New world poetry for Día 2012

In honor of El día de los niños/El día de los libros/ Children's day/Book Day today, I'd like to highlight three books from outside the U.S.

Argueta, Jorge. 2012. Guacamole; Un poema para cocinar/ A Cooking Poem. Ill. by Margarita Sada. Toronto: Groundwood.

From the publisher, Groundwood Books: "Jorge Argueta’s third book in our bilingual cooking poem series is — Guacamole — with very cute, imaginative illustrations by Margarita Sada.

Guacamole originated in Mexico with the Aztecs and has long been popular in North America, especially in recent years due to the many health benefits of avocados. This version of the recipe is easy to make, calling for just avocados, limes, cilantro and salt. A little girl dons her apron, singing and dancing around the kitchen as she shows us what to do. Poet Jorge Argueta sees beauty, magic and fun in everything around him — avocados are like green precious stones, salt falls like rain, cilantro looks like a little tree and the spoon that scoops the avocado from its skin is like a tractor.

As in the previous cooking poems, Guacamole conveys the pleasure of making something delicious and healthy to eat for people you really love. A great book for families to enjoy together."

Here is the cutest book trailer for Guacamole complete with a foot-tapping song to enjoy!



Be sure to check out his other bilingual "food" poetry collections:
Argueta, Jorge. 2009. Sopa de frijoles/ Bean Soup. Ill. by Rafael Yockteng. Toronto, ON: Groundwood.
Argueta, Jorge. 2010. Arroz con leche; Rice Pudding. Ill. by Fernando Vilela. Toronto, ON: Groundwood.


Luján, Jorge. 2012. Con el sol en los ojos/ With the Sun in My Eyes. Ill. by Morteza Zahedi. Toronto: Groundwood.

From Groundwood: "In this book of short poems in Spanish and English, a young boy and girl describe their world and their day-to-day experiences -- the boy's street is like the trunk of an almond tree and the newborn chicks are like tiny walking suns. The girl loves her dog Oliver, the wind hitting her in the face and laughter "that explodes for no reason." But the children also ponder mysteries, such as the loud silence the boy hears inside himself when he goes for a walk alone and the vast beauty of the sky, with its clouds and constellations.

Once again Jorge Luján brings young readers a lyrical and joyful collection of poems. Morteza Zahedi's powerful illustrations in densely saturated colors perfectly complement the poems' subtle explorations."


I Saw a Peacock with a Fiery Tail. Ill. by Ramsingh Urveti. 2012. London: Tara Books.

From Tara Books: "A well-known folk poem from 17th century England, 'I Saw a Peacock with a Fiery Tail' is a form of trick verse. The poem at first seems nonsensical, but given a break in the middle of each line begins to make perfect sense.

In this pioneering visual exploration of I Saw a Peacock, Gond tribal artist Ramsingh Urveti and book designer Jonathan Yamakami use art and design in the service of language. Working together, revealing and concealing, they brilliantly mirror the shifting ways in which poetry creates meaning."

This book is truly exquisite in art, design, and construction-- but it's also elegant and simple and kid-friendly. The lines of the poem curl this way and that through multiple pages across the blue-black-white palette of the die cut pages.

It begins:

I saw a peacock with a fiery tail
I saw a blazing comet drop down hail
I saw a cloud with ivy circled around
I saw a sturdy oak creep on the ground

Get it? The playful nature of the lines and how they are tucked into the art beg for repeated examination. The thick pages cut with holes and curves and stars offers a tactile experience that takes the simple poem to another level. It's hard to describe adequately, so I urge you to get your own copy, share it with a 10 year old you love, and see what happens. It's the best paper "app" you'll find this year-- read it multiple times, backwards and forwards, talking about the lines, the art, the pages, and making up your own imitation poems!


Happy El día de los niños/El día de los libros/ Children's day/Book Day one and all!


P.S.
And I've already highlighted the following collection in the 5Q interview series-- it also includes a global selection of poets:

Hoyte, Carol-Ann and Roemer, Heidi Bee. Eds. 2012. And the Crowd Goes Wild!: A Global Gathering of Sports Poems. Ill. by Kevin Sylvester. Neche, ND: Friesens Press.


