Patriotic Poetry

Have you noticed it’s an election year? Who could miss it, right? It got me thinking about what “patriotic” poetry I could find to recommend for young people. My friend and collaborator, the amazing Janet Wong has a new book of poetry out this year that’s particularly appropriate and available in both e-book and print form, entitled Declaration of Interdependence: Poems for an Election Year. It’s a great addition to works that consider what it means to live in the USA, with a particular focus on our civic responsibilities and the democratic process. It contains one of my favorite poems, “Liberty,” an inspiring and clever riff on the “Pledge of Allegiance,” for a total of 20 poems on topics as timely as caucuses, political ads, ballots, and the Bill of Rights. The book even includes a “Voter’s Journal and Discussion Guide.”

I have a free copy to share (along with an autographed copy of her autobiography for kids, Before It Wriggles Away) to a commenter on today’s post (chosen at random).

Meanwhile, here’s my current list of patriotic poetry for kids. Please let me know any book titles I can add to my list. Thanks!

Patriotic Poetry for Young People

Poets have written about pride in homeland, about the search for a national identity, the value of one’s cultural heritage, and finding a place in an adopted country, among other patriotic topics, for many generations. How has this been expressed in poetry for young people? Here are a few outstanding examples.

• Burg, Ann. 2009. All the Broken Pieces. New York: Scholastic.
• Clinton, Catherine. 1998. I, Too, Sing America: Three Centuries of African American Poetry. Boston: Houghton Mifflin.
• Cohn, Amy L., comp. 1993. From Sea to Shining Sea: A Treasury of American Folklore and Folk Songs. New York: Scholastic.
• Greenberg, Jan. 2001. Heart to Heart: New Poems Inspired by Twentieth-Century American Art. New York: Abrams.
• Gunning, Monica. 2004. America, My New Home. San Francisco, CA: Children’s Book Press.
• Hopkins, Lee Bennett, Ed. 1993. Beat the Drum, Independence Day has Come: Poems for the Fourth of July. Honesdale, PA: Wordsong/Boyds Mills Press.
• Hopkins, Lee Bennett, Ed. 1994. Hand in Hand: An American History through Poetry. New York: Simon & Schuster.
• Hopkins, Lee Bennett, Ed. 1999. Lives: Poems about Famous Americans. New York: HarperCollins.
• Hopkins, Lee Bennett. Ed. 2000. My America: A Poetry Atlas of the U.S. New York: Simon & Schuster.
• Hopkins, Lee Bennett, Ed. 2002. Home to Me: Poems Across America. New York: Orchard.
• Hopkins, Lee Bennett. Ed. 2008. America at War. New York: McElderry.
• Izuki, Steven. 1994. Believers in America: Poems about Americans of Asian and Pacific Islander Descent. Chicago, IL: Children’s Press.
• Lai, Thanhha. 2011. Inside Out and Back Again. New York: HarperCollins.
• Lewis, J. Patrick. 2005. Good Mornin’, Miss America: The U.S.A. in Verse. School Specialty Publishing.
• Lewis, J. Patrick. 2007. The Brothers' War: Civil War Voices in Verse. Washington, DC: National Geographic.
• Littlechild, George. 1993. This Land Is My Land. San Francisco, CA: Children’s Book Press.
• Meltzer, Milton. 2003. Hour of Freedom: American History in Poetry. Honesdale, PA: Wordsong/Boyds Mills Press.
  
• Myers, Walter Dean. 2011. We are America: A Tribute from the Heart. Ill. by Christopher Myers. New York: HarperCollins.
• Panzer, Nora, Ed. 1994. Celebrate America in Poetry and Art. New York: Hyperion.
• Philip, Neil. (Ed). 1995. Singing America. New York: Viking.
• Siebert, Diane. 2006. Tour America: A Journey through Poems and Art. San Francisco: Chronicle.
• Smith, Charles R. Jr. 2003. I am America. New York: Scholastic.
• Swamp, Chief Jake. 1995. Giving Thanks: A Native American Good Morning Message. New York: Lee & Low.
• Testa, Maria. 2005. Something about America. Cambridge, MA: Candlewick.
• Whipple, Laura, comp. 1994. Celebrating America: A Collection of Poems and Images of the American Spirit. New York: Philomel Books.
• Wong, Janet. 2012. Declaration of Interdependence. Poems for an Election Year. PoetrySuitcase.

*****By the way, this is one of several hundred lists of poetry books organized around popular themes and topics that I have compiled for my upcoming book, The Poetry Teacher's Book of Lists. More info to come very soon...

Join the rest of the gathering at Poetry Friday hosted by Greg at Gottabook. See you there!

Image credit: 

Janet Wong, Richard C Owen, http://khopper.blogspot.com/2009_07_01_archive.html

Posting by Sylvia M. Vardell © 2012. All rights reserved.

Book Links turns 20

Since it's time for the annual convention of the American Library Association (hi from New Orleans), I thought it might be a good moment to plug the latest issue of Book Links magazine, a Booklist publication of ALA. Book Links is celebrating its 20th anniversary with a special issue this month "with a look at the most groundbreaking books and authors of the past two decades." My "Everyday Poetry" column is a full-blown article on the recent history of poetry for children entitled, "Time for Poetry; Two Decades of Poetry for Children."

I had a lot of fun looking back at the publishing of poetry since 1990 and was surprised and pleased to see how many "new" poets have emerged during this period. Here are just a few excerpts from my piece. (The entire thing is available at Booklist Online to subscribers, fyi.)

