Calavera skull poem + Book Giveaway!

 Hello and Happy Poetry Friday! Be sure to visit Jone Rush MacCulloch for Roundup.

Happy Halloween! Today I am traveling to Highlights for the Poetry Palooza!. Yay! I'm also joining others in our community (Matt! Heidi!) in celebration of a Blogiversary: 20 years!! 

This is post number 2,346!

Newsletter subscribers already know this, but I wanted to be sure and share it here as well: To add to the fun, I'm hosting a book giveaway of a few of my favorite 2025 reads.

I’m offering ONE (US only) winner a book bundle: James by Percival Everett (adult); Knocking on Windows by Jeannine Atkins (YA). The Trouble with Heroes by Kate Messner (MG). Every Monday Mabel by Jashar Awan (PB); and a fresh-in-my-mailbox F&G of For the Win: Poems Celebrating Phenomenal Athletes selected by Irene Latham & Charles Waters (POETRY)! 

Click to enter!

Even if you don't win, you'll get a subscription to my monthly e-mail newsletter. Good luck, and happy reading!!

In other news, The Mistakes That Made Us is a featured title in Lerner's Nonfiction November! Sign up for free!

This week's ArtSpeak: PICASSO features a piece I've been saving for this very day! I mean, what better than a skull poem for Halloween? Though this one did take an unexpected turn at the end! Learn more about calavera (skull poems) here. Thanks so much for reading.

Calavera
by Irene Latham

stubborn bone—
once a box for a brain,
once encased by skin—

empty now,
hollow

you glow–

     a skull is a skull is a skull
     no different
     no less dead

o, determined cottage 

of spirit and song—
shall I fill your windows with fruit?

perhaps you will be
the one to outlast
the internet

Bamahenge + "A Dream of Rabbits" poem

 Hello and Happy Poetry Friday! Be sure to visit Patricia at Reverie for Roundup.

I'm just back from a glorious few days with loved ones at the beach. We also visited Bamahenge, a partial full-size replica of Stonehenge in Elberta, Alabama. Cool! Also, new life goal: create something funky and cool and worthy of Atlas Obscura notice. :)

This weeks ArtSpeak: PICASSO features another of his b&w line drawings. I decided to write a trinet. Another resource I visited while writing this poem include this list of movement words...though I ended up using the element of repetition instead!

The poem is titled " A Dream of Rabbits." I've written a few other animal-dream poems:

A Dream of Sheep
What Tiger Dreams
Dream with Three Hearts
I Dream of Roosters

And now for the new one. Thank you so much for reading!

A Dream of Rabbits
by Irene Latham

Rabbits dance
by starlight—
Are they leaping for the Moon,
or kissing the Earth? I'd like
to be
a rabbit
dancing, dancing.

Alabama Safari Park + bison poem

 

Hello and Happy Poetry Friday! Be sure to visit Sarah Grace Tuttle for Roundup.

Last week, as I drove across Alabama for the Book Expo Tour (so much fun connecting with librarians across the state!), I had a few adventures along the way. 

Some of them were challenging (death of car battery), and others were pure joy: visit to Alabama Safari Park, just outside of Montgomery. 

This is a drive-thru safari, and the way it works is, you buy buckets of feed. Well, as you can imagine, these animals are quite accustomed to cars and buckets! 

Some were kind of greedy, yanking the entire bucket from my hands! Others (looking at you, Mr. Llama!) stood in front of my car blocking my path until I offered a snack. 

A few were curious about the (classical) music coming from my car speakers. (See pic at the end of the post!)

 Even though my favorite, the giraffes, were in the barn due to the weather (rain), it was a lot of fun meeting new friends.

AND I guess it inspired this week's ArtSpeak: PICASSO poem. I did have a moment of fear when a young bull came charging toward my car! 

But then, a bit further along the drive, a herd of bison were resting in the grass, paying no attention to me whatsoever. 

So I thought: maybe Picasso's bull needn't be the aggressive type. Maybe a sleepy bison should get a poem, too. 

Thanks so much for reading!

soft-eyed bison

nests in sunshine and spring grass

afternoon nap

- Irene Latham

And here's one more pic....perhaps a poem for another day!

Flit-Fluttering with Butterflies and Arthur Sze

Hello and Happy Poetry Friday! Be sure to visit Linda at TeacherDance for Roundup.

It's been a busy week of travel and teaching and revising in the cracks! Life is full, just the way I like it. And I am full of amor mundi (love of the world), which I was reminded of in this article about Jane Goodall. Jane—may she rest in peace—and I have this particular trait in common.

Also, in celebration of our newest (25th) U.S. Poet Laureate Arthur Sze, here's a lovely poem. 

The Shape of Leaves

by Arthur Sze

Ginkgo, cottonwood, pin oak, sweet gum, tulip tree:
our emotions resemble leaves and alive
to their shapes we are nourished.

Have you felt the expanse and contours of grief
along the edges of a big Norway maple?
Have you winced at the orange flare

searing the curves of a curling dogwood?
I have seen from the air logged islands,
each with a network of branching gravel roads,

and felt a moment of pure anger, aspen gold.

click to read the rest of the poem

In answer to Arthur's questions: YES! Trees are the great witnesses, aren't they, to all our human-ness. I have my tree-friends for sure.

This week's Artspeak: PICASSO also speaks of trees...and those hopeful yellow butterflies that frequent the Alabama air in August. Thanks so much for reading!

yellow butterfly

gives flit-fluttering lessons

to August birch leaves

- Irene Latham

SOME STARRY NIGHT, my first novel for adults, coming in 2026!

 Hello and Happy Poetry Friday! Be sure to visit Matt at Radio, Rhythm, and Rhyme for Roundup.

It's October, aka my most favorite month! There's a lot going on, including Mother Nature's regular October show, which I adore. 

AND I'm excited to share about my debut historical fiction novel for adults, Some Starry Night, coming from Historium Press in 2026!

Some Starry Night imagines the story behind Vincent van Gogh's most famous painting, Starry Night, and the secret love affair with American poet Emily Dickinson that inspired it.

So...it's a marriage of two of my favorite things: poetry & art! And LOVE. Always, always love. 

Y'all I had SO MUCH FUN writing this book. I'll be sharing more about this very soon!

Next week, I'll be on tour with the Alabama Library Expo, traveling across the state of Alabama from south to north, stopping in a different city each day. My presentation focuses on "backyard history," so I'll be talking about my historical fiction titles, particularly the ones with Alabama ties, like Leaving Gee's Bend, Meet Miss Fancy, and African Town (co-written with Charles Waters). I'm super-excited to share this time with Alabama educators!

For this week's ArtSpeak: PICASSO, I've selected one of his animal line drawings, which I love! Somehow I missed writing after this particular one back in 2022 during my ArtSpeak: Animals year. 

I love these pieces! How satisfying might it be to be able to say I've written poems after all 24 drawings in this series? And what better time than now, during my Picasso year, to add some more poems to my tally? (I think this is number 15!) Thanks so much for reading.

the whisper of grass

as mouse disappears in hole

winter is coming

- Irene Latham