This post was originally published on July 13, 2018. My family and I spent our annual vacation back at York Beach this week, so my brain is still full of sunshine and sea spray. I thought I’d bring this favorite of mine back this week, since I’m doing my best to not work. 😉
Janice Scully has today’s Poetry Friday roundup at her blog, Salt City Verse!
My wife captured this photo during the last week of June, while we were staying at a friend’s cottage along York Beach, Maine. We were walking along the shore around 6pm or so, and after a brief rainfall, we noticed the sky attempting to display three separate rainbows. Alas, they were only pieces, but I’ve had this image stuck in my head for some time now, and wanted to find a few words to accompany it. Finally did!
By the way, if you missed my little “tip of the hat” to elementary school teachers, you’ll find a mid-summer poem HERE – along with links to a few of the summer reading lists that include Flashlight Night (Boyds Mills Press, 2017)! Of course, if you’re still hungry for more poetry, you’ll find all of today’s links at Poetry for Children, where Sylvia Vardell is hosting Poetry Friday.
Ordering personalized signed copies online? Oh, yes, you can!
(coming Sept. 25, 2018!)
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?)
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)
Well, it’s that time of year again – the kids are getting out of school for the summer and parents are wondering how to keep them busy!
Many schools and libraries share lists of suggested summer reading for parents, of course, and I’m very proud to see several of my own books showing up on these reading lists and blogs.
Asa Books July Reading List (Flashlight Night) (This was also originally from 2020, but I just came across it yesterday and wanted to give them a shout-out. Thanks, folks!)
Last but not least, I want to thank Jena Benton for reviewing Once Upon Another Time on her blog this past April for National Poetry Month! I never realized it until this past week, so thank you so much, Jena!
Since it’s Poetry Friday, I thought I’d share two poems from Lee Bennett Hopkins’ anthology Night Wishes (Eerdmans Books for Young Readers, 2020), which has received so much love from librarians and children’s book lovers!
One of the poems is my contribution and the other was written by my friend Rebecca Kai Dotlich. I was surprised to see that we both used the term, “child” – which I think helps maintain the book’s continuity – even though neither of us saw the other’s poem until the book was published!
There’s a lot more poetry in store!Today’s complete Poetry Friday roundup is at MoreArt4All, Michelle Kogan’s little home on the web, so I hope you’ll stop by and check out all the links and fun!
By the way, if you’ve ever wondered how to get published without an agent, I hope you’ll join Natasha Yim, Ashok Banker, and Yours Truly for what I hope will be a fun, informative panel discussion with San Francisco Northeast Bay SCBWI hostess Gennie Bruce Gorback next Wed., June 22!
Registration closes TODAY, June 17 – so don’t delay!
Only $5 for SCBWI members, $10 for non-members – so no excuses! I’ll be watching for you. 😉
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!
This post was originally published way back in Dec. 2012, just 5 months after I had first started this blog. As our family gears up for our annual trip over to York Beach, Maine, I was contemplating my life, and my wife, and my kids, and Covid, and all the things we’ve gone through this past year…and I remembered this poem. With summer almost upon us, I felt like it was the perfect time to share it again, in case you hadn’t seen it the first time around!
For my final Poetry Friday post of the year, I’m sharing a fairly new poem that I completed just a few weeks ago. I wrote this for my wife, Jen, and since it describes a muggy, summer evening, I thought it might help to melt some of the heavy, wet snow that fell in this part of the country yesterday.
This is a tanka, pretty much the only surviving form of waka, a term that once encompassed many forms of Japanese poetry. You may notice that the first three lines are similar to a haiku, with their 5-7-5 syllabic structure; however, haikus are a relatively new form of poetry, having been developed in the 19th century (haikus were borne of the original hokku form, which dates to the 1600s, but waka forms go back to the 6th century).
By the way, this week I learned that the Japanese word haijin means either a crippled person, or a haiku poet. Makes sense.
So now that your history and vocab lessons are over, on to the poetry!
.
With her, at midnight
Within the warm, thick soup of night clouds and orchids, breaths heavy as air silence jealous crickets; stars glisten skin, damp and moonlit.