Image credit: 

Groundwood, Tara Books

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

CANTABA LA RANA by Rita Rosa Ruesga

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

Today’s tagline: More poems with a Spanish connection

Guest Reviewer: Lydia Rogers

Featured Book: Ruesga, Rita Rosa. 2011. Cantaba la rana/The Frog Was Singing. Ill. by Soledad Sebastián. Scholastic. ISBN: 9780545273572

Lydia writes: CANTABA LA RANA, THE FROG WAS SINGING is a tribute to the poetry that most Hispanic children have heard at least once in their lives. Even English speakers will enjoy these much-loved Spanish nursery rhymes from Latin America as Rita Rosa Ruesga has mainstreamed the poetry by translating each poem. A surprising quality to each poem is that a musical tune that accompanies it. The reader can feel the beat embedded in each poem as they read it in Spanish or English.

The illustrations by Soledad Sebastián are in step with art typical of Latin America. Each piece of art for enhances every poem with vivid tones of red, green, purple and blue. The pictures are significant enough to hang as art in a classroom, library or home.

Here’s a sample poem (in Spanish and English):

Señora Santana ~ Mrs. Santana

Señora Santana, por que llora el niño
¿por una manzana?
que se ha perdido.
yo le daré una,
yo daré dos,
una para el niño
y otro para vos.

Dear Mrs. Santana,
Why is the child crying?
Because of an apple,
I think he just lost it.
I will give him one,
I will give him two,
One is for the boy,
The other one’s for you.

Connections
This poem starts off with crying and ends with a smile. Any student will feel the natural connection and fall into a rhythm as they clap, chant, or sing this tune. So, ¡Grab your maracas! Or collaborate with the music teacher; she/he can help you get the tune to this well loved lullaby from Spain. Your K-2 students will appreciate the poem even more if you act it out with them and all share an apple treat in the end. Students in grades 3-5 will identify with the idea of being kind and why that is important in daily life. (They should get some apple too as a reminder to be helpful and kind.)

Tomorrow’s tagline: More poems from the oral tradition

[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; Scholastic

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

Pat Mora responds

Thank you, Readers, for your comments and questions for our guest poets. Pat Mora has offered her responses here below. (I'll share Jame's later this week.)

Question from Andromeda Jazmon
I wish I could be there with you at NCTE! It is going to be great. I am wondering about ideas for using bilingual Spanish/English picture books in our library. We are developing our collection in this area. We teach Spanish from Pre-K to 8th grade, but most teachers don't speak it and neither do I. I am working with the Spanish teacher for collaborative ideas using tech tools like the SMARTboard and interactive websites or apps. Do you have any ideas? We have looked on YouTube and read books together. What else could we be doing? How does a monolingual librarian promote bilingual books?

Response from Pat Mora
Your question is about such an important issue. Most teachers and librarians are not bilingual. The number of bilingual students in our schools keep growing. I wrote a series of four easy reads, MY FAMILY-MI FAMILIA, when a foundation director made me aware that such books aren't that available. Last year I asked teachers at an IRA session how they felt about bilingual books. I encouraged them to be candid, and I'm grateful to the teacher who said, "They intimidate me." Here's our challenge. Many of our students need to see themselves in books and delight in seeing their home language in books, and yet many educators are reluctant to buy or use the books. Dive in! Display the books prominently letting students know that you value such books. Find a Spanish speaking partner (a parent, an older student, a college student) to join you in some paired reading. As I say in ZING, educators are powerful people. The books you promote affect the student's opinions of those books.

Comment from Elizabeth
Thanks for your post. I am a former middle and high school English teacher (and NCTE member!), currently staying at home with my 3 young children. I ran across a Pat Mora children's poetry book today when volunteering in our lower school library. Loved it and tonight found your blog through an internet search. I loved your interview with her and her comments about creating quiet and needing the stillness to explore. Those quotes really resonated with me. Thanks for sharing.

Response from Pat Mora
Thanks for your comment, Elizabeth. The years that I was home with my three children are among the happiest years of my life.

Question from Laura Purdie Salas
Pat is so delightful--a joy in person (so fun to read right after you at TLA this year, Pat, even if you did have everyone, including me, in tears...a tough act to follow) and on the page.

I'm rereading Dizzy in Your Eyes right now, and I'd love to know more about your poetry process on an individual poem.

The poem "Kissing," where the father sees the daughter and her boyfriend kissing and is upset about it is one of my favorites in Dizzy. Could you share a bit about the process of writing that poem or any other single poem from Dizzy? Where did the idea come from? How did you start? How many drafts, etc.?