Time for Poetry; Two Decades of Poetry for Children
When we stop, take a breath, and look back, we see that the last 20 years have given us a whole new generation of poets writing for young people including Douglas Florian, Joyce Sidman, J. Patrick Lewis, Kristine O’Connell George, Janet Wong, Pat Mora, Helen Frost, Nikki Grimes, Margarita Engle, and many more. It’s seen the emergence of new awards for poetry for children established by Lee Bennett Hopkins (in association with Penn State University; for poetry books in 1993 and for new poets in 1995), Bank Street College (the Claudia Lewis Poetry Award in 1998), and the Poetry Foundation (the Children’s Poet Laureate in 2006).

ALSC began featuring the now-annual Poetry Blast with poets reading from their works at the ALA annual conference in 2004 (I'll report on the 2011 event on Monday!) and the National Council of Teachers of English initiated the annual “Poetry Notables for Children” list in 2006. We’ve seen the rise of the novel in verse and the fall of the multi-poet anthology. Now poets have web sites full of kid-friendly resources, many blogs showcase weekly “Poetry Friday” sharing, and the Cybils award celebrates poetry (among other categories) selected by children’s literature-focused bloggers. Poetry for children now makes its appearance as downloadable audiofiles and as e-books for Kindles and iPads. What’s next?

First, let’s take a look backward. Prior to 1990, we must not overlook the gigantic contributions of Jack Prelutsky and Shel Silverstein who paved the way for many of today’s poets with their irreverent humor and child-centered topics. Nor should we discount the previous recipients of the NCTE award whose poetry careers established the depth and breadth of the genre for decades: Lee Bennett Hopkins (2009), Mary Ann Hoberman (2003), X. J. Kennedy (2000), Eloise Greenfield (1997), Barbara Esbensen (1994), Valerie Worth (1991), Arnold Adoff (1988), Lilian Moore (1985), John Ciardi (1982), Eve Merriam (1981), Myra Cohn Livingston (1980), Karla Kuskin (1979), Aileen Fisher (1978), and David McCord (1977).

The works of these great names still merit reading and sharing. In fact, these poets are new names, too, for any child who has not yet encountered their poetry. Poetry has a special advantage in achieving timelessness—consider Ann and Jane Taylor’s “Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star” published in 1806, for example. Let’s consider some of the major mile markers along the way over the last twenty years.

The 1990s
Here, I discuss the work of several poets who began publishing at the beginning of the decade (Marilyn Singer, J. Patrick Lewis, Kristine O'Connell George, Alice Schertle) as well as brand new poets who follow in their footsteps...

Next I discuss the rise of the popular topic of SCHOOL in poetry for young people...

Humor in poetry is the next focus...

Poets from parallel cultures
A new wave of poets from parallel cultures began writing and publishing poetry for young people in the 1990s. Although poetry by the likes of Langston Hughes, Nikki Giovanni, Gwendolyn Brooks, Lucille Clifton and others had been available to young readers for years, this decade brought an emergence of a rainbow of names whose entire writing careers now focused on a young audience. Consider these milestone works of poetry for young people:

• Gary Soto’s A Fire in My Hands (1990), a major Latino poetry collection for teens
• Naomi Shihab Nye’s This Same Sky: A Collection of Poems from Around the World (1992), the first of several compilations of world poetry for young people
• Joseph Bruchac’s Thirteen Moons on Turtle’s Back (1992), a milestone work of Native American poetry for children
• Walter Dean Myers’s Brown Angels: An Album of Pictures and Verse (1993), followed by several award winning poem-art collaborations with his son, Christopher
• Joyce Carol Thomas’s Brown Honey in Broomwheat Tea: Poems (1993), a celebration of African American heritage and identity
• Janet S. Wong’s Good Luck Gold and Other Poems (1994), the first mainstream Asian American poet for young people
• Pat Mora’s Confetti: Poems for Children (1996), the first mainstream Latina poet for young people
• Francisco Alarcón’s Laughing Tomatoes and Other Spring Poems/Jitomates Risuenos y Otros Poemas de Primavera (1997), a landmark bilingual Spanish/English collection

These beautiful and groundbreaking works laid the foundation for the emergence of many other distinctive poetic voices from parallel cultures including Charles R. Smith Jr. (Rimshots; Basketball Pix, Rolls, and Rhythms, 1999), Jorge Argueta (A Movie in My Pillow/Una película en mi almohada, 2001), Carole Boston Weatherford (Remember the Bridge: Poems of a People, 2002), Hope Anita Smith (The Way a Door Closes, 2003), and Joyce Lee Wong (Seeing Emily, 2006).

Novels in verse
... is the next topic... then...
The 2000's
and
More Changes...

Conclusion

In just 20 years, the field of poetry for children has been transformed by new voices, new styles, and new formats. But those established names haven’t stopped creating either. Don’t overlook works such as The Tree That Time Built: A Celebration of Nature, Science, and Imagination (2009) compiled by Mary Ann Hoberman and Linda Wilson or The Great Migration: Journey to the North (2011) by Eloise Greenfield or Roots and Blues; A Celebration (2011) by Arnold Adoff or A Girl Named Mister by Nikki Grimes (2010) or City Kids: Street and Skyscraper Rhymes by X. J. Kennedy (2010) or Birds of a Feather by Jane Yolen (2011).

