Introducing WORDSPINNERS...and Welcome, Amy Hevron!

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

Quick announcement and invitation before we dive in with our featured guest!!! You are welcome to join the fun at SCBWI Wisconsin's "Engaging Stories" fall conference, Oct. 8-10, 2026, Green Lake Conference Center. I'm delighted to join the esteemed faculty and also present an intensive on applying poetic elements to ALL types of writing. Hooray!

Today it's my pleasure to welcome author and illustrator Amy Hevron to Live Your Poem, to talk about our new book Come In! Come In! Wordspinners to Welcome You Home (poems by Irene Latham, illus. by Amy Hevron, AstraPublishing/Wordsong) coming Oct. 20, 2026. I've just learned it will also be released in audio, which doesn't happen often for poetry books. Hooray! Pre-order here.

When I pitched this book (way back in 2018!), I said, it's like a Richard Scarry word book...but POEMS! So, poems for the littles, about everyday things that you find in a home: spoon, door, lamp, etc... And also, a tour of all kinds of homes: cabin, lighthouse, yurt, and more! 66 poems in a 48-page book. The lovelies Rebecca Davis and Millie von Platen have helped make the book the best it can be! 

Charles Waters, Nikki Grimes,
Irene Latham

What then, is a "wordspinner"? Well, I'm glad you asked! It's a name I've given a kind of poem many of us were already writing...a poem about a word.

 Remember that Nikki Grimes wordplay exercise years ago at Today's Little Ditty? Wordspinners grew out of it, and I'm super grateful Nikki gave me her blessing to develop it into a bona fide poetry form!

And when Amy Hevron agreed to illustrate the collection...well, I knew it was going to be something special. And it is! Here's Amy, responding to four simple prompts, as is 

tradition here at Live Your Poem, thanks to a poetry book Fresh Delicious: Poems from the Farmer's Market (illus. by Mique Moriuchi, AstraPublishing/Wordsong), now available in paperback!

Without further ado, please welcome Amy Hevron!

Amy Hevron

AH: Thank you, Irene for inviting me to do a guest post on your blog to celebrate Come In! Come In! I loved illustrating this cozy book and can’t wait to share it with the world!

FRESH

AH: I loved this manuscript when I received it. And I was drawn to this new kind of “wordspinners”poetry you had created. My mind instantly thought of visuals for all the little poems about different types of homes and rooms. It reminded me of the dollhouse I had as a child. I still have a few of the tiny furniture pieces from the dollhouse, like this amazing miniature ladderback chair and this little wooden piano. Both were inspirations for the “Chair” and “Piano” poems in the book.

DIFFICULT

AH: This is the first time I’ve illustrated a collection of poems so figuring out the pagination was a challenge. Here’s my early messy thumbnail sketches for the book. Initially, we tried to fit it all into the standard 32-pages, but all those houses and scenes needed more breathing room. So we ended up adding several spreads including quite a few to the beginning of the book to help the reader gradually “come in” to the story. So what started as a difficulty lead to the opportunity to illustrate one of my favorite scenes, a German cuckoo clock with whirling dervish bunnies, to introduce the concept of wordspinners.

WHAT IS A WORDSPINNER?

A poetry form inspired by a Nikki Grimes

wordplay exercise. It seeks to define a word by

spinning together the sound of the word and

the function of the word. The only rule is that

the first line of the poem must end with “word.”

Length varies. Rhyming optional.

WORDSPINNER I 

a dizzy-giddy word,

a let’s-go-fishing-for-a-fresh-definition word.

A word that aims to rearrange the furniture

in your brain.

[note: there is a "Wordspinner II" poem on the back cover of the book!]

DELICIOUS 

AH: My first thought for “delicious” goes to the “Shelter” spread that features lots of yummy food. And beyond that, I loved letting my imagination run wild on this book. Illustrating critters in clothing living in all these little scenes was a delight. I also had fun hiding additional “houses” in the scenes, like the cuckoo clock. And also my dollhouse that makes an appearance in the last spread.

Here are 3 poems from the "Shelter" spread:

MUG

a snug-in-your-hands word,

it holds just a hint

of vanilla.

It’s for sipping

away your worries

on a swirly, wintry day.

MILK 

a gulping word,

it makes a mustache

and builds up bones.

It never forgets to say,

Mmmmm.

JAM 

a sweet glob word,

it’s for licking and dipping.

It’s sticky and drippy

and loves fingers best of all.

ANYTHING ELSE

AH:

I’m always such a fan of seeing people’s creative process, so I thought I’d share mine. From those first messy thumbnail sketches, I worked up tighter ones, like this chipmunk scene in a treehouse. Then I moved onto painting the final art. For this book, I painted with acrylic on oak 

plywood panels, one of my typical mediums. Here’s a picture of the stack of finished oak panels for Come In! Come In! After the initial painting, I scanned in the panels and finalized the illustrations in Photoshop. There, I color corrected the scenes and added finishing touches. 

IL: Thank you, Amy!!

Friends, I have bought one of Amy's oak panels from the book to be displayed in my home gallery. I can't wait!

Today's ArtSpeak:WOMEN features another new-to-me artist from the Harper's Bazaar list. Paige Bradley is a sculptor like no other. I kind of fell in love with her work...lots of powerful women, certainly a celebration of the female form, wrought with such grace and beauty...do check her out. When I found Apex, The Wings, I knew I had to write about it. (I didn't read her statement about the piece until AFTER I wrote my poem...and I was like, wow, I got from the piece what the artist intended. Cool!) Thanks so much for reading.

Papa promised someday I would find my wings

and today as I leapt
plied       pirouetted across the stage

feathers sprouted      spread
and now I am halfway      flying

halfway waiting
for the other wing to emerge

halfway believing
one wing is       enough

- Irene Latham