The Beginning of the Beginning of DEAR WANDERING WILDEBEEST

Hello, and happy Poetry Friday! Your host for Roundup is Jone at Check it Out. Also, I'm thrilled and honored to read lovely Jama post about DEAR WANDERING WILDEBEEST at Jama's Alphabet Soup. Thank you, Jama!

We writers are often asked about beginnings: where did you get the idea? what inspired this book? where do ideas come from?

I'm sure there are gazillions of answers, and all of them exactly right. Even though in my experience it's impossible to really pinpoint a beginning... so much of the creative life exists in our subconscious, and it's developing our whole lives long. Which means I could say, DEAR WANDERING WILDEBEEST was inspired by my childhood love of animals or the time our family lived and traveled overseas. (The closest we got to the Serengeti was Egypt.) Maybe there were books I read or movies I saw -- I'm certain their were. But THE thing that pushed me headlong into the water hole was this photograph (and others) by Greg du Toit:

Only it wasn't just the image: it was the amazing story behind the image. I wrote about this a few weeks ago at Poetry for Children and just now saw the lovely comments many of you left. A belated THANK YOU!

I find I am often inspired by other art, whether it be written works or visual art or music or history or science or nature... no shortage of inspiration in this beautiful world, that's for sure! And I am continually inspired by the offering here on Poetry Friday.

Beginnings, essentially, are about listening. Listening to the world. Listening to your response to the world, that soft inner voice that begs you to coax it from the darkness.

So, today, I'd like to share a beautiful poem about beginnings:

Beginning

The moon drops one or two feathers into the field.   

The dark wheat listens.

Be still.

Now.

There they are, the moon's young, trying

Their wings.

Between trees, a slender woman lifts up the lovely shadow

Of her face, and now she steps into the air, now she is gone

Wholly, into the air.

I stand alone by an elder tree, I do not dare breathe

Or move.

I listen.

The wheat leans back toward its own darkness,

And I lean toward mine.

- James Wright

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Don't you love that?? I like thinking of ideas as "the moon's young, trying/ Their wings." Wishing all of you wonderful beginnings today! xo

My Secret Weapon for Writing Kids' Poetry

I picked this baby up oh about 5 years ago at a Scholastic Book Fair when my youngest son was in still in elementary school. (How much do I love Scholastic Book Fairs? Even more now that they've picked up DON'T FEED THE BOY. Look for it!)

I didn't know at the time that I would be writing poems for kids -- I just thought it was a fun thing to have around the house. :)

Now, it's my go-to source when I'm working on a poem for kids, even though I'm not really into writing rhymed-n-metered verse. Oh, the joys of internal rhyme! And sure, you can find rhyming dictionaries online. But this one is so easy to use. 

What's your secret weapon?

Poetry Friday Roundup is..... Missing!

Hello! Poetry Friday Roundup is HERE! Dear sweet Robyn had some unexpectedness this week, so I am your substitute Roundup-er... which means you should lower your expectations. You know how it is with substitutes... and holy impossible, I can't possibly match Robyn.

The theme for today is MISSING. That's because lovely Linda Baie sent me a Summer Poem Swap poem by the same title, which I will share shortly.

But first, I want to share a little Insider Information about a poem missing from my new book DEAR WANDERING WILDEBEEST And Other Poems from the Water Hole, coming September 1. Thanks to the amazing Poetry Friday community for your enthusiasm for the book... I am excited to be visiting a number of blogs (with giveaways!) in the coming weeks.

When Millbrook Press acquired the manuscript, there were two elephant poems... the keeper, "Dust Bath at Dusk" appears in the book and illustrator Anna Wadham beautifully used the spread to move the book from the daylight hours to the nighttime ones.

Which leaves the missing elephant poem: "Elephant Digs for Salt."

There were some problems with the poem, not the least of which was the fact that it featured the animal as a worker... and I'd already done that in "Dung Beetle at Work." Also, there was a little problem of the introduction of humans in the poem -- when none of the other poems included humans. AND, some other problems you'll probably spot right away.

So....since we already had an elephant poem anyway, we decided that instead of revising, it was probably best to simply eliminate. Here it is:

Elephant Digs for Salt

Tusks are picks

ax

shovel

at this excavation site—

Elephant carves tunnels

to get the nutrients right.

Elephant pokes

digs

rubs

with such expensive tools –

poachers still hunt the ivory,

even though it’s against the rules.

Elephant loads

licks

cleans—

no need for dynamite.

With such power and diligence

it soon satisfies its appetite.

- Irene Latham

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And now for Linda's poem! I cannot tell you how this poem made my day. Both the topic, the text, and the presentation. LOVE. Thank you again and again, Linda. Here it is:

All That's Missing

by Linda Baie

Missing: hydrogen molecules two:

without them there wouldn't be

a wishy-washy, splishy-splashy

water world for you and me.

