Poetry of 2009 + Jean Little's Birthday

For this first posting of the new year, I thought I’d play “Janus” and look forward to the new poetry we can anticipate in 2009, since my last posting was a look back at all the poetry of 2008. I’ve been seeing several glimpses, with advance copies, publisher catalogs, emails, etc., and I’m very excited about what’s coming: a new Florian creation (on dinosaurs!), several Langston Hughes poem celebrations, something from Children’s Poet Laureate, Mary Ann Hoberman, a poem-a-day book by J. Pat Lewis, some poetry about work, animals, nature, and plenty of humor! Here’s the first list of the year! MUCH more to come…

Poetry Books Coming in 2009
1. Agee, Jon. 2009. Orangutan Tongs; Poems to Tangle Your Tongue. New York: Disney-Hyperion.
2. Florian, Douglas. 2009. Dinothesaurus. New York: Simon & Schuster.
3. Foxworthy, Jeff. 2009. Silly Street. Illus. by Steve Bjorkman. New York: HarperCollins.
4. Heard, Georgia. 2009. Falling Down the Page; A Book of List Poems. New York: Roaring Brook Press.
5. Hoberman, Mary Ann. 2009. All Kinds of Families. New York: Little, Brown.
6. Hopkins, Lee Bennett. 2009. City I Love. Ill. by Marcellus Hall. New York: Abrams.
7. Hopkins, Lee Bennett. 2009. Incredible Inventions. Illus. by Julia Sarcone-Roach. New York: HarperCollins.
8. Hopkins, Lee Bennett. 2009. Sky Magic. Ill. by Mariusz Stawarski. New York: Dutton.
9. Hughes, Langston. 2009. My People. Ill. by Charles R Smith Jr. New York: Simon & Schuster.
10. Hughes, Langston. 2009. The Negro Speaks of Rivers. Ill. by E. B. Lewis. New York: Disney-Hyperion.
11. Iyengar, Malathi Michelle. 2009. Tan to Tamarind: Poems About the Color Brown. Illus. by Jamel Akib. San Francisco, CA: Children’s Book Press.
12. Katz, Alan. 2009. Going, Going, Gone!: And Other Silly Dilly Sports Songs. New York: Simon & Schuster.
13. Lewis, J. Patrick. 2009. Countdown to Summer: A Poem for Every Day of the School Year. Ill. by Ethan Long. New York: Little Brown.
14. Lewis, J. Patrick. 2009. Skywriting: Poems in Flight. Ill. by Laszlo Kubinui. Minneapolis, MN: Creative Editions.
15. Lewis, J. Patrick. 2009. Spot the Plot! A Riddle Book of Book Riddles. Ill. by Lynn Munsinger. San Francisco, CA: Chronicle Books.
16. Lewis, J. Patrick. 2009. The Underwear Salesman: And Other Jobs for Better or Verse. Ill. by Serge Bloch. New York: Simon & Schuster/Atheneum.
17. Nesbitt, Kenn. 2009. My Hippo Has the Hiccups with CD: And Other Poems I Totally Made Up. Naperville, IL: Sourcebooks.
18. Paul, Ann Whitford. 2009. Word Builder. New York: Simon & Schuster.
19. Ruddell, Deborah. 2009. A Whiff of Pine, A Hint of Skunk. New York: Simon & Schuster.
20. Sidman, Joyce. 2009. Red Sings from Treetops; A Year in Colors. Illus. by Pamela Zagarenski. New York: Harcourt Houghton Mifflin.
21. Weinstock, Robert. 2009. Food Hates You, Too. New York: Disney-Hyperion.
22. Wilson, Karma. 2009. What's the Weather Inside? New York: Simon & Schuster.
23. Wolff, Virginia Euwer. 2009. This Full House. Harper Teen/The Bowen Press.
24. Zimmer, Tracie Vaughn. 2009. Steady Hands: Poems About Work. New York: Clarion.

ABOUT POETS AND POETRY
Dana, Barbara. 2009. A Voice of Her Own; Becoming Emily Dickinson. New York: HarperCollins.
Dotlich, Rebecca Kai. Bella & Bean. New York: Simon & Schuster.

+ Poet Birthday Today! Today is also Canadian author and poet Jean Little’s birthday. Blind from birth, many of her works focus on characters with disabilities. I remember reading her first book, Mine for Keeps (1962) about a girl who had cerebral palsy, when I was a little girl and I just loved it! Jean Little is known primarily for writing fiction, but has one book, in particular, that blends fictional vignettes and poetry from the point of view of a spunky ‘tween that is wonderful-- It’s Hey World, Here I Am! One of my favorite poems about poetry is from this book. It’s cranky and hilarious and captures a moment that many of us may have experienced!

After English Class
By Jean Little

I used to like “Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening.”
I liked the coming darkness,
The jingle of harness bells,
Breaking—and adding to—the stillness,
The gentle drift of the snow . . .

But today, the teacher told us what everything stood for.
The woods, the horse, the miles to go, the sleep—
They all have “hidden meanings.”

It’s grown so complicated now that,
Next time I drive by,
I don’t think I’ll bother to stop.

From: Little, Jean. 1989. Hey World, Here I Am! New York: Harper & Row.

Start the year off right with Poetry Friday, hosted this week by A Year of Reading.

Image credits: childrensbooks.about.com;www.minervaclassics.com