Named the nation’s first Children’s Poet Laureate by the Poetry Foundation in 2006, Jack Prelutsky continues to write new works that receive instant recognition, such as his latest The Carnival of the Animals (2010) with the accompanying musical CD. Even the late great Shel Silverstein published another posthumous anthology in 2011, Every Thing On It. Lee Bennett Hopkins, 2009 NCTE Poetry Award winner, continues to produce award-winning works of poetry such as his own City I Love (2009), as well as nearly 40 anthologies in the last 20 years, including Good Rhymes, Good Times (1995), My America: A Poetry Atlas of the United States (2000), Days to Celebrate: A Full Year of Poetry, People, Holidays, History, Fascinating Facts, and More (2005), America at War (2008), and Sharing the Seasons (2010). In addition, his anthologies often mark the debut of new up-and-coming poets such as Amy Ludwig VanDerwater, Jill Corcoran, Toby Speed, Cynthia Cotten, and many more.

It’s exciting to see the genre of poetry grow and expand in all these different directions, exploring possibilities of poetic form, hybrids with other genres, and a creative use of design, visuals, and media. I’ve often said there is such variety in the smorgasbord of current poetry that everyone can find something to savor. The key is in keeping our poetry collections varied, current, and in use. With well-stocked shelves brimming with the poetry gems of the last 20 years and a bit of poetry promotion (in April and beyond), kids will find something to enjoy and cherish for a lifetime. In the next 20 years, today’s readers are tomorrow’s poets—but only if we share poetry with them now.


Image credit: 

Booklist


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

INSIDE OUT AND BACK AGAIN by Thanhha Lai

Poetry Tag continues with a book review of a new book of poetry connected to yesterday's book review.

Today’s tagline: A novel in verse about a painful truth

Featured Book: Lai, Thanhha. 2011. Inside Out and Back Again. HarperCollins.

What a powerful debut work from new voice Thanhha Lai. It’s a loosely autobiographical work about her own experience as a refugee from Vietnam in the 1970s. The 10-year-old heroine of this taut novel in verse, Hà, narrates the story which is broken into 4 sections:

Part I Saigon
Part II At Sea
Part III Alabama
Part IV From Now On

Each section offers a well-developed whole with a strong sense of place unique to each—life in Vietnam, surviving on a refugee boat, transplanting in an Alabama town. (The fourth and final section is still set in Alabama, but represents a clear shift in the emotional resolution.) The transition between each place occurs quickly (as it would in reality) and offers the reader a strong sense of the displacement and constant re-orientation that the characters experience. This also provides a framework for a fast-moving plot that keeps the reader turning the page and wondering how the family will cope with each new challenge.

Amidst all this upheaval, Lai also manages to carve out distinct characterizations of Hà and each member of her family, including her resilient mother and each of her three brothers. Even characters in the “new” environment (sponsor, teacher, neighbor) emerge as multi-dimensional individuals. Our protagonist is often the least sympathetic character—rebellious, insecure, somewhat selfish—but her honest observations manage to be touching, poignant, and often hilarious while balancing the tightrope of authentic child voice and reliable story narrator. Consider the opening poem that pushes the story into motion.

1975: Year of the Cat

Today is Tết,
the first day
of the lunar calendar.

Every Tết
we eat sugary lotus seeds
and glutinous rice cakes.
We wear all new clothes,
even underneath.

Mother warns
how we act today
foretells the whole year.

Everyone must smile
no matter how we feel.

No one can sweep,
for why sweep away hope?

No one can splash water,
for why splash away joy?

Today
we all gain one year in age,
no matter the date we were born.
Tết, our New Year’s,
doubles as everyone’s birthday.

Now I am ten, learning
to embroider circular stitiches,
to calculate fractions into percentages,
to nurse my papaya tree to bear many fruits.

But last night I pouted
when Mother insisted
one of my brothers
must rise first
this morning
to bless our house
because only male feet
can bring luck.

An old, angry knot
expanded in my throat.

I decided
to wake before dawn
and tap my big toe
to the tile floor
first.

Not even Mother,
sleeping beside me, knew.

February 11
Tết

(pp. 1-3)

I love how culturally specific this verse novel is with plenty of details about the rituals, beliefs, foods, names, and attitudes within Vietnamese culture, while offering many universals that cross cultures and draw the reader in (troublesome brothers, being teased, learning new things). Lai does not shy away from including harsh difficulties and sadness, as well as offering hope that grows out of the characters’ strengths and love.

I also really appreciate the Spartan, spare nature of Lai’s poetry. What is not said is as critical as what is. And her use of titles to begin her entries and “date stamps” to end them is so well conceived and effective.

Young readers who may be unfamiliar with this period will simply see this as a believable story about moving, adjusting, and growing up. Older readers (and grown up readers like me who remember those times vividly) will also be fascinated by the tectonic shift the characters experience in culture, religion, expectations, roles, and relationships. Set in 1975, the book rings true today as new groups of refugees cope with war, camps, relocation, language learning, and cultural adjustment across the globe.

Connections
I felt a very personal connection reminded of my own parents leaving Germany after WW2, choosing between Australia and the U.S. for their new home, waiting for sponsorship, traveling by boat, arriving broke, learning the language, and making their way slowly, but surely. In her “Author’s Note” concluding the verse novel, Lai concludes, “I also hope after you finish this book that you sit close to someone you love and implore that person to tell and tell and tell their story” (p. 262). In her dedication she acknowledges “To the millions of refugees in the world, may you each find a home”—what an invitation for kids to look for ways to welcome others in their immediate environment who may be eager for a friendly gesture and kind word.