How’s this for coincidence: Carol Wilcox is hosting today’s complete Poetry Friday roundup with a spotlight on poet Jeannette Encinias at her blog, Carol’s Corner – and would you believe it was Carol who was hosting Poetry Friday 9 years ago, when I first published this post! That’s right, I shared my post on her 2012 roundup! Crazy, isn’t it??
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, (Boyds Mills Press, 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 following covers to order!
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!
It’s been an incredible year for the flowers at our home. A warm, dry early summer, followed by thick rains nearly every other day for the past couple of weeks, has helped all the green life around here explode with color.
I knew I wanted to write a poem about them, but a poem about pretty, colorful flowers seemed like a – yaaaaaawwwnnn – oh I’m sorry…where was I?
Oh yes: writing a poem about flowers. Well, you see, one of the things I teach about poetry when visiting classrooms or through video chats is that a poet needs to find a new angle, or find a unique way of something that perhaps has been said before. Flower poems have been done, done, and done…so if I was going to have to step up my game and write something that was different.
So that’s exactly what I did. Or, at least tried to do. I wasn’t sure if it should be a haiku or free verse or what…but as the ideas started formulating in my brain, I decided to try something I’ve never attempted before: prose poetry, aka poetic prose. We won’t get into the debate over whether prose poetry is real poetry or not (which is just slightly less volatile than the masks vs. no masks arguments we witness daily)…we’ll just accept it as a legitimate poetic form and move on.
Hope you like it.
.
Summer Flowers
I took a walk through our summer flowers yesterday, each magnificent bloom calling out to me in silent brilliance. All around the yard, they vied for attention: bushy, pink peonies; blood-crimson geraniums; stately Adam’s Wort. Turning past the white climbing roses, I stopped for a moment. A small weed had captured my gaze. Crown vetch – delicate and dainty-colored of lilac and linen – struggled to find its place among its more renowned cousins, vine shoots of green reaching out to the others like a child grasping for its mother’s hand. Here, amongst the flowers deliberately chosen and uniquely attended to, was life, seeking support, acceptance, approval. I marveled at its beauty, this weed – miniscule, uncelebrated – and decided that were this not as legitimate a life as the zinnias and cosmos, the impatiens and coneflowers, worthy and deserving of water and sun and space, then they should be considered weeds, all. It was in that instant I realized this garden, this yard of mine, was, indeed, much bigger than I’d ever realized.
Is it poetry? Who knows…again, I’m not going to wade into that morass. But I will say that if you are just starting out writing poetry – particularly free verse poetry – prose poetry is a good way to get your feet wet without having to worry about line breaks and enjambment and that sort of thing.
For more poetry, please visit today’s Poetry Friday roundup at at Jan Godown Annino’s blog, Bookseedstudio, where she is honoring her mom with a touching poetic tribute!
Did you know that Radio, Rhythm & Rhyme is one of the TOP 20 children’s poetry blogs, according to FEEDSPOT? That’s right – I’m scratching my head, too! FEEDSPOT is an app that allows you to combine all your favorite news feeds, podcasts, YouTube channels, etc. into ONE newsletter. Be sure to check it out!
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.
I’ve teamed up with several other children’s authors to promote our upcoming books this year – and there are a LOT of them! Here’s what you can look forward to seeing this month:
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, 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)
The view from my office. And by “office,” I mean a mile of white sand. And surf. And sun. And cool ocean breezes. And – well, ok, it’s not anything close to being an office. But I’m totally ok with that.
I’ve been enjoying some much-needed ocean vibes this week in York, Maine – our home-away-from home – and got thinking about a special little poem I had written years ago that eventually found a home in Halcyon literary magazine way back in 2014.
I stopped for a minute and thought about that.
2014!
When this poem, titled “Oceanside,” was published (almost exactly 6 years ago), I hadn’t had a poem in a children’s anthology yet, hadn’t been published in Highlights for Children magazine yet, and had no book contracts anywhere on the horizon. Aside from my adult-oriented poetry that had been published over the years, the only children’s poetry I had written and seen published was with Kip Wilson and the gang at the Young Adult Review Network (for which I am extremely grateful).
