Hello and Happy Poetry. Friday! Be sure to visit Amy at The Poem Farm for Roundup.
Today I'm excited to share three new children's poetry books with you!
But first, a shout-out to Jonathan Humble at The Dirigible Balloon, who selected three of my poems for his "Imagine the Future" issue. I mean, what a gift his website is! Click to read and listen to my offerings, then stick around to meet some other new poem-friends.
In the science/nature/informational poetry category, I give you Rings of Heartwood: Poems on Growing by Molly Beth Griffin, illus. by Claudia McGehee (Minnesota Historical Press).
First: shout-out to Claudia: I love this art SO MUCH. You may remember Claudia also illustrated Counting Winter, which I blogged about earlier this year. And now another poetry collaboration!
The book features 12 poems about growing things: tree, wood ducklings, snail, etc. and included detailed sidebars and fun facts.
I love the frog/tadpole poem "Trade," which opens with the very relatable "Nobody asked me/ if I'd like to trade / my tail for legs / my gills for lungs."
The Monarch butterfly poem is titled " A Work in Progress." Aren't we all??
I also love the cicada poem "My Outside Voice" which ends with "I'll sing you the story of what I've tunneled through/ to get here."
But perhaps my favorite favorite is "My Whole Self" about a snake looking back after shedding its skin. "I sliver away, / new and bright and shining./ I start over, / comfortable in my skin.
In the SEL/mindfulness poetry category, here's The Gift of a Broken Teacup: Poems of Mindfulness, Meditation, and Me by Allan Wolf, illus. by Jade Orlando (Candlewick Press).
This is a big book that covers a lot of ground. It reminded me of Score! 50 Poems to Motivate and Inspire by Charles Ghigna, illus. by Julia Gorton and Twist: Yoga Poems by Janet Wong, illus. by Julie Paschkis. Allan gives readers words like integrity, indomitable, and inconsequential. And yay for Allan bringing to kids Whitman's "Yawp!" My favorite line comes from the poem "I Write Myself Down!" The second stanza ends with " I write myself to life." YES!
In the Joyce Sidman category, here's her latest, Dear Acorn (Love Oak): Letter Poems to Friends by Joyce Sidman, illus. by Melissa Sweet (Clarion Books).
Joyce and I met in person back in 2016—wow, that feels like another lifetime! Click to see the pic.
This book is joyously illustrated, and I love that the poems are presented in pairs: oak, acorn; pebble, river; button, coat. And then you have the next layer: Big-small opposites. (I love when a poetry book has multiple layers!) Finally, the poems are all letters—and Joyce offers some advice at the end about how to write letter poems. I especially love the pairings that have really distinctly different voices, like Coat and Button! "Button:" (from Coat) might be my most favorite poem of all.
The final poem "To All My Creatures—" (from the Ocean) reminds me of the first poem I had published in the children's market, with a quite similar first line: "Ship Spies a Light" by Irene Latham. Joyce's poem ends with this stanza:
Dear ones, we belong together, /swirling and teeming, travelers all./ For smaller things add up to big,/ and all things big are made of small."
Lovely, yes?
Today's ArtSpeak: PICASSO features a portrait of another one of Picasso's mistresses: Marie-Therese Walker. Marie-Therese was known as Picasso's "Golden Muse," and their affair was long-lived. It began will Picasso was married and continued after Picasso's wife left (but didn't divorce) him and while he was concurrently having an affair with Dora Maar. What a mess, right?
By Marie-Therese's own report, their relationship was one of calm and quiet...and Picasso does portray her in that way. However, Marie-Therese eventually committed suicide, so who really knows?? Was there hidden violence? Was it love, lust, comfort, passion? I don't pretend to know. But it did bring forth a Golden Shovel love poem of the bittersweet variety, for which I am grateful. Thanks so much for reading!
Love Poem
"You are the sky. Everything else—it’s just the weather." —Pema Chödrön
When I think of you
now, I forget what birds are,
their wings become the
clouds feathering a wintry sky.
I remember song is everything:
touch, taste, memory. All else
is noise. Even if the world says it's —
over, I'll look for you—Just
me, waiting out the weather.
- Irene Latham
I love Molly's and Joyce's books, and I can't wait to read Allan's. So much poetry goodness right now. And those first four lines of your poem--they take me to a surreal, beautiful place. Thank you. <3
ReplyDeleteIrene, three gorgeous poems! Congratulations on their inclusion in The Dirigible Balloon. [I am on the hunt for that “map into the place where despair breaks.”] Followed by three gorgeous poetry books! I can’t wait to gobble them up. Thank you for your recommendations. Lastly, your ability to match words to art always delights, even the choice of form fits so perfectly. I feel like you should write TA-DA! at the end of this post. : )
ReplyDeleteSuch riches in this post! Enjoyed all your poems and am excited to read all the new books. Picasso and his mistresses make for fascinating melodrama :).
ReplyDeleteThank you, Irene, for the recommendations (I just borrowed Dear Acorn from the library!) and the beautiful golden shovel. I love the image of birds' wings as clouds "feathering a wintry sky."
ReplyDeleteGorgeous. "I forget what birds are..." You have me curious about Marie-Therese...to be with Picasso would be to be with an enigma, I would imagine. Thank you for these beautiful and important book shares. xo
ReplyDeleteThese poems are all such inspirations! I particularly liked reading about Picasso and your love poem. How love can create such confusion!
ReplyDeleteThank you for highlighting these 3 new books. I'm looking forward to reading them.
ReplyDeleteI love your golden shovel and the line and art that inspired it.
Irene, you have so much going on—you’re inspiring. I really love your golden shovel poem The Clearing. Those last two lines in particular which both surprised and delighted!
ReplyDeleteThanks for sharing these three books. I am excited to be hosting Allan in Louisiana soon. In addition to the mindfulness book, he has 2 books that came about from a disaster down the road from me. Poetry, graphic novel, and historical fiction all from the same author in the same year!
ReplyDeleteYour art speak poems are amazing models for the just right words in the just right order. “Their wings become the clouds feathering a wintry sky.” A beautiful image!
Thanks for all you do to support the art of children’s book writing!
Oh my goodness, a treasure trove over here this week! Thanks for sharing these three amazing works by amazing creators, and for your haunting poem this week too. We need all these words and pictures in the world right now! xo
ReplyDeleteLove the poems in The Dirigible Balloon.
ReplyDeleteAnd these lines:
When I think of you
now, I forget what birds are,
killed me in the best of ways.
I've had my eye on 'Dear Acorn." I'm in love with the whole idea of that book and this post reminds me to ask my public library to purchase it....OK back from requesting that purchase...
ReplyDeleteAnd, WTG three poems for Dirigible Balloon. That's impressive. I'm off to explore links. But, a moment of pause for this woman who loved Picasso. I wonder if she had to make herself small for him to be great? Her death by suicide --tragic.
This post is overflowing with poetic goodness! Thank you for all the recommendations on poems and poetry. Off to the library I go! I loved the golden shovel format. It has me thinking about my favorite quotes.
ReplyDeleteCongratulations on your three poems and thanks for the three books. Two are new to me and on hold (as of this moment) at the library!
ReplyDeleteI love that you wrote a golden shovel for Picasso's "golden muse!" And the way you turned inside out the "you are" and the "everything else is" of the quote was lovely!
Just added these books to my library list so I can peruse them at my leisure!! Thanks!
ReplyDelete