whom I should make it out. (alternatively, you can log onto my website and do the same thing) They’ll contact me, I’ll stop by and sign it, and then they’ll ship it! (Plus, you’ll be supporting your local bookseller – and won’t that make you feel good?)
Did you like this post? Find something interesting elsewhere in this blog? I really won’t mind at all if you feel compelled to share it with your friends and followers!
To keep abreast of all my posts, please consider subscribing via the links up there on the right! (I usually only post once or twice a week – usually Tues. and Fri. – so you won’t be inundated with emails every day) . Also feel free to visit my voiceover website HERE, and you can also follow me via Twitter , Facebook, Instagram, Pinterest, and SoundCloud!
We continue to celebrate National Poetry Month with #PoetryCUBED, a writing prompt that has been generating LOTS of great poems (you can read the post HERE to get a sense of what it is)!
As I’ve previously explained, #PoetryCUBED is based on The Food Network’s popular show, “Chopped!”, where chefs compete against one another by creating dishes with specific ingredients. The dishes are judged and after a series of elimination rounds where chefs are “chopped,” one chef one is crowned victorious.
So for #PoetryCUBED, I’ve applied the show’s premise to poetry:
Use the 3 images (“cubed,” get it??) below as inspiration to write a poem.
The poem can be any form, any number of lines, rhyming or not.
A reference to all three images needs to be included in the poem – it can be vague, if you want, but it needs to be there!
Email your poem to me at Matt (at) MattForrest (dot) com and I’ll share them here – and at the end of April, one name will be drawn at random to receive your choice of a free, personally-signed copy of ANY ONE of my books!
If you’re unfamiliar with tricubes, they are a new form of poetry where each poem contains three stanzas, each stanza contains three lines, and each line contains three syllables. So hers is a poem that was cubed and cubed again, ha!
How will YOU approach this challenge? You have ONE WEEK LEFT to send in your poem and be entered in the drawing for a personally-signed copy of any one of my books, so be sure to email me at Matt (at) MattForrest (dot) com as soon as you can!
Last week, I hosted the Poetry Friday roundup and shared an interview with my friend Leslie Bulion, whose new picture book Serengeti: Plains of Grass (Peachtree Publishing) came out March 1 – the same day as my I Am Today (POW! Kids Books). Her publisher was kind enough to offer a free copy of the book to one of my readers, and the person whose name was drawn at random is…
MICHELLE KOGAN!
Congratulations, Michelle! Out of all the folks who entered, hers was the name that was chosen from the ol’ random number generator, and she gets a copy of Leslie’s new book!
Margaret Simon is hosting today’s Poetry Friday roundup AND the annual Progressive Poem at Reflections on the Teche, so head on over for all the poetry links and fun!
They don’t mean no, they mean “no.” and they don’t mean parking – they mean “parking.” Such an egregious waste of quotation marks.
Be sure to check out all the cool new picture books arriving this year from my PB22Peekaboo partners!
Create an account to add books to wishlists and be notified of special deals and dates…create custom collections…and discover and follow your favorite authors & illustrators!
I continue adding to my “Wit & Wordplay” videos ! These videos were created for parents and educators (along with their kids) to learn how to write poetry, appreciate it, and have fun with it. From alliteration and iambs to free verse and spine poetry, I’m pretty sure there’s something in these videos you’ll find surprising! You can view them all on my YouTube channel, and if you have young kids looking for something to keep busy with, I also have several downloadable activity sheets at my website.
Ordering personalized signed copies online? Oh, yes, you can!
You can purchase personally-signed copies of Flashlight Night, (Astra Young Readers, 2017), Don’t Ask a Dinosaur (Pow! Kids Books, 2018), and nearly EVERY book or anthology I’ve been part of!
Click any of the covers below to order!
Available now!
Just click the cover of whichever book you want and send a comment to the good folks at MainStreet BookEnds in Warner, NH requesting my signature and to whom I should make it out. (alternatively, you can log onto my website and do the same thing) They’ll contact me, I’ll stop by and sign it, and then they’ll ship it! (Plus, you’ll be supporting your local bookseller – and won’t that make you feel good?)
