TLA Poetry Round Up 2011

Since my students and I posted a connected "tag" game of poetry book reviews for the entire month of April, I wasn't able to share more about the wonderful "Poetry Round Up" we held at the annual conference of the Texas Library Association in Austin in April. Let me rectify that now please!

This fast-paced poetry event features a variety of contemporary poets reading from their works for children and young adults. It's modeled after the ALSC “Poetry Blast” and celebrates the pleasures of the spoken word for young people. I'm proud to say this was our SEVENTH annual Poetry Round Up and we've now hosted 43 poets in Texas for this popular session over the least 7 years! I'm so pleased about that and hope to add more names to that roster next year at the TLA conference in Houston, too.








This year's event included the following wonderful poets:

• Calef Brown (courtesy of Houghton Mifflin)
• Julia Durango (courtesy of Charlesbridge)
• Margarita Engle (courtesy of Macmillan)
• Helen Frost (courtesy of Macmillan)
• Kristine O’Connell George (courtesy of Clarion)
• Marilyn Singer (courtesy of Random House; Penguin)
• Robert Paul Weston (courtesy of Penguin)
• Lisa Wheeler (courtesy of Simon & Schuster)

Once again, we had a tremendous variety of writing styles, poetic forms, and presentation methods. It was a lively, meaningful mix and the audience was completely absorbed. This time, I was able to recruit some help (thanks, Marianne) in filming each poet, so I'll post each of those short clips separately with a bit more info about each poet in subsequent postings. Meanwhile, here's a select bibliography I compiled of works by these poets, just FYI.

SELECTED BOOKS BY 2011 ROUND UP POETS

Brown, Calef. 1998. Polkabats and Octopus Slacks. Houghton Mifflin.
Brown, Calef. 2000. Dutch Sneakers and Flea Keepers. Houghton Mifflin.
Brown, Calef. 2006. Flamingos on the Roof. Houghton Mifflin.
Brown, Calef. 2008. Soup For Breakfast. Houghton Mifflin.
Brown, Calef. 2010. Hallowilloween: Nefarious Silliness. Houghton Mifflin.
Durango, Julia. 2005. Dream Hop. Simon & Schuster.
Durango, Julia. 2006. Cha Cha Chimps. Simon & Schuster.
Durango, Julia. 2007. Pest Fest. Simon & Schuster.
Durango, Julie. 2010. Go-Go Gorillas. Simon & Schuster.
Engle, Margaret. 2006. The Poet Slave of Cuba: A Biography of Juan Francisco Manzano. Holt.
Engle, Margarita. 2008. The Surrender Tree. Holt.
Engle, Margarita. 2009. Tropical Secrets: Holocaust Refugees in Cuba. Holt.
Engle, Margarita. 2010. The Firefly Letters; A Suffragette's Journey to Cuba. Henry Holt.
Engle, Margarita. 2011. Hurricane Dancers. Henry Holt.
Frost, Helen. 2003. Keesha's House. Farrar, Straus & Giroux.
Frost, Helen. 2004. Spinning through the Universe. Farrar, Straus & Giroux.
Frost, Helen. 2006. The Braid. Farrar, Straus & Giroux.
Frost, Helen. 2008. Diamond Willow. Farrar, Straus & Giroux.
Frost, Helen. 2009. Crossing Stones. Farrar, Straus & Giroux.
Frost, Helen. 2011. Hidden. Macmillan/Farrar, Straus & Giroux.
George, Kristine O’Connell. 1998. Old Elm Speaks: Tree Poems. Clarion.
George, Kristine O’Connell. 1999. Little Dog Poems. Clarion.
George, Kristine O’Connell. 2001. Toasting Marshmallows. Clarion.
George, Kristine O’Connell. 2002. Swimming Upstream: Middle School Poems. Clarion.
George, Kristine O’Connell. 2004. Hummingbird Nest. Harcourt.
George, Kristine O’Connell. 2005. Fold Me a Poem. Harcourt Brace.
George, Kristine O’Connell. 2011. Emma Dilemma: Big Sister Poems. Clarion.
Pinkwater, Daniel. Comp. 2011. His Shoes Were Far Too Tight by Edward Lear. Ill. by Calef Brown. Chronicle.
Singer, Marilyn. 2008. First Food Fight This Fall. Sterling.
Singer, Marilyn. 2008. Shoe Bop! Dutton.
Singer, Marilyn. 2010. Mirror, Mirror. Dutton.
Singer, Marilyn. 2011. A Full Moon is Rising. Lee & Low.
Singer, Marilyn. 2011. A Stick Is an Excellent Thing. Ill. by LeUyen Pham. Clarion.
Singer, Marilyn. 2011. Twosomes: Love Poems from the Animal Kingdom. Knopf.
Weston, Robert Paul. 2008. Zorgamazoo. Razorbill/Penguin.
Wheeler, Lisa. 2002. Sixteen Cows. Harcourt.
Wheeler, Lisa. 2003. One Dark Night. Harcourt.
Wheeler, Lisa. 2004. Bubble Gum, Bubble Gum. Little, Brown.
Wheeler, Lisa. 2007. Jazz Baby. Harcourt.
Wheeler, Lisa. 2008. Boogie Knights. Atheneum.

Image credit: SV; http://lowerfairfieldwriters.blogspot.com/2010/12/childrens-picture-book-festival.html
THANKS TO MARIANNE FOR TAKING PHOTOS!

Posting (not poem) by Sylvia M. Vardell © 2011. All rights reserved.