Poetry Friday: “Jack’s Lament”

This post was originally published almost exactly 5 years ago, on Oct. 17, 2014. I’m in the process of working on two picture book manuscripts – one brand-new and one a significant revision – all while polishing poems for an upcoming anthology AND trying to get my childhood home ready to sell, now that my folks are in a nursing home. (Whew!) So time has been at a premium lately. I hope you enjoy this blast from the past!

And oh, by the way… CYBILS Awards nominations are open! I’m very excited to once again be a first-round judge for the Poetry category and have already begun sorting through some of the nominated books to see which ones I’ve read and which are new to me. There are a number of different categories, so please click the link and nominate your favorite children’s books of this past year!

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I admit it, I’ve been on a zeno binge.

The zeno is a new poetic form created by former U.S. Children’s Poet Laureate J. Patrick Lewis, and if you have not heard about it, you can find all the details about how it was created at poet/author Michelle H. Barnes’ blog – in fact, she’s hosting Poetry Friday today!

You can see the zeno I wrote for last week’s Poetry Friday post HERE. As for today’s offering…

(click to enlarge)

Catherine Flynn is hosting today’s Poetry Friday roundup, so head on over to her blog, Reading to the Core, where she is “re-making the world!”

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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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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!

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Also feel free to visit my voiceover website HERE, and you can also follow me via Twitter , Facebook, Instagram, Pinterest, and SoundCloud!

Poetry Friday: “Standards” – and more zenos!

I have to thank authors/poets Michelle H. Barnes and J. Patrick Lewis for introducing me to the zeno, a short, fun poetic form Pat came up with a few years ago.

Michelle shared a couple of Pat’s zenos on her blog earlier this month and I went on a zeno-writing spree that had me writing a couple each week! (You can read about what they are and see one of mine HERE)

Today, Michelle is featuring all the zenos she has received at her blog as part of the wrap-up to her “Ditty of the Month” challenge. Hopefully, you’ll also enjoy this new one I wrote specifically for today! And for all of today’s ghoulish Poetry Friday links, Linda Baie is hosting the festivities at Teacher Dance!

Standards

When I go trick-or-treating, I’m
not that picky –
not at
all! –
but I may break
down and
bawl
with a stinkin’
popcorn
ball.

– © 2014, Matt Forrest Esenwine

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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 twice a week – on 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, Pinterest, and SoundCloud!

 

Poetry Friday: “First Call”

Wouldn’t you know it…J. Patrick Lewis had to go an invent another new poetic form that’s so addictive, you can’t leave it alone.

Last Thursday, writer Michelle H. Barnes featured Pat on her blog (you can read the entire post HERE) and following the interview, she asked him to share a poetic challenge for her readers. He suggested writing a “zeno” – a poem based on the syllabic structure of a hailstone sequence, a series of numbers that rises and falls like hailstones in a cloud – and has baffled mathematicians for centuries.

I’ll save you the academics of how hailstone sequences are created…but to put it simply, one can take any number at all, do a couple of simple calculations, and the series of numbers that results from these calculations always, always, always ends in 8,4,2,1,4,2,1,4,2,1. (And the crazy thing is, no one knows why!) So a zeno poem would have 8 syllables in the first line, 4 syllables in the 2nd line, 2 in the 3rd line, and so on.

For someone who enjoys wordplay, challenges like this are poetic crack.

I wrote a couple and am still working on a few more. Many thanks to Michelle for sharing one of mine this past Monday – and thanks a LOT to Pat for suggesting this form. (and yes, Pat, I’m saying that honestly AND sarcastically!) Michelle has been sharing zenos from other readers all week at her blog, if you’d like to read more. Here’s my latest:

First Call

Books and bags unpacked, the act is
that he’s glad he’s
on his
own,
a young boy’s life
long out-
grown
until he hangs
up the
phone.

– © 2014, Matt Forrest Esenwine

For more poetry, fun and links, please visit Tricia Stohr-Hunt, who is hosting Poetry Friday at The Miss Rumphius Effect! And be sure to get your CYBILS Awards nominations in soon – you only have a few days left!

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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 twice a week – on 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, Pinterest, and SoundCloud!