Tomorrow’s tagline: A novel in verse about coping with cultural differences

We’re heading down the homestretch of National Poetry Month—still time to get your copy of the e-book, PoetryTagTime, an e-book with 30 poems, all connected, by 30 poets, downloadable at Amazon for your Kindle or Kindle app for your computer, iPad or phone for only 99 cents. Grab it now.]

Image credit: PoetryTagTime; HarperCollins

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

REQUIEM by Paul B. Janeczko

Poetry Tag continues with a book review of a new book of poetry connected to yesterday's book review.

Today’s tagline: More poems about history

Guest Reviewer: Debbie Owen

Featured Book: Janeczko, Paul B. 2011. Requiem: Poems of the Terezin Ghetto. Cambridge, MA: Candlewick Press. ISBN 978-0-7636-4727-8.

Debbie writes: In this small, but powerful book, poet Paul B. Janeczko gives readers a haunting look into the lives of Jews imprisoned in the Terezin Concentration Camp. Terezin was proudly hailed by Hitler as a sanctuary for artistic Jews. As proof of this refuge, The Red Cross was allowed to tour the camp. Janeczko chronicles this visit in the poem titled “SS Lieutenant Theodor Lang” found below.

Though most of the characters in Janeczko's poems are fictional, the poems were informed by research and based on historical events and facts. Janeczko uses the “Author's Note” to inform readers on factual aspects of his book. Though not completed yet in this ARC, there is a section reserved at the back of the book for “English Translations of Foreign Words”. Janeczko also provides readers with additional resources such as books, websites, and DVD's. Artwork found at Terezin after the war is distributed throughout. These dramatic black and white drawings are a testament to the atrocities experienced by the Jews. In this advance copy, all artwork is not yet finalized.

Paul B. Janeczko provides readers with a moving, lyrical view into the hearts of the imprisoned men, women, and children of Terezin Ghetto as well as German soldiers. It's this look into the perspective of German soldiers that makes Janeczko's Requiem: Poems of the Terezin Ghetto one of the more unique books on Holocaust poetry.

Highlighted Poem (excerpt) from Requiem: Poems of the Terezin Ghetto

SS Lieutenant Theodor Lang
“Because of the meddlesome king of Denmark
we were forced
to allow
Red Cross inspectors to visit our town.
We had months to prepare
our show, a charade
to show them that there was no truth
to the pesky rumors about how
we treated our Jews.”

The poem details the preparations for the Red Cross visit, and yet, ends with the chilling truth:

“The inspectors
were in our town for a short time,
only long enough to see
what we wanted them to see.
No more.
They saw enough
to know that we were treating the Jews
in a civilized and humane manner.
We waited a few months
to resume the transports.
The town was getting crowded
and the ovens of Auschwitz waited.”

Connections
Teachers could use this poem in a study of the propaganda used during WWII and Hitler's use of it for the express purpose of covering up the systematic slaughter of millions of Jewish citizens.

Tomorrow’s tagline: Poetry that offers hope

[We’re now more than halfway through Poetry Month—still time to grab a copy of PoetryTagTime, an e-book with 30 poems, all connected, by 30 poets, all connected and downloadable right now at Amazon for your Kindle or Kindle app for your computer, iPad or phone. Just 99 cents.]

Image credit: Candlewick; PoetryTagTime

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

THE GREAT MIGRATION by Eloise Greenfield

Poetry Tag continues with a book review of a new book of poetry connected to yesterday's book review.

Today’s tagline: More poems about African American history

Featured Book: Greenfield, Eloise. 2011. The Great Migration: Journey to the North. Ill. by Jan Spivey Gilchrist. Amistad/HarperCollins.

This new poetry picture book from NCTE Poetry Award winner, Eloise Greenfield, is a very personal work with a powerful, historic reach. She opens the book with a one-page narrative explaining the meaning of "the Great Migration," the mass movement of African Americans from the southern part of the U.S. to the North between 1915 and 1930. She situates her own family and her own "migration" in this context and the final poems weaves in details of her own family's story. Her frequent illustrator, Jan Spivey Gilchrist, has a similar story-- also noted-- and I wondered if some of the images of people (particularly their faces) were drawn from her or Greenfield's own family trees. Possibly!

This is an interesting use of poetry to convey a chronological history with key poems numbered and titled as follows:

I. The News
II. Goodbyes (Man; Girl and Boy; Woman; Very Young Woman)
III. The Trip (5 page stanzas)
IV. Question (Men and Women)
V. Up North

ending with:

My Family

Greenfield uses free verse, but sets up a structure that gives each poem reading a strong rhythm. Here's the opening poem as one example:

I. The News
by Eloise Greenfield

They read about it, heard
about it, in letters and newspapers
sent down from the North,
from visiting cousins and brothers
and aunts: there were jobs up there,
nice houses, no Ku Klux Klan
everywhere you turn, burning down
schools and homes and hope.
They thought about it, talked about it,
spread the word. "Did you hear the news?
Can it really be true? Well, I'm going
to see. How about you?"

Gilchrist's illustrations incorporate watercolor along with collage to blend scenes of landscape and personal portraits (often faces "lifted" from actual photographs), many set against a stark, black page. Thus, most of the poems appear in white text against a dark or black background for an even greater visual and symbolic impact. The combined effect of art that suggests real people along with a strong voice throughout the poem (often named) lends itself to reading aloud or dramatic performance.

