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. : )
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