Part of the reason I couldn’t find a home for “Oceanside” was because it was hard to determine if it was a children’s poem or not. I didn’t really think it was…but then again, it certainly didn’t seem like something that would show up in The Atlantic, either. Thank goodness for Monique Berry and her magazine, Halcyon!
I can’t believe how far my career has come since this was published in 2014: 2 picture books out, 8 more on the way, nearly 30 poems published, and even more good news I can’t publicly announce yet! Just goes to show, if you keep honing your skills – learning, writing, reading, networking – hard work does pay off. And I appreciate you being part of it all!
My friend Linda Mitchell is hosting today’s Poetry Friday roundup at her blog, A Word Edgewise – so head on over for all of today’s poetry links and fun!
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.
Looking for a complete list of all the poetry coming out this year for young people? Then visit Sylvia Vardell’s blog! Also, I’ve teamed up with several other children’s authors to promote our upcoming books this year – and there are a LOT of them!
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, 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)
It’s been a busy month for me; lots of inspiration from this week’s #KidLitZombieWeek, a possible connection made via #PBPitch last week, significant progress on a project I signed a contract for last month, and then Father’s Day this past Sunday AND my birthday this week…whew! So when I was thinking about what to post for today, I remembered I had yet to share a special video I had been meaning to post for the past few weeks.
The non-profit organization that helped Melissa was the Children’s Literacy Foundation (CLiF), which connected us; I visited the school and shared poetry with the students, then helped them create their poems which ended up in the book.
The reason I’m reminding you of this is because earlier this month CLiF invited me to take part in their Virtual Storytelling Series, a series of live videos that allowed local authors to visit with students and families throughout the Vermont/New Hampshire area. They wanted to conclude the series with some poetry as well as some insight on craft…and apparently, I was the man for the job!
I hope you enjoy the video! If you know a group of students or school district that might be interested in holding a virtual author visit like this, please let me know – and if you are in the NH-VT area and would like more info about the wonderful things CLiF does, be sure to check out their website and contact them. They have a huge list of presenters, including my friends Deb Bruss (co-author of Don’t Ask a Dinosaur), Marty Kelly, Jo Knowles, Erin Moulton, and Kathy Brodsky, as well as other local folks like Steve Swinburne, Gina Perry, Jason Chin, Jim Arnosky, Sandra Neil Wallace, and many more!
Today’s Poetry Friday roundup is at Karen Eastlund’s blog, Karen’s Got a Blog! (creative title, yes?) so for all of today’s poetry links and fun, be sure to visit her and say hi!
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.
Looking for a complete list of all the poetry coming out this year for young people? Then visit Sylvia Vardell’s blog! Also, I’ve teamed up with several other children’s authors to promote our upcoming books this year – and there are a LOT of them!
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, 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)
Before we get to all the found poetry that’s been pouring in – and before we announce our winner of a free book! – I have some exciting news to share…
Click the cover to vote!
Thursday afternoon I was astounded to learn that Flashlight Night (Boyds Mills & Kane, 2017) has been shortlisted as a finalist for the New Hampshire Literary Awards – and voting for the Reader’s Choice Awards ends in TWO DAYS, Sat. night Sept. 28, at midnight! So if you’re a NH resident and you feel my little book is worthy, I’d appreciate you clicking THIS LINK and voting. Thank you!
It really is an honor simply to be included on a list with other Granite State authors and poets like Eric Pinder, Jessica Purdy, former NH Poet Laureate Patricia Fargnoli, and fellow BM&K author Sandra Neil Wallace. So please vote for your favorites!
And boy, oh boy, a lot of people are hoping to be that lucky winner!
All one needed to do to enter the giveaway was share a found poem based her poem, “Collecting Stars:”
A “found poem” is simply a poem that uses the words from one source – like a magazine, newspaper, book, etc. – to create a poem. So in this case, readers took the words from Michelle’s poem and re-created them into new poems of their own. I shared several of the poems last Friday, so here are the newest ones:
Around the Yard
flashes in darkness
the dance of starlight
floats free
– Kathy Mazurowski
.
untitled
sparks dance
and beckon
embers glow
sparks float
free
good-bye
– Kathleen L. Armstrong
.