Did you like this post? Find something interesting elsewhere in this blog? I really won’t mind at all if you feel compelled to share it with your friends and followers!
To keep abreast of all my posts, please consider subscribing via the links up there on the right! (I usually only post once or twice a week – usually Tues. and Fri. – so you won’t be inundated with emails every day) . Also feel free to visit my voiceover website HERE, and you can also follow me via Twitter , Facebook, Instagram, Pinterest, and SoundCloud!
To celebrate National Poetry Month, I brought back my popular writing prompt contest #PoetryCUBED and have been receiving lots of great poems. Keep sending them in! I’ll share more entries next week, but today I have a special guest: friend and fellow children’s writer Leslie Bulion!
Leslie is a fellow New Englander who lives in Connecticut, and has been writing nearly all her life. Like me, she began writing poetry for her own enjoyment since fourth grade and has been interested in science and nature for as long as she can remember. You can imagine, then, how surprised I was that I’d yet to invite her to visit the ol’ Triple-R!
Leslie earned graduate degrees in Oceanography and Social Work, and worked as a medical social worker and school social worker. Her first book, Fatuma’s New Cloth (Moon Mountain Publishing) won the 2003 Children’s Africana Book Award for best picture book, and since then she’s published 16 books, from poetry collections to middle grade novels.
Thanks so much for visiting, Leslie! Time certainly does fly, as we’ve known each other for nearly 11 years now. We first met online around 2010 or so, and then met in person at my first New England SCBWI conference in Mass. in 2011. (That was a momentous year for me, as I met not only you but also Jane Yolen, Lin Oliver, my former neighbor Tomie dePaola, Lee Bennett Hopkins, and myriad others!)
Since then, we’ve each had multiple books published and it’s been wonderful getting to know you, following along your writing career and conversing about children’s publishing. And now you’re celebrating your sixteenth book, with Serengeti: Plains of Grass! I know you have an affinity for both science and poetry, but this book is unique in many ways from your previous collections. Before we get to that, though, please tell me how the idea for the book came to you.
Thank you very much for inviting me to your blog, Matt! I’m thrilled to share a bit of the backstory of how I came to write Serengeti: Plains of Grass.
I have been wondering about and dreaming of revisiting the Serengeti since my daughters, my husband, and I were invited to East Africa by his sister years ago. I kept extensive journals during that month-long visit, and took countless photographs. Among many important experiences—in cities and towns, and with families and friends, and in other parks—our short time in the Serengeti left a deep impression. It took many years for me to find this path I finally chose to explore the Serengeti through poetry.
Now, the reason I say this book different is because many of your recent books have been poetry collections about specific subjects within an overarching theme: for example, Hey There, Stink Bug (Charlesbridge, 2006) included poems about different insects while Superlative Birds (Peachtree, 2019) featured poems about specific birds.
But with Serengeti, each poem on each spread reads as if it’s part of a larger whole; that is, the poems can be taken individually, but are meant to be linked together and read in a more traditional picture book style. How did you come to decide on this structure?
I’m so glad you mentioned themes, Matt. My poetry collections are organized in many layers. Each has what I refer to as a “big idea.” In Superlative Birds, for example, the big idea is a tour of the traits of “birdness,” the specific poems showcase the “world-record holder” of each trait, and readers follow the chickadee spokesbird to find out which traits belong only to birds.
In Leaf Litter Critters (Peachtree 2018), I set the stage for Serengeti by using poetry to explore a whole ecosystem. I consider that book a “hybrid” of sorts, since it takes readers through the decomposer/recycler food web employing many different poetic forms and lots of humor as I had done in previous (and subsequent) books.
Serengeti IS different. Readers join the great migration of wildebeests, zebras, and others as they follow the early winter rains into and out of the Serengeti short-grass plain. The stanzas tell another story, too: the movement of energy through the food web from grass to herbivores, insectivores, carnivores, scavengers, recyclers, and back to grass again.
Just as all life in the Serengeti is interconnected, the stanzas and spreads in the book link one to the next, and end with a refrain, a reference to “grass,” to emphasize the basis of this open plain ecosystem.