Connections
Greenfield provides a "Selected Bibliography" at the conclusion of her book listing other books about this subject that you may want to consult. Kids may want to conduct community interviews to investigate the experiences of "migrating" families in their area. Discuss the similarities and differences between "migrants" and "immigrants" then and now.

Tomorrow’s tagline: More poems about history

[We’re halfway through Poetry Month—still time to grab a copy of PoetryTagTime, an e-book with 30 poems, all connected, by 30 poets, all connected and downloadable right now at Amazon for your Kindle or Kindle app for your computer, iPad or phone. Just 99 cents.]

Image credit: HarperCollins; PoetryTagTime

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

Q & A with Jame Richards

Thank you, Readers, for your comments and questions for our guest poets. Jame Richards has offered her responses here below.

From Andromeda Jazmon

What would happen if we mixed up the ethnicities of the actors so that it wasn't so monochromatic? What would that do to the story? Would it make a difference? Better, richer, more universal or somehow not?

Jame responds:
Thanks for your question Andromeda—it is a thought-provoking one. I’ll start by saying that all art is enriched by diversity, however, my job specifically as a writer of historical fiction (as opposed to that of a movie producer) is to be as accurate as possible, starting with research and reflecting it in my storytelling. The facts tell us that the Johnstown area was settled by German and Welsh immigrants and descendants. Though I didn’t choose last names for most of my characters, I imagined that Peter was Welsh and Kate was from a Penn Dutch background in another part of Pennsylvania. By the time the flood occurs, there are quite a number of Irish and Scotch-Irish in the Conemaugh Valley, and I mention briefly that Joseph came over to the U.S. from Ireland as a baby. A newly expanding population in Johnstown was Hungarian and the fear was that they would take the all the jobs for less money, a familiar tune in the 1880s. So, Johnstown was considered ethnically diverse, though not by our standards today and certainly not as far as casting a movie. The movie producer would have to decide between historical accuracy and something along the lines of color-blind casting used in musical theater, which can be very exciting, challenging your preconceived notions about the story.

In short, it was my dream to tell the stories of these unique people in this time and place in history—perhaps it will be someone else’s dream to write about freed slaves in Johnstown during the flood, for example, and I hope that writer follows their dream because I for one would love to read it! And see the movie version!

From Jeannine Atkins
I’d love to hear an example of perhaps a minor historical incident found in research that pulled together a poem for you.


Jame responds:
Thanks for the question, Jeannine. One line in my research mentioned in passing that the 1888 season at the South Fork Fishing and Hunting Club was cut short due to a scarlet fever scare. So many families were affected by epidemics in those days, often losing several children at once— it isn’t hard to imagine that any hint of disease would send people scurrying. This was one of those details that had an awful lot of potential, so I filed it away in the old gray matter. When Celestia needs to create a distraction from rumors about her sister in 1888, she fakes scarlet fever so club members evacuate before they have a chance to gossip. So, there’s a little detail from history unearthed to become a plot point.

From Maclibrary

When writing in verse, how do you handle dialog?

How did you go about the researching of the Johnstown Flood (which was an amazing and tragic disaster).

How did you decide your line breaks?

Jame responds:
Thanks for your questions Maclibrary! I’ll just take them one at a time.

Dialog: Verse is a distilled form of storytelling, so dialog, like everything else, must be brief and to the point. At the same time, it must characterize the speaker and move the plot along. You can see how a verse novelist must really make every word count. But I would tell any writer to combine a balanced blend of Dialog, Action and Description (DAD), letting dialog and action do the work for you, with description evenly sprinkled throughout.

Also, dialog must sound natural and the best way to check is to read it aloud. Many poetry lovers already consume poetry with their ears, but it’s a great way for any writer to identify the clunky spots.

Research: My earliest research began with internalizing the story of the flood after watching a documentary in high school. I also read so much Jane Austen and Edith Wharton over the years that I became reasonably fluent in their language, so to speak, and the culture and customs of their time. By the time I was ready to start writing 3RR, I surrounded myself with all the books and movies I could find for reference, but I pretty much knew by then what I wanted to include in the story. In 3RR’s back matter, we included a list of recommended reading for anyone who wants more information about the flood, or other fiction to enjoy.

Line breaks: Although in prose, we have paragraphing, section breaks, and chapter breaks, I’m very fond of the extra nuance of line breaks and line spacing that we have in verse. The simplest answer is that a line break is a pause and a line space is an even bigger pause. Sometimes I use a line break to slow the reader down, to make you think. Those I sometimes divide by phrases or clauses, often making a long sentence easier to understand by nature of visually breaking it up into units of meaning (great for comprehension/reluctant readers).

My favorite use is to have the reader consider a line in isolation for a second before adding the meaning of the following line to it: that way you get two relevant meanings at once.

Oh, and let’s not forget the impact of a one-word line!

Revisiting dialog as it relates to line spacing: I do try to begin a stanza for a new speaker or new exchange. Otherwise, line spacing often corresponds to a new thought direction much like starting a new paragraph.