Embers
Specks of light
spark and dance
I watch them float free
when darkness deepens
– Michelle Heidenrich Barnes
.
untitled
darkness deepens
purple sky
sparks of starlight
way up high
sky festooned with
dancing light
colors pulsing
dazzling sight
– Cheriee Weichel
.
Star Collecting *
They come
When darkness deepens
A reminder to share
My own
Sparks of starlight
With tender care
Absorb, release them
to the night
Heart-carry
into morning’s light.
– Linda Trott Dickman
* (Matt’s note: while not a ‘found poem’ by definition, it still gets an “A” and an entry!)
According to the trusty Random.org website, our completely randomly-selected winner is…
LINDA BAIE!
Congratulations, Linda! Thanks so much for submitting your poem last week, and I’ll be sure to get your book in the mail asap. In the meantime, if anyone is still looking for more poetry (and who isn’t?) Carol Varsalona at Beyond Literacy Link has today’s complete Poetry Friday roundup!
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?)
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)
I originally shared this photo on my Facebook page a few days ago along with a few others I’d taken while visiting Quechee Gorge in Vermont, a “mini-Grand Canyon” just over the NH border. As I was taking some of the photos, I immediately knew I’d have to write a few poems about them – and sure enough, this was the first! It is a cherita, an English poetic form that has its roots in the haiku & tanka tradition. (I’ve written cheritas before, HERE and HERE)
If you ever visit Vermont, this is definitely a place I’d encourage you to visit; the entire trail, from one end to the other, is less than a mile, so you can spend a day there and really enjoy the weather, scenery, and your time! Or, if you’d like to extend your walk up through the Dewey Pond Trail at the upper end of the gorge (see the photo to the left), you can add an extra mile to your visit.
The gorge was created about 15,000 years ago when glaciers retreated and carved their calling card into the bedrock; a glacial lake (Lake Hitchcock) that had formed in Connecticut from all the glacial deposits eventually extended all the way up through the Green Mountain State and into Canada, before succumbing to erosion as the glaciers receded and the Ottauquechee River formed. You can read more about the gorge HERE.
If you’d care to read a poem I wrote 2 years ago for my daughter’s birthday, inspired by the Dewey Pond Trail, you can view it HERE. And if you’d like to check out all of today’s Poetry Friday links, please be sure to stop by Deowriter, where Jone Rush MacCulloch is hosting the complete roundup!
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?)
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)
Hard for me to believe, but this post was originally published FIVE years ago, in July 2014, before I had seen my first children’s poem in an anthology (“Lullaby & Kisses Sweet” (Abrams, 2015), to be precise). Now, this week, I have a poem in a brand-new anthology! I was watering the window boxes the other day and thought it might be nice to brush off this little tanka and share it again…I hope you like it!)
For today’s complete Poetry Friday roundup , be sure to head on over to The Miss Rumphius Effect, where Tricia is sharing her response to a triolet challenge!
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?)
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)
First: the (partially) sad news. The company that published Flashlight Night is being sold to another company. The Highlights/Boyds Mills Press family is splitting up, and although it’s disappointing – for the folks who work there as well as for all my friends and fellow writers who have books with them – I’m trying to maintain a positive attitude. This is business, after all, and if this change allows BMP and its imprints to carry on and flourish, then it will have been worth it.
In other, more happy news…
The 2019 Kidlitosphere Progressive Poem is finally complete! This is an annual event for National Poetry Month that was created by author and poet Irene Latham. Each day throughout April, a different children’s writer/blogger would add a new line until the poem concluded April 30 with Donna at Mainely Write. Donna even put it to music and recorded herself singing it – which is a first!