Speaking of the book’s structure, you eschew your penchant for varying poetic styles/forms and instead stick with the utendi, a Swahili poetic form with Arabic roots, throughout the book. What drew you to this form?
My experience in the Serengeti left me with a feeling of awe and wonder, Matt. I wanted to portray my impression of its story in a way that embodied my reverence for this remarkable place. In all of my books, my choices of poetic forms relate to the subjects of the poems: perfect rhyme can be quite humorous, different rhythms may relate to the movements of particular animals, and at times I choose forms that spring from the countries where particular animals are found.
For Serengeti: Plains of Grass, I read about Swahili poetry and learned about the utendi stanza. I felt its three rhyming lines with an opportunity for a fourth line refrain would help me tell this story with respect and flow, linking one spread to the next. Kiswahili words end in vowels, and though I know only a few words and phrases in the language, as I read examples of the utendi stanza I chose to use a partial rhyme—the consonant end sound—in my adaptation of the form in English. Here’s an example, and you’ll see that even in this reverential book I allow myself a bit of wordplay:
I love it! Ingenious and musical use of wordplay is something I truly appreciate, and the internal rhyme in the third and fourth lines especially is, indeed, ingenious and musical. As someone who loves trying new poetic forms, I often wonder if I’m doing the forms justice; that is, not having written in those forms before, I hope my poems are as good as those that have come before. How do you vet your poems, particularly those written in a poetic form that is new to you?
I love trying new forms, too! When I do that, I go on a deep dive, reading many, many examples by different poets in addition to reading about the form in some of the poetry reference books and sites I admire. Then I trust my ear to hear the rhythms and notes of a particular form as I write, rewrite, read aloud, read to my critique group, and tweak some more. Since I’m the person writing the poem, the finished form has to make the music I need to hear.
When I’m writing, there are always things popping up that I don’t expect. Perhaps it’s something I didn’t know about the subject, or maybe the amount of research I needed to do. Did you encounter any surprises while writing Serengeti? Anything that caught you off-guard?
As with all of my science poetry books, there are always such difficult choices: which critters make it into the book or which “end up on the cutting room floor,” as Betsy Bird asked me in an interview about Amphibian Acrobats(Peachtree 2020). I had worked my way through the seasons and the Serengeti food web stanza by stanza to the end before realizing I hadn’t included elephants. They are not only a keystone species keeping acacia saplings in check, they’re a lifelong favorite of mine. And I was out of space. Thank goodness Becca Stadtlander included elephants in her spectacular illustrations!
They are spectacular, I’ll say that! And I know authors don’t have much say in the illustrations for their books, but was there anything surprising about Becca’s work? What was your impression upon seeing her interpretation of your subjects and words?
Since my poetry books are nonfiction I am involved in the illustrations at the sketch stage. The whole team works hard to be sure the science is accurate in every interpretation. Just ask humorously accurate illustrator Robert Meganck about amphibian fingers and toes, or spider eyes! Sometimes an illustrator’s interpretation sends me back down a research rabbit hole to find out more so I can give the most accurate feedback.
The only surprise in Becca’s work was how much more moving and gorgeous it looks on the actual, full-sized pages! I loved it on screen as she worked, but the trim size and format of the book is a much better showcase of her breathtaking artwork.
I noticed there seems to be more expository material in this book than others you’ve written. Was that your intention, or something your editor requested?
This is an interesting question, Matt. When I wrote Serengeti, the entire poem came first. Then I wrote the long expository introduction, which none of my other books have, and the poetry notes I always include. Much, much later, I decided to add spare science notes to the spreads. These are much shorter than the notes that typically accompany my poems. I think these spare notes add an important element, though I suggest a first read through of the poem stanzas and illustrations for flow, then a second read spread by spread, including the notes.
I offer my editor a list of the back matter I’d like to include when I submit the manuscript—always a glossary, often a map, a size reference chart, and further readings. The need for information about our responsibilities as humans on our planet grows more imperative and more complex each year, and that’s an important piece of the back matter.
I agree, and hopefully more and more people will realize the importance of that information. Finally, what can we expect next from Leslie Bulion?