On to Orlando
Thanks again to my two guest poets, Pat Mora and Jame Richards, and to you, Readers, for reading and responding. I'll announce the two winners of the free autographed copies of Pat's and Jame's recent books soon. Now, we make our way to Orlando for the annual convention of the National Council of Teachers of English. Jame and Pat will be part of my panel that also includes fellow bloggers, Elaine Magliaro at Wild Rose Reader who has been featuring Lee Bennett Hopkins and Tricia Stohr-Hunt at the Miss Rumphius Effect who has been featuring Marilyn Singer. We'll all be speaking Friday morning at 9:30 at our session A.9 POETS AND BLOGGERS UNITE: USING TECHNOLOGY TO CONNECT KIDS, TEACHERS, AND POETRY in the Baja Room at the Coronado Springs Resort. If you can come, please say hi, and if not, keep an eye on our blogs for follow up information on our session next week.

Featuring new poet Jame Richards

You’ll see from her web site, that new poet Jame Richards grew up a reader. She wanted to be an artist as a child, but was told there was no job market for artists. Then she read Otherwise Known as Sheila the Great and so began her reading life and eventually her writing life. In 2008, she received the Susan P. Bloom Children's Book Discovery Award for emerging writers from PEN New England Children's Book Caucus for the work that became her first published book, Three Rivers Rising (published by Knopf, 2010). It’s the story-in-poems of the catastrophic Johnstown (Pennsylvania) flood of 1889. It’s a fast read and compelling story, a Titanic kind of love story about star-crossed lovers from different classes set against an actual disaster that occurred in Pennsylvania near the turn of the twentieth century. It’s already been nominated for the ALA Best Fiction for Young Adults 2011 list and you’ll find a downloadable reader’s guide for the book on her web site.

Be sure to check out Jame’s blog, too. One of my favorite features is her regular column of adorable “Frances-isms” capturing the clever, intuitive ways that children express themselves with their evolving vocabularies vis a vis her own young daughter. One example is: "A rhombus is a rectangle in a hurry."


Jame will be one of our panelists at our upcoming NCTE session. She was kind enough to agree to a mini-interview. Here are her responses.

Can you tell us a little about yourself? Where you grew up? Your family? Where you live and work now?

I grew up in a small town in the Catskills along the Hudson River. My dad taught industrial arts at the high school and my mom coordinated an adult literacy program. I have two older sisters. Books were big in our house—every morning at the breakfast table was like an impromptu book club.

Because my dad was a teacher in our town, we had the same school vacations and used them to travel to just about every historic site, monument and museum in the great 48. I like to say I could walk into any restoration, slap on a bonnet and start carding wool…yeah, it gets into your blood.

I live in Southwestern Connecticut now and I like to torment my own two daughters in a similar manner. This summer we visited Hudson River mansions Wilderstein and Springwood, the FDR estate, what I like to call the Fala Tour. (Wilderstein was the home of FDR’s cousin Daisy who gave him Fala as a gift.) The next question is—Are they big readers like you were? You bet. They are happiest with a spilling-over armload of books. My husband, too, though he prefers nonfiction.


As a new poet, I’m wondering what led you to write in this genre? To create a novel in verse, in particular? I read on your Web site that your mother giving you Out of the Dust to read influenced you greatly. Care to elaborate?

Among my earliest attempts at creative writing, poetry was by far most successful, but I kept hearing people say my poems were too long! And I was secretly wanting them to be even longer, to tell even bigger stories! The idea of writing one long poem—book length, let’s say—made me queasy, but I gradually became acquainted with the idea of writing self-contained vignettes like The House on Mango Street by Sandra Cisneros. I could write the essential scenes of a story, out of order even, and move them around later, which is how I eventually wrote early drafts of 3RR. Unfortunately, I still didn’t have a breakthrough until reading Out of the Dust by Karen Hesse. The style that comes naturally to me suddenly had an outlet, and all my writing quirks were permissible. So, the revelation was “Oh, now I know what to do!”



Can you tell us a little about the story behind Three Rivers Rising—particularly the research involved?
My interest in the Johnstown flood began at the age of my target audience: high school. A documentary about the flood kept me riveted for three days. I felt like the flood had happened yesterday—it was so vivid and immediate in my mind, I couldn’t understand how anyone was talking about anything else! After that I continued to feel like it was “my story” somehow and I kept an ear to the ground for any new information about the flood.

A few years later, as I was heading off to grad school for writing, I saw the documentary again on TV, purely by coincidence. I was struck by the juxtaposition of the ladies in white lounging on the boardwalks of the resort while the gritty steel mills chugged away in the valley below. I remember saying, “This needs a Romeo and Juliet story! This needs to be a novel!” The biggest break you could hope to get as far as research is if David McCollough wrote a book about your subject. After thorough readings of The Johnstown Flood, I had a springboard to start my own story. Then I could verify individual facts as needed. I found a nice new obsession in checking words for date of origin. “Loophole,” for example, sounds vaguely corporate and yet possibly Biblical… hmm, better look it up. 



What can we look forward to from you next?
I have a number of works in progress including a middle grade novel—another historical in verse—set during WWII. Don’t want to jinx it though, so cross your fingers for me!

Any questions for Jame? Use the comments area (below) and I’ll gather them and see if Jame has a moment to respond. An autographed copy of her new book will be sent to a random commenter, so post please any time before the conference (Nov. 19)! And if you’re coming to the NCTE convention, you’re welcome at our Friday morning poetry session. Jame will be there!

Be sure to check out my fellow bloggers’ sites (Elaine at Wild Rose Reader and Tricia at The Miss Rumphius Effect) featuring fellow presenters, Lee Bennett Hopkins and Marilyn Singer.

Image credits: JameRichards.com; photoaccuweather.com

Come to the Castle (for free!)

