A Blast with Marilyn Singer

I took my handy dandy FlipCam with me to the 8th annual ALSC Poetry Blast and made short one minute (more or less) movies of the poets reading their works to share with you. Next: Marilyn Singer.

When asked what writers influenced her poetry, Marilyn Singer answers, “When I was a kid, every night my dad sang the hit songs of the day to me. So I grew up loving all those great lyricists such as Johnny Mercer, Ira Gershwin, and Larry Hart. I'm a really big Cole Porter fan. Anybody who could write an internal rhyme, like ‘flying too high with some guy in the sky is my idea of nothing to do’ is aces in my book. And although I write poems and not song lyrics, I like to think that Cole and company are somewhere in my head, always encouraging me to sing.”



The author of over 90 books, Marilyn Singer says that writing in many genres prevents her from ever being bored. However, she likes writing poems best of all. Her first poetry collection, Turtle in July, was cited by Time magazine as one of the best children’s books of 1989. Her subsequent poetry books have been well-received by audiences and critics alike. Most recently, her highly acclaimed Mirror Mirror, which features the reverso, a form she created, made many Best of 2010 lists, is a finalist for fourteen state, city, and international awards, including the Texas Bluebonnet, was named an ALA Notable, and won the Cybil Award in Poetry. She had the pleasure of narrating the audio book version, along with actor Joe Morton, for Live Oak Media.


An avid swing dancer and bird watcher, Marilyn currently lives in Brooklyn, NY and Washington, CT with her dance partner/husband, Steve Aronson, and their pets, and she co-hosts Poetry Blasts all over the place.



Marilyn co-hosted THIS blast (along with Barbara Genco) and ended this wonderful evening with readings from two new works. Here, she shares several gems from Twosomes. Enjoy!

Image credit: 

Sylvia Vardell

Posting by Sylvia M. Vardell © 2011. All rights reserved.