Thanks for asking, Matt! I am working on another “ecosystems” poetry book with Becca Stadtlander entitled Galápagos: Islands of Change, that will publish in the spring of 2023, also with Peachtree Publishing, Inc. This book tells the story of the seasonal rhythms of these iconic islands and their surrounding ocean waters in this fascinating interconnected land-and-sea ecosystem.
Well, thanks again for taking the time to chat, Leslie, and congratulations on Serengeti: Plains of Grass!
Thanks to you, Matt, and best of luck with all of your upcoming projects!
~~ Giveaway! ~ ~
Would you like a free copy of Serengeti: Plains of Grass? Just let me know in the comments and I’ll select one winner at random! The winner will be announced next Poetry Friday, April 22. Speaking of giveaways, at the end of the month I’ll announce the winner of this month’s #PoetryCUBED contest; you’ve still got a couple of weeks to send me your poems, so be sure to email me at Matt (at) MattForrest (dot) com and I’ll share them here!
I do need to take a moment and thank the Boston Globe for something quite unexpected I came upon this past week. If you had asked me back in 2012, the year I left full-time appointment at the radio station, “Where do you see yourself in 10 years?” you can be assured that I would not have said, “in the Boston Globe.”
And, yet…
It truly was an honor to be asked to contribute to Lee Bennett Hopkins’ award-winning book. I’ll always remember when I emailed my poem to him and he called it “perfection” that made his week! (Coming from Lee, that’s a compliment in the highest order) Lee would have been 84 this week, but his memory and legacy will endure not only through his books but by those of us he befriended and mentored.
By the way, the Globe also gave a nod to my friend and neighbor, David Elliott, for his poetry collection, In the Woods (Candlewick, 2020). I hope you’ll check out the complete list, which includes several other New England authors.
And since this is the Poetry Friday roundup, leave your links in the comments and I’ll round them all up, old school style!
Be sure to check out all the cool new picture books arriving this year from my PB22Peekaboo partners!
Poetry Friday links:
This is Carol Labuzzetta’s first year contributing to the annual Progressive Poem, and she shares her line and her process behind it – at her blog, The Apples in My Orchard.
Karin Fisher-Golton also added a new line to the Progressive Poem this week, and shares her process of how she came up with the line.
Michelle Kogan has Gray Catbirds on her mind, and shares an original poem about one.
Congrats to my friend, author/poet Laura Shovan, who is celebrating the first night of passover AND the 6th anniversary of her middle grade novel in verse, The Last Fifth Grade of Emerson Elementary, with a Passover-themed post that includes a recipe for Matzo candy – yum!
Linda Mitchell is having fun captioning postcards at A Word Edgewise and also shares a brand-new “star” poem.
Jama Rattigan is offering readers “Three Cups of Tea with Miss Emily” (Dickinson, that is) at Alphabet Soup – along with recipes for custard pie and cherry scones, from a new cookbook/poetry book!
At Life on the Deckle Edge, the art of pen-and-ink handwriting is on Robin Hood Black’s mind today, as she shares a post about glass pens, nib earrings, and a thoughtful haiku.
Spring and all its beauty – from cherry blossoms to busy robins – is the focus of a new original poem from Linda Kulp Trout.
Poems about…poetry! That’s what you’ll find at The Opposite of Indifference, as Tabatha shares some of Martin Espada’s work. She’s also signing folks up for the Summer Poetry Swap, so be sure to check it out!
Jone Rush MacCulloch eatures an interview with poet/author Sally Walker about her new book, Out of This World: Star-Studded Haiku.
Found treasures and unusual places to look for them: that’s what Linda writes about today at Teacher Dance.
Over at The Poem Farm, Amy shares her newest proverb-inspired poem, based on catching flies (we know what works and what doesn’t, don’t we?).
Smidgey’s Identity Crisis Poetry Series continues at Wee Words for Wee Ones, as Bridget shares a new poetic video about a dog with lots of questions!
At Unexpected Intersections, Elisabeth shares a review of Diana Renn’s new middle-grade novel, Trouble at Turtle Pond, and an original poem about the endangered European Swamp Turtle.
