Poetry Tag: Heidi Stemple is IT

Yesterday featured Jane Yolen’s poem, “Plumes.” She tagged the next poet, Heidi Stemple and informed her, “This is a poetry tag. You are to send a poem to another poet who will keep this going on. Your poem has to somehow relate to what is already here” and signed it “xxxMommy.”

In response, Heidi wrote, “I chose my mom's use of lace and fancy outfits to relate to a poem I started working on during poet Lesléa Newman's (whom I am tagging as the next poet) “30 Poems in 30 Days” challenge. My daughter Maddison is a ballet dancer with Amherst Ballet and one of the things I do in my spare time is make ballet costumes for her performances. I've written several poems about costume making--many of them include three special characters who "help" me: Odette, our mannequin (a good name for a ballet mannequin--it's from Swan Lake) and our cats Sammy and Romeo who seem to always be around when there is sewing. Odette is a great help to me. Sammy and Romeo are not, as you can imagine.

I chose the silliest of my costume poems. I thought, too, that this poem could lead the next poet in many new directions in the game of poetry tag.”

Ballet Costumes
By Heidi Stemple

Miles of lace
and acres of ribbon,
edged in bejeweled
bias tape.

I tuck, pleat,
and pin,
‘round my mannequin,
and a tutu
begins to take shape.
The pattern’s laid out,
the waist band is measured,
but, where is that
pink threaded spool?

A rustle,
a tear,
from under my chair…
The cat’s run away
with the tulle!



Five fun facts about Heidi E. Y. Stemple
*she is Jane Yolen’s daughter
*she has written more than a dozen books in partnership with her mother
*she has written cookbooks
*her "middle" names are "Elisabet" and "Yolen"
*her poetry has appeared in magazines, as well as books

Look for these selected works by Stemple:
*Dear Mother, Dear Daughter: Poems for Young People (Boyds Mills Press, 2001) with Jane Yolen
*The Barefoot Book of Ballet Stories (Barefoot Books, 2009) with Jane Yolen
*Not All Princesses Dress in Pink (Simon & Schuster, 2010) with Jane Yolen
*Dance Around the World (Barefoot Books, 2010) with Jane Yolen
*Stemple’s poems also appear in Robert's Snowflakes, Nick Jr. Magazine, several Lee Bennett Hopkins anthologies, Here's a Little Poem, Baby Bug, Cricket, Falling Down The Page, and many other places



Next up: Lesléa Newman



Posting (not poem) by Sylvia M. Vardell © 2010. All rights reserved.

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