Missing: a hen with no clutch of eggs;

without them, she'd only scratch,

clucking around the chicken pen

to find chicks that didn't hatch.

Missing: the sun that will not set;

all would work, still thinking it's day.

Without our evenings, we'd have no rest

and miss lovely time to play.

Missing: the yeast that chemically boosts;

without it, there would be an outcry

for soft rolls or slices, bagels and buns.

T'would be such a sad goodbye.

Missing: those words that make poetry hum;

without them, our lives would be less.

We'd live with just prose on our pages,

no rhymes for us to possess.

Please go find those molecules two;

I'll bring eggs and yeast that we lack.

Call back the sun and create the words.

sigh, relief, we have our world back!

---------------------------------

Thank you, Linda! My favorite is still the hen with the missing eggs. Poor hen! :)

And now for Roundup!! Please leave your link below!

An InLinkz Link-up

A Fiddle Named Half-Pint

illustration by Garth Williams,
LITTLE HOUSE IN THE BIG WOODS

Once upon a time there was a little girl who loved the Little House books.

She also loved the TV show, in which Laura gained the nickname "Half-Pint."

Which might explain why, when, many years later, her fiddle teacher said, "You need to name your fiddle," that the name she selected was Half-Pint.
**********************
I am brand-new to the fiddle... my husband says it's my mid-life crisis. :) I have long loved music and took piano lessons until I was a senior in high school. (I remember once my grandmother saying of me, "she just can't walk past that piano without playing it." I wish she was here to see that it's true of the fiddle as well!

So. Why the fiddle? Maybe because of Pa in the Little House books. Maybe because of THE FIDDLER ON THE ROOF, a show I adored as a teen. Maybe because I love the cello, but it's SO BIG, and I travel a lot and need something portable. Maybe because I love bluegrass music and all those old folk tunes. I guess there are a lot of reasons! And I am loving it!

Here we are, me and my new companion, taking a writing break:

Here's a picture of Half-Pint waiting patiently for my attention. (So lovely of Maggie to keep her company amid other treasures!)

Any other fiddler-writers out there?

NIGHT GARDEN: Poems from the World of Dreams by Janet S. Wong

Hello and happy Poetry Friday! Be sure to visit Heidi at my juicy little universe for Roundup.

This week I've been savoring NIGHT GARDEN, by Janet S. Wong, illustrations by Julie Paschkis. It's a gorgeous book with poems about the people we dream of and nightmares and even dog dreams! My favorite poem is the final poem in the collection:






There Is a Place
by Janet S. Wong

There is a place

where the museum houses thousands of paintings
seen nowhere else in the world,
the colors so bright they grab your eyes
and hold you there, looking,

where the library is filled with brand new books
waiting for you to open them first,
to tell stories only you could know

where fresh cherries have no pits,
where puppies never grow old.

There is such a place,
hidden deep
in me.

----
Cherries with no pits! Puppies that never grow old!! Love the thought that those places exist in me... because they do, they really do.



And while we're on the subject of puppies, here's a pic (screenshotted from son's Instagram) of our 3 month old Aussie puppy Georgia with almost 4 year old Ruby:

Some funny things about Georgia:
She's not very lady-like... she always sleeps with her legs spread.
She has one pert ear and one floppy ear that gives her this kind of mischievous "I don't know what you're talking about" look.
She still lays on the ground to eat from her bowl (as if she is nursing), tail ticking like a speeding metronome.
While Ruby lives to fetch the rubber chicken, Georgia is like, mehhh, I'd rather just sit here. :) She DOES like digging herself a cool bed in the dirt under our deck and almost always has a dirty nose!
She's a climber. The other day I found her sleeping ON TOP of her crate. :)

THE ENCHANTED by Rene Denfeld

A couple of weeks ago I participated in an event to support Books to Prisoners Project. All kinds of authors where there, including Rene Denfeld, author of THE ENCHANTED, which is a beautiful, unexpected book set at an ancient stone prison, where, in the dungeon, exists a death row. Rene has worked as an investigator for Death Row cases, and she modeled her prison after one she visits in Oregon (where, she said, they like to give the death sentence, but then sometimes decades will pass before men are executed).

The event was to raise funds to ship books to prisoners. What I saw happening throughout the day was a development of compassion for the inmates -- not excusing the things they've done, but an empathy and understanding of the poverty and life circumstances that contributed. So may broken people.

Books, as any booklover can imagine, are a haven for prisoners -- an escape and a comfort and something to feed the imagination when life is confined to a dark cell. Rene writes beautifully of it in her book:

"Sometimes when reading a book, 

I would think of the other people who might have touched it before it was donated. A nice woman who lay down with her baby for a nap might have held the book I was reading. I could see her, lying in a sundress on faded rose-printed cotton sheets, the book splashed open in the sunlight. A little of that sun could have soaked into the pages I was touching.