Marcie Atkins shares a Chinese paperbush haiku and an invitation to a webinar about collaboration, hosted by our longtime Poetry Friday friends Irene Latham and Charles Waters.
As if plastics weren’t bad enough for the environment, now there are MICROplastics – sigh. Catherine at Reading to the Core offers up a Golden Shovel poem, for the Good of the Earth.
What is the Insect Apocalypse? Mary Lee at A(nother) Year of Reading shares an original poem that addresses the imminent threat to our planet and the species that are not thriving as they used to.
At Live Your Poem, Irene shares a bunny pic just in time for Easter along with a poem about parrot friendship.
Amy Soto, the Mother Goose Librarian, reviews Stop That Poem!, an ingenious poetry picture book by our friend Eric Ode, and offers the first drafy of an original poem inspired by the book.
Michelle H. Barnes has been busy “filling the well,” so to speak – and at Today’s Little Ditty, she fills it up with poet Lucille Clifton, sculptor Anthony Howe, and singer/pianist Akeboshi.
With a title like “The Upper Case for Being,” you know the poem is going to be intriguing; Heidi at My Juicy Little Universe shares an original poem that takes equal indpiration from Narnia, the book Braiding Sweetgrass, and a little Taoism thrown in for good measure.
Have you ever heard of an N+7 exercise in poetry? Neither have I! But if you head over to Small Reads for Brighter Days, you can read Laura’s new sticky note poem inspired by it!
At Wondering and Wandering, Christie shares two new poems: one is the latest in her ‘Pathways’ series, inspired by her frequent nature walks, and the other is by a young debut poet (and by young, I mean, “in kindergarten!”)
Marilyn Garcia has been thinking about trans rights this week and the irony that today, Good Friday, millions of people are remembering the persecution and death of an innocent man. Check out her poem, “The Announcemnet.”
Zeena at Teaching Authors is in Cairo, of all places! She shares a poem by Egyptian poet omar ibrahim as well as a preview of her upcoming picture book, Egyptian Lullaby (Roaring Brook Press, 2023).
House renovations and confusion go hand-in-hand, and Karen Eastlund shares their progress at her place with a brief verse about packing up and (dis)organizing.
Anastasia Suen gives us a sneak peek at a cute new butterfly board book!
At Chicken Spaghetti, Susan Thomsen chose a beautiful spring poem from Jessie Redmon Fauset, “Rondeau,” to share with her readers.
“The silence of God” is something indeed worth pondering this Good Friday / Passover, and Ruth does just that with a powerful, moving poem from Andrew Peterson at There is no such thing as a God-forsaken town.
Speaking of Good Friday, Denise Krebs offers up an original poem for the day at Dare to Care.
Over at The Miss Rumphius Effect, Tricia features a senryu inspired by a photo taken in the early 1930s of her mother and mother’s cousin, when they were children.
Janice Scully has a review of our friend Laura Purdie Salas’ latest book, We Belong.
Last, but certainly not least, Carol at Beyond Literacy Link is sharing her gratitude by sharing an original springtime haiku as well as various poems, photos, and artwork that have inspired her this past week.
Create an account to add books to wishlists and be notified of special deals and dates…create custom collections…and discover and follow your favorite authors & illustrators!
I continue adding to my “Wit & Wordplay” videos ! These videos were created for parents and educators (along with their kids) to learn how to write poetry, appreciate it, and have fun with it. From alliteration and iambs to free verse and spine poetry, I’m pretty sure there’s something in these videos you’ll find surprising! You can view them all on my YouTube channel, and if you have young kids looking for something to keep busy with, I also have several downloadable activity sheets at my website.
Ordering personalized signed copies online? Oh, yes, you can!
You can purchase personally-signed copies of Flashlight Night, (Astra Young Readers, 2017), Don’t Ask a Dinosaur (Pow! Kids Books, 2018), and nearly EVERY book or anthology I’ve been part of!
Click any of the covers below to order!
Available now!
