Poetry Friday: Collecting found poetry from a poetry collection about collections…that’s not too confounding, is it?

The day my first author copies arrived, I remember thinking, “Wow, things are gettin’ real now!”

First of all, can I just tell you how amazing and surreal it is to realize that it has been precisely TWO YEARS since my debut picture book, Flashlight Night (Boyds Mills & Kane, 2017) arrived in the world? Two years! My little baby was born on Sept. 19, 2017, and I don’t know if two years have ever flown by that quickly in my life. It’s extremely humbling to know that I’ve been able to follow that up with 8 more books between 2018 and 2022…and I couldn’t do any of this without the support of folks like you who have read, reviewed, or shared news about the book. So THANK YOU, very much, everyone!

Well now, it’s been a busy week. Last Friday, my friend Michelle Schaub visited the ol’ Triple-R to celebrate her new poetry collection, Finding Treasure (Charlesbridge, 2019), and we offered a personalized signed copy we would give away to one random winner!

If you’d like to enter the drawing, all you need to do is share a found poem using the words from Michelle’s poem, “Collecting Stars:”

(click to enlarge)

A “found poem” is simply a poem that uses the words from one source – like a magazine, newspaper, book, etc. –  to create a poem. I’ve already had a number of entries pouring in, and the contest is still open until I announce the winner next Friday!

Here are some of the poems readers have shared so far:

haiku

Watch embers glow:
Sparks sparkle, dance, flash, beckon.
Darkness deepens.

– Yvona Fast

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untitled

darkness deepens
sparks
specks
stars

– Liz Steinglass

.

Untitled

Specks
Stars
A mason jar …
Glow Free

– Vicki Wilke

.
Fill the Darkness

Dance!
Beckon!
Watch!
Glow!
Though it’s hard,
Come,
f l o a t
F
r
e
e …………………………….

– Janet (Fagal) Clare

.

untitled

free
float
flash
It’s hard
to catch
a mason jar
of stars

– Linda Mitchell

.

haiku

streams, dreaming of a
sea roaring, whispering deep,
caress polished shells

– © Damon Dean, 2019

.
untitled

Darkness sparks
a flash,
a starlight dance.
“Come, it’s free to glow!”

– Linda Baie

.
untitled

watch the light specks
flash, dance, glow-
a star mason jar!

– Joyce Ray

.
untitled

Embers of stars,
specks of starlight
float and dance
around and beckon,
Watch–Catch us
when darkness deepens…

– Michelle Kogan

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Finally, my own found poem – and because I never met a challenge I couldn’t pass up, I decided I was going to write one that was rhyming and metrical:

Star Collecting

Darkness deepens, embers glow;
these sparks aren’t mine to keep, I know.
They dance around the yard, and I
watch specks of stars float free.
Goodbye…

– © 2019, Matt F. Esenwine
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Want to enter the giveaway? You still have time! Just share your found poem in the comments below or email it to me at matt(at)mattforrest(dot)com. As I mentioned last week, your poem doesn’t need to be long, polished – or good! It just needs to include only words from Michelle’s poem, above.

I’ll announce the winner by a random drawing next Fri., Sept. 27, so I hope to see your entry! And by the way, since today is Poetry Friday, be sure to visit Teacher Dance, where Linda Baie is hosting the complete roundup with a spotlight on a new upcoming book by Irene Latham and Charles Waters!

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Ordering personalized signed copies online?
Oh, yes, you can!

  

You can purchase personalized signed copies of Flashlight Night, (Boyds Mills Press, 2017), Don’t Ask a Dinosaur (Pow! Kids Books, 2018), and nearly ALL of the books or anthologies I’ve been part of!

Just click the cover of whichever book you want and send the good folks at MainStreet BookEnds in Warner, NH a note requesting the signature and to whom I should make it out to. (alternatively, you can log onto my website and do the same thing) They’ll contact me, I’ll stop by and sign it for you, and then they’ll ship it. Try doing that with those big online booksellers! (Plus, you’ll be helping to support local book-selling – and wouldn’t that make you feel good?)

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Thank you to everyone for your support!

• NY Public Library’s “100 Best Book for Kids 2017” AND “Staff Pick!”
• KIRKUS Starred review!
• Kansas NEA Reading Circle Recommended Books!
• “Best Reads of 2017,” Unleashing Readers
• Amazon “Best Books of the Month,” Sept. 2017
• Positive reviews from Horn Book, School Library Connection, Booklist, Publisher’s Weekly, and Shelf-Awareness
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  • “Rollicking rhyme!” – Booklist
  • “A wild romp!” – Parenting NH Magazine
  • “Cute…intriguing…4 out of 5 stars”     – Tulsa Book Review
  • “Rhythmic…funny and informative”     – Unleashing Readers

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