This time last year I fell in love with Linda Ashman’s book of dog poetry, Stella Unleashed, told from the point of view of a “pound puppy.” She wove together a series of independent poems to create a well-rounded picture of one dog’s life in a loving family. Later in the year came M is for Mischief, a completely different kind of poetry collection with alphabetical verses about mischievous, even awful, children (named from A to Z). And now she presents us with a parade of medieval characters in Come to the Castle. This woman has some range!

Come to the Castle is an appealing complement to last year’s Newbery award winning, Good Masters! Sweet Ladies! Voices from a Medieval Village by Laura Amy Schlitz. Ashman also provides poems from multiple points of view, including an earl, steward, herald, lady, cook, cleaning servant, knight, suitor, daughter, jester, doctor, and the gong farmer—sure to be kids’ favorite for his role in cleaning the “toilet.” (A poem about medieval toilets! Love it!) Some of these are official positions in a castle community and others are roles to be played, but each character reveals roles and attitudes, as well as details about castle life as they prepare to hold a tournament. Strong on rhyme and sly humor, the poems read well aloud and would be fun to perform. Just try this one, for example:

The Cook
by Linda Ashman

I have no fresh capon. No porpoise or eel.
No sumptuous roast for a memorable meal.
Still I must follow the Lady’s command.
A feast in two days? I’ll use what’s on hand:

Gizzards and livers and kidneys and feet—
Grind it up well into mystery meat.

Bind it with egg, mix it with spice,
Throw in some currants and mustard and rice.
Drop it in stews, bake it in pies,
Roll it in balls (or some other disguise).
Toss on some flowers, gild it with gold.
Present it with antlers or feathers. Be bold!

A fine work of art to fill them with awe—
So what if it’s cold, or the meat is still raw?

The perspectives and poems build from one to another to tell a story about castle life, particularly in the context of preparations for special celebrations. The detailed and extensive illustrations by S. D. Schindler correspond beautifully to the poems and extend their meaning and impact. The delicate watercolor paintings on mock parchment paper are in the style of illuminated manuscripts, complete with the decorated opening letter. Taken together, the poems and art make this a poem picture book that will even work with older kids in grades 6-8 as they study world history, as well as for reading aloud with younger audiences intrigued by Arthur tales and Renaissance festivals.

There's also a brief author's note and a thumbnail sketch with a short factual paragraph for each character at the back of the book-- a helpful cast of characters for planning a dramatic reading. And for an interview with Linda Ashman about the book, check out Abby, the Librarian's blog!

PLUS, the publisher, Roaring Brook Press, wants you to know that The Children’s Book Review is giving away signed copies of this book to 5 lucky contest winners. The giveaway ends June 1st, so act quickly. Check it out!

Thanks to Anne Moss with Roaring Brook Press for the tip!

Posting (not poem) by Sylvia M. Vardell © 2009. All rights reserved.

Image credit: www.greenleafpress.com

Happy birthday, Lee

I love “nonfiction” poetry—poems that tell true stories, so to speak, so I was eager to see Lee Bennett Hopkins’s new anthology, Incredible Inventions illustrated by Julia Sarcone-Roach (HarperCollins, 2009). And I was not disappointed. As the title suggests, the 16 poems feature a variety of inventions including jigsaw puzzles, blue jeans, roller coasters, drinking straws, basketball game, fig newtons, ferris wheels, the escalator, hair brushes, crayons, popsicles, band-aids, traffic signals, kitty litter, Velcro, and running shoes. Kid-friendly topics, for sure!

The featured poets include Amy Ludwig VanDerwater, Rebecca Kai Dotlich, Joan Bransfield Graham, Drew Lamm, John Sullivan, Sandra Gilbert Brueg, Elizabeth Upton, Kristine O’Connell George, Constance Andrea Keremes, Ann Whitford Paul, J. Patrick Lewis, Alice Schertle, Marilyn Singer, Maria Fleming, Fran Haraway, and Lee himself. For me, there were several new names in this group. Very promising voices! Which one to share as a sample? I think kids will enjoy this tribute to their favorite garment: Blue jeans!

Ode to Blue Jeans
by Rebecca Kai Dotlich

See them strolling
in their jeans
from subway ads
to magazines.

Rock ‘n’ rollers.
Construction crews.
Everybody
loves their blues.

Faded, torn,
shabby, new,
with cowboy boot
or tennis shoe,

ranchers, writers,
racers, teens,
the world’s in love
in love…

with JEANS.

Hopkins, Lee Bennett. (Comp.) 2009. Incredible Inventions. Illus. by Julia Sarcone-Roach. New York: HarperCollins, p.6.

This is a first book for the illustrator Julia Sarcone-Roach and her paintings for each poem are energetic and expansive, covering the page from edge to edge. The gorgeous blue painting for “The Ferris Wheel” is my favorite—it’s positively Van Gogh-ish!

You definitely need to check out the notes in the “Behind the Inventions” section along with the poems because here you get the factual background information that expands or confirms the details shared in each poem. Plus, I discovered that the poem inventions are presented in chronological order, with a fun cartoon timeline showing each item's origin dated from 1766 (jigsaw puzzles) to 1964 (running shoes).

