National Poetry Month/Poetry for Children

Poetry for Children: About finding and sharing poetry with young people is a wonderful blog with posts focusing on books of poetry for children that include a book review, a poem from the book, and ideas for accompanying activities and connections. It is created by Sylvia Vardell, Professor at Texas Woman's University, author, and co-editor of Bookbird, the journal of international children's literature.

National Poetry Month/Sijo

Here is a sijo poem (often described as the Korean haiku), by Linda Sue Park from her book, Tap Dancing on the Floor. I love what is says about poetry. I'm trying to take some time to write out poems I like during poetry month. And to keep it easy and loose and not a big deal. So I grabbed the closest blank surface (the back side of an envelope) and a marker (Y & C Calligraphy 2.0) and wrote. I took a deep breath, decided not to let it bother me that there should have been more space between the second and third stanzas and that there are two dots over one of the i's, and took this photo to share it.

Here's a link to a previous post with information on writing sijo, a simple book project, and more information about Linda Sue Park's book.

National Poetry Month/Aprille

Of all the poetry I was required to memorize in school, this short bit from the Prologue of the Canterbury Tales by Geoffrey Chaucer is only thing I still remember. I always think of it when April comes and I see the scilla blooming in the garden. I had never seen, or at least noticed, the small blue flowers until we moved into our house. The image was made by scanning in the lettering, placing it in a layer over a photo of scilla, and then making it a screen. You can hear the Middle English being read by Thomas Rau here and read a translation into contemporary English here.

And here is an old piece of calligraphy from a faded slide where I combined the words of Chaucer and Eliot on the month of April.

National Poetry Month/Mass Poetry

Mass Poetry has a Poetry Festival scheduled for May 13-14 in Salem, MA. You can find out information about the festival at masspoetry.org and download Common Threads: Seven Poets and a Wealth of Readers. Common Threads is a program of MassPoetry that seeks to have 10,000 people in the state read these seven poems in the month of April, National Poetry Month. All the poets have strong connections to the state but of course Common Threads is by no means limited to those of us who live in Mass.

National Poetry Month/Bright Hill Literary Center

Today's poetry month post is a salute to Bright Hill Literary Center in Treadwell, NY. Founded by Bertha Rogers, it is a thriving literary center in upstate New York. It is the home of Bright Hill Press which published poetry books and chapbooks, a community library, and the Word and Image Gallery where I will showing the Emily Dickinson series in October. Programming includes monthly readings (Word Thursdays) and workshops for children and adults. Tomorrow's reading (April 7) is by translator and critic Philip Mosley and poet Deborah Bernhardt. Bertha is a writer and an artist and has been a long-time member of the Book Arts List. Bright Hill Press also created the The New York State Literary Web Site & New York State & NY City Online Maps in partnership with the New York State Council on the Arts.

National Poetry Month/Color Poems

Mary O'Neill's color poems were among my favorites in The Random House Book of Poetry that I used to read to my kids. They led me to the complete collection on her book, Hailstones and Halibut Bones, which in turn inspired me to make an accordion book of color poems.

The first was made with torn colored tissue. The second book was made after my conversion to recycled materials. I used a piece of copy paper with writing on one side folded in half with the writing on the inside for the pages and cereal boxes for the covers. The colored papers came from the collage box. When I was in conversation with a museum about using recycled materials for a family workshop, they questioned if the books would be of an appropriate quality for their audience. I made this sample to show that they would indeed be charming and beautiful.

Red is a ruby
Set in a ring.
Red is the color
That makes my heart sing.

Green are the leaves
Sprouting in the spring,
Green is the color
Of a luna moth's wing.

Orange is a pumpkin,
Orange is a cat,
Sleeping in the sun
On an orange mat.

Purple is a grape,
One of a bunch,
Purple is the jelly
In the sandwich
I ate for lunch.

National Poetry Month/Getting Started

April is National Poetry Month in the US. I'll be making a poetry related post each day. Celebrate the month by reading poems, writing your own, making books, and rejoicing in the wonderful gift that is poetry.

Feel free to copy and share the above image (credit is always appreciated). It's also available as a pdf.

For today, there is a link to a past post—a Sticker Poem made with recycled materials and an annotated list of poetry anthologies for children.