I started the poem off with a couple of found lines from songs, and everyone taking part maintained that premise…using pieces of song lyrics to construct our poem. However, it occurred to me that something was missing: a title! Usually, someone somewhere along the line creates a title, but that didn’t happen this year. So it’s my sincere hope the Progressive Poem crew doesn’t mind me capping off the poem:
Finding Summer (The 2019 Progressive Poem)
Endless summer; I can see for miles…
Fun, fun, fun – and the whole world smiles.
No time for school- just time to play,
we swim the laughin’ sea each and every day.
You had only to rise, lean from your window,
the curtain opens on a portrait of today.
Kodachrome greens, dazzling blue,
it’s the chance of a lifetime,
make it last forever–ready? Set? Let’s Go!
Come, we’ll take a walk, the sun is shining down
Not a cloud in the sky, got the sun in my eyes
Tomorrow’s here. It’s called today.
Gonna get me a piece o’ the sky.
I wanna fly like an eagle, to the sea
and there’s a tiger in my veins.
Oh won’t you come with me waltzing the waves, ………………………………diving the deep?
It’s not easy to know
less than one minute old
we’re closer now than light years to go
To the land where the honey runs
…we can be anyone we want to be…
There’s no stopping curiosity.
What’s so amazing that keeps us stargazing
Looking for a sign of life
You’re simply the best
Hold my hand and we’ll be free
Have faith in you and the things you do
Multiply life by the power of two.
Let’s sway — under the moonlight, ………………………………this serious moonlight And free we’ll be – we’re diving in! Gonna take a chance on summer!
Sorry about that giant head – I can’t control the size of the image! If you’re interested, here’s a list of all the poem’s line sources:
L1 The Who, ‘I Can See for Miles’/The Beach Boys, ‘Endless Summer’ L2 The Beach Boys, ‘Fun, Fun, Fun’/Dean Martin, ‘When You’re Smiling’ L3 The Jamies, ‘Summertime, Summertime’ L4 The Doors, Summer’s Almost Gone’/Led Zeppelin ‘Good Times, Bad Times’ L5 Ray Bradbury, “Dandelion Wine” L6 Joni Mitchell, “Chelsea Morning” L7 Paul Simon, “Kodachrome,” “Dazzling Blue” L8 Dan Fogelberg, “Run for the Roses” L9 Spice Girls, “Wannabe”/Will Smith, “Gettin’ Jiggy Wit It” L10 The Beatles, “Good Day Sunshine” L11 The Carpenters, “Top of the World” L12 Lin-Manuel Miranda, “Underneath the Lovely London Sky” from Mary Poppins Returns L13 Carole King, “Hi-de-ho (That Old Sweet Roll)” L14 Steve Miller, “Fly Like An Eagle” L15 Don Felder, “Wild Life” L16 Nowleen Leeroy, “Song of the Sea” (lullaby) L17 Sara Bareilles, “She Used to Be Mine” from WAITRESS L18 Stevie Wonder, “Isn’t She Lovely” L19 R.E.M., “Find the River” L20 Carole King, “Way Over Yonder” L21 Mint Juleps, “Groovin” by the Young Rascals L22 Jack Johnson, “Upside Down” L23 Kermit the Frog (Jim Henson) “Rainbow Connection” from the Muppet Movie L24 The Foo Fighters, “Learning to Fly” L25 Tina Turner, “The Best” L26 The Partridge Family, “Summer Days” L27 The Pointer Sister’s, “We Are Family” L28 Indigo Girls, “Power of Two”
L29 David Bowie, “Let’s Dance”
If you’d like to see how the progressive Poem – umm, well…”progressed,” you can check out the following links!
Ordering personalized signed copies online?
Oh, yes, you can!
Coming July 2, 2019!
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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reading lists that include Flashlight Night (Boyds Mills Press, 2017)! Of course, if you’re still hungry for more poetry, you’ll find all of today’s links at Poetry for Children, where Sylvia Vardell is hosting Poetry Friday.
(coming Sept. 25, 2018!)
Thank you to everyone for your support!
positive attitude. This is business, after all, and if this change allows BMP and its imprints to carry on and flourish, then it will have been worth it.
Radio, Rhythm & Rhyme 