For a related collection, look for Joyce Sidman’s book, Eureka! Poems About Inventors (Millbrook 2002), with sixteen poems describing a range of people who have created something new through imagination, investigation, and pure persistence, with subjects such as scientist Marie Curie and the inventor of the Frisbee. Link these poems with the fascinating profiles of incidental inventions in Charlotte Foltz Jones’ nonfiction books Mistakes That Worked (Doubleday 1994) and Accidents May Happen (Delacorte 1998) or Judith St. George’s humorous nonfiction picture book, So You Want to Be An Inventor? (Puffin 2005). Seek out J. Patrick Lewis’s poems about famous accomplishments in A Burst Of Firsts (Dial 2001) or the fun facts and factoids in the clever poems of The World’s Greatest: Poems (Chronicle, 2008) for another invention connection.

And for the record, on this day in history…
Lee Bennett Hopkins was born!
Happy birthday, Lee!

Image credit: www.harpercollinschildrens.com

Biography + Poetry in BOOK LINKS

Once again, I’d like to call your attention to the ALA magazine Book Links and my most recent “Everyday Poetry” column. In this issue, I focus on biographies told through poetry, a big new trend, IMO. Here is a brief excerpt:

If there’s a twenty-first century trend in poetry for young people, it may well be the marriage of poetry and biography. There are over a dozen recent biographical poetry books available for young people, with many focusing on subjects who are African American, Latino and/or women. Perhaps the poetic form allows the subject’s voice to emerge in a more personal way or perhaps this genre format simply allows for more creative experimentation. Whether the focus is on a key event in one life history or a cradle-to-grave complete biography, there are many excellent works that weave together history, biography, and poetry.

Individual verse biographies
Like the “novel in verse,” another trend in poetry is the biography told through a series of connected poems or poetic vignettes particularly appropriate for older children and young adults. Carole Boston Weatherford calls this a “fictional verse memoir” in her new work, Becoming Billie Holiday. Marilyn Nelson set the trend in motion with her award winning biographical poetry book, Carver: A Life in Poems, a blending of fact, poetry, and images of primary source material. Others by Nelson are fact-based, moving poetry collections in a variety of poetic forms:

Fortune's Bones: The Manumission Requiem
A Wreath for Emmett Till
The Freedom Business

Carmen T. Bernier-Grand has also used the verse format for her biographical works, César; ¡Sí, Se Puede! Yes, We Can! about activist César Chavez and Frida: ¡Viva la vida! Long Live Life! about artist Frida Kahlo. Add to this roster of innovators Margarita Engle whose recent verse biography, The Surrender Tree, features Cuba’s legendary healer Rosa la Bayamesa, told from multiple points of view during several wars for Cuba’s independence.

Older readers can research primary source documents to help them visualize and conceptualize historical times. One excellent resource is Jackdaws Publications, a source of full-size facsimiles of actual letters, diaries, telegrams, newspapers, study maps and many other authentically reproduced documents from various eras. Create displays to showcase biographical poems alongside these contextual artifacts and realia. Weaving biography and poetry together makes sense. For poetry lovers, it’s way to absorb history, and for all readers, the poetic format provides a unique entrée into stories of people of the past.

I also wrote about collective poetry biographies and picture book poem biographies, with examples of each. And the most fabulous feature is a new original poem by Rebecca Kai Dotlich. It’s “Dear Diary” from the point of view of Anne Frank, capturing a snapshot moment with haunting details and lyrical language. Don’t miss it!

Next month’s column is about pairing poems and award books. We all tune into the major awards (especially the ALA awards announced at the end of January) and try to keep up with what the experts recommend as outstanding literature. Why not make a poetry connection here? In this column, I showcase the ALA multicultural award winning books of 2008 by connecting each with a work of poetry that extends the topic, theme, or tone in interesting ways. Watch for it.

Picture credit: ala.org

Happy International Talk Like a Pirate Day

Ahoy! Just in time for “International Talk Like a Pirate Day,” David L. Harrison has published a pirate poetry collection, appropriately titled Pirates (Wordsong/Boyds Mills Press, 2008), an over-sized book illustrated with vivid portrait-like paintings of a by-gone era by Dan Burr. However, Harrison’s book captures the more unsavory aspects of the pirate (lack of) character and acknowledges that pirates were/are first and foremost thieves. These poems do not glorify pirates as heroes, but rather capture the seedy, gritty life—and death—that was their lot. An introductory (and closing) note acknowledges the same and reminds us about the contemporary pirates that continue to prey upon ships today. Here’s a sample poem that reflects the rhythmic structure that Harrison so often incorporates in his poetry.

Signing on a Crew
by David L. Harrison

‘Gather round, ye scurvy mates,
I’m signing on a crew.

You there! Can you tie a knot?
Ye’ll do.

I’d say you’ve snatched a purse or two.
Ye’ll do.

Does the thought of plundered gold
make ye shiver?
Make ye bold?
Ye’ll do.

Ha! You’re rotten through and through!
Ye’ll do.

Phew! You stinking, drunken lout!
You’d whack your uncle’s gizzard out!
Well step right up!
Beyond a doubt
ye’ll do.

Harrison, David L. Pirates. Illustrated by Dan Burr. Honesdale, PA: Wordsong/Boyds Mills Press.

This book is sure to be a hit—full of grim and gruesome details about ship’s rules, life at sea, grub, whippings, fighting, stealing, and getting marooned, captured, or hanged. Reader beware! Aaargh!

Pair this with J. Patrick Lewis’s Blackbeard, the Pirate King (National Geographic, 2006). He focuses on the fascinating life of Edward Teach in poems, facts, and endnotes, accompanied by classic pirate illustrations by Pyle and Wyeth, and more.

For more Poetry Friday fun, go to author amok.

Picture credit: amazon