Poetry Awards Updates

It’s catch up time! A pile of poetry tidbits have collected and I’ve gathered them to share here. Let’s start with more poetry awards announcements.


The Claudia Lewis Poetry Award
The Claudia Lewis award has been announced and this time the committee recognized TWO poetry titles for two different age ranges: for younger readers, Kristine O'Connell George's EMMA DILEMMA: Big Sister Poems; for older readers, Allan Wolf's THE WATCH THAT ENDS THE NIGHT: Voices from the Titanic. The awards will be presented next week (Feb. 23) at Bank Street College in New York. For more info, go here.

The Claudia Lewis Award is given by Bank Street College in New York and was established in 1998. The award is given annually for the best poetry book of the year in honor of the late Claudia Lewis, a distinguished children's book expert and longtime member of the Bank Street College faculty and Children's Book Committee.

Note: One of my graduate classes this semester is collaborating on creating a blog for this award featuring reading guides and digital trailers for the winning and honor books. Stay tuned and I’ll let you know when they’re public— I hope in time for National Poetry Month, of course.


The Lion & Unicorn Award
The Lion & Unicorn Award has also been announced for 2011 (for books published in 2010). The winner is Susan Blackaby’s Nest, Nook & Cranny illustrated by Jamie Hogan (Watertown, MA: Charlesbridge, 2010).


Honor Books:
Jackson, Rob. 2010. Weekend Mischief. Ill. by Mark Beech. Honesdale: Wordsong/Boyds Mills Press.
Kennedy, X. J. 2919. City Kids: Street & Skyscraper Rhymes. Ill. by Philippe Béha. Vancouver: Tradewind.

The Lion and the Unicorn Award focuses on North American poetry for young people and carries on the prior tradition begun by the British journal, Signal, to “instigate, provoke, and sustain a conversation about poetry published for children.” Recipients are now from both the U.S. and Canada. In addition, the Lion and the Unicorn Award includes an essay which discusses the award winners as well as speculates on issues unique to writing and publishing poetry for children, “painting a picture of that year in children’s poetry.” You’ll find those essays here.

The committee is now interested in receiving 2011 poetry books. Contact poetry editor Joseph Thomas for more information: jtthomas@mail.sdsu.edu

Note: One of my graduate classes this semester is collaborating on creating a blog for this award too featuring reading guides and digital trailers for the winning and honor books. I’ll keep you posted on this one, too.

The Cybils Award: Poetry
The Cybils awards were also recently announced and I’m so pleased they feature poetry as a special category. This year’s winner is Requiem: Poems of the Terezin Ghetto by Paul Janeczko.

Finalists included: Cousins of Clouds: Elephant Poems by Tracie Vaughn Zimmer, Dear Hot Dog by by Mordicai Gerstein, Emma Dilemma: Big Sister Poems by Kristine O'Connell George, Self-Portrait with Seven Fingers by J. Patrick Lewis and Jane Yolen, and We Are America: A Tribute from the Heart by Walter Dean Myers.

The “Cybils” award was established in 2006 to recognize the role of bloggers in the “kidlitosphere,” the online children’s literature world. “Cybils,” an acronym for the “Children’s and Young Adult Bloggers’ Literary Awards,” are given in a variety of genre and format categories, including poetry. For more information go here.

CLPE Poetry Award in England
The Centre for Literacy in Primary Education Poetry Award for a book of poetry for children was launched by the UK Centre for Literacy in Primary Education in 2003. The judges this year were Carol Ann Duffy, Andrew Lambirth and Fiona Waters and the chair was Julia Eccleshare. The 2011 winner went to Mandy Coe's If You Could See Laughter.

Other titles on the shortlist included: Allan Ahlberg's Everybody Was a Baby Once and Other Poems, illustrated by Bruce Ingman; Phil Bowen's Cuckoo Rock, illustrated by Fred James; Philip Gross's Off Road to Everywhere, illustrated by Jonathan Gross; and Roger Stevens' (compiler) A Million Brilliant Poems (part one), illustrated by Jessie Ford. For more information, go here.


Marilyn Nelson has been named as the Frost Medal recipient by the Poetry Society of America. Here’s an article about her work for both children and adults.
 Nelson's works of poetry for young people include:

• Carver: A Life in Poems
• Fortune's Bones: The Manumission Requiem
• A Wreath for Emmett Till
• The Freedom Business Sweethearts of Rhythm; The Story of the Greatest All-Girl Swing Band in the World
• Miss Crandall’s School for Young Ladies and Little Misses of Color (with Elizabeth Alexander)

Congratulations to Walter Dean Myers who has been appointed as the third US National Ambassador for Young People’s Literature, succeeding Katherine Paterson and Jon Scieszka in the role. This post was created in 2008 by the Library of Congress, the Children’s Book Council, and Every Child a Reader. During Walter’s two-year term, his platform will be “Reading is Not Optional,” chosen as a result of his lifelong advocacy for reading among young people. Myers' distinguished career includes having won two Newbery Honors, five Coretta Scott King Awards, five Coretta Scott King Honors and a Michael L. Printz Award for Monster. He has also been a US National Book Award Finalist three times. His works of poetry include:

• Brown Angels: An Album of Pictures and Verse
• Glorious Angels: A Celebration of Children
• Harlem: A Poem
• Angel to Angel
• Blues Journey
• Here in Harlem: Poems in Many Voices
• Jazz
• Amiri and Odette: A Love Story
• We are America; A Tribute from the Heart

It’s wonderful to see poets and poetry getting this recognition and particularly interesting to see so many different titles and names honored.

Next: Update on our Librarians’ Choices list and our poetry selections.

Poetry Friday: Join the crew at Gathering Books for more poetry fun and info.

Image credit: 

Cybils; Bank Street College; Lion & Unicor; CLPE, CBC;PSA

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