Just click the cover of whichever book you want and send a comment to the good folks at MainStreet BookEnds in Warner, NH requesting my signature and to whom I should make it out. (alternatively, you can log onto my website and do the same thing) They’ll contact me, I’ll stop by and sign it, and then they’ll ship it! (Plus, you’ll be supporting your local bookseller – and won’t that make you feel good?)
Did you like this post? Find something interesting elsewhere in this blog? I really won’t mind at all if you feel compelled to share it with your friends and followers!
To keep abreast of all my posts, please consider subscribing via the links up there on the right! (I usually only post once or twice a week – usually Tues. and Fri. – so you won’t be inundated with emails every day) . Also feel free to visit my voiceover website HERE, and you can also follow me via Twitter , Facebook, Instagram, Pinterest, and SoundCloud!
Last week, to celebrate National Poetry Month, I brought back a little contest/writing prompt I created called #PoetryCUBED (you can read the post HERE to get a sense of what it is) – and already, I’m receiving lots of great responses to the challenge!
As I explained in that post, PoetryCUBED is based on The Food Network’s popular show, “Chopped!”, where chefs try to outdo each other by creating dishes with specific ingredients. The dishes are then critiqued by a panel of judges and the chefs go through a series of elimination rounds until one is victorious.
So for this contest, I’ve applied this premise to poetry:
Use the 3 images (“cubed,” get it??) below as inspiration to write a poem.
The poem can be any form, any number of lines, rhyming or not.
Be sure to include a reference to all three images in the poem – either via concrete imagery or something more abstract.
Then email your poem to me at Matt (at) MattForrest (dot) com and I’ll share them here – and at the end of April, one name will be drawn at random to receive your choice of a free, personally-signed copy of one of my books!
If you read last week’s post, you saw my poetic response; here are a few responses I’ve received from fellow blog readers like you!
.
add more tomatoes chef fluffy tastes and declares yes, perfect stone soup
Tomatoes are not my thing! After all, you can’t catch them, fetch them, or s t r e t c h them. But… fresh from the vine, that grassy-green aroma will turn this tomato-aversion heart of stone to mush… every time.
Doggone! I love tomatoes, juicy-sweet, taste can’t be beat. My heart rocks with impatience ‘cause they take a summer’s song all three months long to ripen.
Wow! Some pretty cool solutions to this challenge. Using words like “fluffy,” “fetch,” and “doggone” to discreetly reference the dog photo, using images like stone soup to connect the rock with the tomatoes, and even using the word “rocks” as a verb are all creative ways to make use of these images.
How will YOU approach the challenge? You’ve still got a few weeks to send them in, so be sure to email me at Matt (at) MattForrest (dot) com – I’ll share them here and enter you in the contest!
Next week, I’ll be hosting the Poetry Friday roundup here and have an interview planned with my friend Leslie Bulion, whose brand-new picture book Serengeti: Plains of Grass (Peachtree Publishing) came out March 1 – the same day as my I Am Today (POW! Kids Books)! We’ll chat about the book and the craft of writing on April 15, so I hope you’ll join us. Plus, you could win a FREE COPY of the book!
Today’s Poetry Friday roundup is at Salt City Verse, so be sure to stop by Janice Scully’s home on the web for all the poetry links and fun – and a special interview with my friend and neighbor, David Elliott!
Be sure to check out all the cool new picture books arriving this year from my PB22Peekaboo partners!
Create an account to add books to wishlists and be notified of special deals and dates…create custom collections…and discover and follow your favorite authors & illustrators!
I continue adding to my “Wit & Wordplay” videos ! These videos were created for parents and educators (along with their kids) to learn how to write poetry, appreciate it, and have fun with it. From alliteration and iambs to free verse and spine poetry, I’m pretty sure there’s something in these videos you’ll find surprising! You can view them all on my YouTube channel, and if you have young kids looking for something to keep busy with, I also have several downloadable activity sheets at my website.
Ordering personalized signed copies online? Oh, yes, you can!
You can purchase personally-signed copies of Flashlight Night, (Astra Young Readers, 2017), Don’t Ask a Dinosaur (Pow! Kids Books, 2018), and nearly EVERY book or anthology I’ve been part of!