After a time, it seemed that the world 

inside the books became my world. So 

when I thought of my childhood, it was 

dandelion wine and ice cream on a 

summer porch, like Ray Bradbury, and 

catching catfish with Huck Finn. My 

own memories receded and the book 

memories became the real memories, 

far more than the outside, far more even 

than in here."

Here are some pictures from the event:

Rene Denfeld

The poetry panel: Georgia Ann Banks-Martin, Jerri Beck, me, Doris Davenport

Big thanks to Mary Ann Robbins for including me -- and for all the work she does so tirelessly and with enthusiasm.

11 Storytelling Tips from Storyteller & Author Bil Lepp

Last week I was lucky enough to attend a mini-conference organized by Jefferson County Children's Librarians here in Birmingham, Alabama. The featured speaker was Bil Lepp, nationally recognized storyteller and now author of oh so entertaining THE KING OF LITTLE THINGS, illustrated by David T. Wenzel.

Bil is known on the storytelling circuit for his tall tales, and he treated us to several during the workshop. Because I love the art of storytelling, and because I am constantly striving to improve my presentations, I was pretty happy to be there. And Bil was just a delight. Loved talking with him. AND I came home with a new book I am gifting to my young adopted siblings... and notebook full of takeways... like these:

1. Tell stories you are A) comfortable talking about and B) people want to hear. This means general/universal themes are best.

2. Goal is to get readers into the story and get them to react the way you want them to.

3. Important to use gradual exaggeration (don't do too much too soon!) so that your listener is with you and doesn't reject your story.

4. Use details, but only really important ones. Too many gives the reader too much to remember and not enough power to bring themselves/their world into the story, and too few affects believeability.

5. Visualize the story as a cartoon running inside your head as you're telling it.

6. Tell a story to 5 different audiences before you let it loose on the world.

7. Most of Bil's stories are 12-20 minutes long... but he has an arsenal of stories to fill pretty much any time slot required.

8. If you have a prop, make it purposeful. (Don't just dress in costume and do nothing with it.)

9. If telling a story about real people, use real names if you're saying something nice and substitute a fake name if not-nice. :)

10. Big audiences are more forgiving-- and more likely to laugh hysterically.

11. If you can reduce your story to one line, you just might be ready to tell it.
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And, probably my favorite thing Bil said all day:

getting a book published comes down to magic.

Yep. Thanks, Bil! And thanks, amazing Jefferson Co. librarians!

ORDINARY THINGS & Cherries from Keri!

Hello, and happy Poetry Friday! Please visit poet-reader-teacher Mary Lee at A Year of Reading for Roundup. Also, don't forget to enter to win a copy of my new book DEAR WANDERING WILDEBEEST at Goodreads! It releases September 1, so you'll get a sneak peek. :)

I've been reading ORDINARY THINGS: Poems from a Walk in Early Spring by Ralph Fletcher, drawing by Walter Lyon Krudop. It's delightful! But before I share some poems, I have to share my latest Summer Poem Swap treasure. It's from Keri at Keri Recommends. I've met Keri -- she's wonderful... and she's a beekeeper, and a new quilter! I could talk with her for days. And, oh my, THIS POEM.

By Grzegorz Jereczek from Gdańsk, Poland (Cherries  Uploaded by russavia) [CC-BY-SA-2.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0)], via Wikimedia Commons

Breakfast Al Fresco

by Keri Collins Lewis

for Irene Latham

Robins

sing merrily,

perched in the cherry tree,

breakfast red and ripe for pecking:

fruit course.
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Isn't that succulent? Love! Thank you, Keri!

Now back to ORDINARY THINGS. It contains poems about everyday things in nature, and manmade things. Here are a few of my favorite poems in the collection:

stream

by Ralph Fletcher

No place better than a stream

to think out a tough decision

or just sit back and dream.

No one built the winding paths

that stream waters follow

except water and rock and land.

Stream decisions take time

and water is world famous

for stopping to change its mind.

mailboxes

by Ralph Fletcher

When I step from the forest

onto the hard black asphalt

my eyes start to play tricks.

That fire hydrant turns into 

a toddler dressed to the gills

in a snug winter snowsuit.

See those mailboxes over there?

To me they look like old people

dancing slowly cheek-to-cheek.

railroad tracks

by Ralph Fletcher

I got built ninety years back by

sweating stinking swearing men.

For decades every kind of train

screeched on my back. No more.

Winters here can be pretty bleak

but wildflowers always come back.

Empty nests have that forlorn look

'till the songbirds return in May.

The swamp is quiet but soon frogs

will take up their monotonous chant.

My back remains unbroken but only

ghost locomotives rattle these rails.

DEAR WANDERING WILDEBEEST Goodreads Giveaway!

Goodreads Book Giveaway

Dear Wandering Wildebeest

by Irene Latham

Giveaway ends August 19, 2014.
See the giveaway details at Goodreads.

Enter to win