Click any of the covers below to order!
Available now!
Just click the cover of whichever book you want and send a comment to the good folks at MainStreet BookEnds in Warner, NH requesting my signature and to whom I should make it out. (alternatively, you can log onto my website and do the same thing) They’ll contact me, I’ll stop by and sign it, and then they’ll ship it! (Plus, you’ll be supporting your local bookseller – and won’t that make you feel good?)
Did you like this post? Find something interesting elsewhere in this blog? I really won’t mind at all if you feel compelled to share it with your friends and followers!
To keep abreast of all my posts, please consider subscribing via the links up there on the right! (I usually only post once or twice a week – usually Tues. and Fri. – so you won’t be inundated with emails every day) . Also feel free to visit my voiceover website HERE, and you can also follow me via Twitter , Facebook, Instagram, Pinterest, and SoundCloud!
Since the beginning of the year, I’ve been busy working on some new picture book manuscripts and a couple of new poetry collection proposals, but I couldn’t let this month go by without celebrating – so I thought it was about time I brought back a popular little writing contest that hasn’t seen the light of day in FOUR years!
That’s right, the last PoetryCUBED contest was way back in April 2018, to celebrate the publication of what was my second picture book at the time, Don’t Ask a Dinosaur (POW! Kids Books). I’m not sure how or why it never returned, but there’s no time like the present right?
If you’re unfamiliar with PoetryCUBED, it’s based on the premise of The Food Network’s popular show, “Chopped!”
In this reality-TV game show, chefs battle each other by trying creating the best dishes they can using specific ingredients given to them in a special basket. For example, one round might have the chefs cooking with canned chicken, jelly beans, and arugula. The next round might include novalox, puff pastry, and durian. (Trust me, you don’t want to cook with durian). But really, the ingredients are very often that bizarre.
The dishes are then critiqued by a panel of judges and the chef with the least appealing dish is “chopped.” The remaining chefs then move on to the followings rounds until all but one are eliminated and the final chef gets to claim victory.
So for this contest, I’ve applied this premise to poetry – but without the sliced index fingers and broken dreams. I call it “PoetryCUBED!” Here’s how it works:
Use the 3 images (“cubed,” get it??) below as inspiration to write a poem.
The poem can be any form, any number of lines, rhyming or not.
The only hitch is that you need to include a reference to all three images in the poem – either via concrete imagery or something more abstract.
Then email your poem to me at Matt (at) MattForrest (dot) com and I’ll share them here throughout the month – and at the end of April, one name will be drawn at random to receive a free, personally-signed copy of any of my books,your choice!
A dog, tomatoes, and a stone. What the heck are you gonna do with these, eh???
Well, to get things rolling, here’s a haiku (actually, a senryu, to those of you keeping score) I wrote using these three images as inspiration – and I didn’t spend a whole lot of time on it. 15 minutes, max. PoetryCUBED is simply a creative way to have fun writing and find new, unusual connections (this is poetry, after all!), so please don’t fret if the poem isn’t as perfect as you’d like! (Big words coming from Perfectionist Me)
sweet acidity washes over eager tongue silent, love blushes .
You’ll notice references to all three photos in these three short lines: the taste of the tomatoes as well as their blushes, the heart-shaped stone, and a tongue. So it doesn’t have to be a long poem and the references don’t always have to be obvious – just have fun with it! And be sure to send them to me at Matt (at) MattForrest (dot) com so I can share them here and enter you in the contest!
And be watching for a special interview I have planned later this month with my friend Leslie Bulion, whose brand-new picture book Serengeti: Plains of Grass (Peachtree Publishing) came out March 1 – the same day as my I Am Today (POW! Kids Books)! She’ll be here to talk about the book and the craft of writing on April 15, when I host the Poetry Friday roundup!
Speaking of Poetry Friday…for all of today’s links and fun, be sure to visit Heidi Mordhorst at My Juicy Little Universe, where she is very busy celebrating a book birthday, a human birthday, some National Poetry Month traditions, and a brand-new poem of her own!
Be sure to check out all the cool new picture books arriving this year from my PB22Peekaboo partners!