Response from Pat Mora
Hi Laura, thanks for your generous words. I smiled at your question about "Kissing." Often it's hard for me to remember how a poem actually began. When I first started writing poetry--first for adults and then years latter for children and then years later for teens--I wrote poems individually without a book in mind. Some years back, I began conceiving a book project first and then moving to the poems. When the seed for "Kissing" began to grow, I was already writing a collection of love poems in the voices of teens and that I wanted to have diverse voices speaking about all kinds of love. Of course, I wanted to have romantic love as a major theme. I think this poem may have started when driving in Santa Fe where I now live when school had just let out, out of the corner of my eye, I saw a group of teens was at a bus stop, a couple probably kissing, and I wondered, "What if? What if her dad drove by?" I think that's the genesis for that poem that went where I certainly didn't expect it to go. I love to revise so tweak and tweak. Keep writing, Laura!

More on Mora

As we dig deep into the oeuvre of Pat Mora, I’d like to offer just a sampling of activities centered around her work—which includes picture story books, picture book biographies, picture book folktales, picture book poetry collections, poetry for young adults, and works for adults, both poetry and resource books (Zing!).

For example, Mora has also created an anthology of poetry by other Latino/Latina poets in Love to Mama: A Tribute to Mothers (Lee & Low Books 2001). Fourteen poets write in both English and Spanish about the love, joy, and humor to be found in the bonds between mothers, grandmothers, and children. Children can choose a favorite poem to read aloud to a family member on Mother’s Day, Father’s Day, Grandparent’s Day or a special birthday in English or Spanish.

Pat Mora reflects her own feelings and experiences growing up in the Southwest (El Paso) in her poems in This Big Sky (Scholastic 1998). She celebrates the people, the animals, and the landscape of the region. Follow up with her pictures books, Listen to the Desert - Oye Al Desierto (Clarion Books 1994) or The Desert is My Mother – El desierto es mi madre (Arte Publico Press 1994).

For young children, Mora has authored both alphabet and counting books with rhyming text which once again naturally incorporate Spanish and English words. This includes ¡Marimba!: Animales from A to Z (Clarion 2006) and Uno Dos Tres, One, Two, Three (Clarion 1996). Both tell engaging and even humorous stories, while also celebrating the gift of being bilingual.

Pat Mora’s Confetti is available in two formats, in English with Spanish words intermingled (Confetti, Lee & Low 1999), and entirely in Spanish (Confeti, Lee & Low 2006). If there are Spanish speakers in the community, invite them to participate in sharing these poems aloud in both Spanish and English.

Pat was kind enough to participate in my National Poetry Month (April) game of Poetry Tag. Poet Marilyn Nelson “tagged” her and Pat shared her poem, “Spanish,” a powerful, bittersweet poem. Don’t miss it.

I reviewed Pat’s most recent work of poetry, Dizzy in Your Eyes, for Valentine’s Day this year. Check it out. I loved the LOVE theme and found the inter-generational points of view a powerful frame for young readers—and readers of all ages. Plus, it’s chock full of many poetic forms. A gem!

Please help spread the word about Pat’s work and her participation in this preconference blogathon. She’ll respond to questions, so please comment below with any questions you might have for her. Finally, I’ll offer an autographed copy of her 2010 book, Dizzy in Your Eyes (to be mailed after the conference) to a randomly selected commenter during this focus on her work.

Poetry on the 2010 IBBY Honour List

I’m in Santiago de Compostela, Spain, for the 32nd annual Congress of the International Board on Books for Young People. This event is held biennially and rotates around the globe, most previously held in Copenhagen (2008) and Macau (2006). I’m attending as co-editor of Bookbird, the journal of IBBY, along with 600+ registrants from 72 member countries gathering for multiple sessions, including the presentation of the Hans Christian Andersen awards and announcement of the IBBY Honour List.

The IBBY Honour List is a biennial selection of outstanding, recently published books, honoring writers, illustrators and translators from IBBY member countries around the world. The first Honour List in 1956 was a selection of 15 entries from 12 countries. For the 2010 Honour List, 54 countries have sent 164 nominations in 44 different languages—with a total of 64 entries in the category of “writing,” 52 in the category of “illustration,” and 48 in the category of “translation.” This list provides a “welcome opportunity to study and review the production of children’s books” around the world—the best each country has to offer an international audience.

Of these 164 books worldwide, 8 were works of poetry (5 honored for writing and 3 for illustration). The books are on display at the conference and we each receive a booklet detailing the particulars of each book. Here is the lowdown on 8 unique poetry books from around the world (with annotations from the booklet)—at least one of which is available in English.

HONORED FOR WRITING

HAITI (French)
Roumain, Jacques
Jacques Roumain parie aux enfants
(Jacques Roumain talks to children)
Ill. Lyll-Martine René
Port-au-Prince: Editions CUC Univ. Caraibe, 2007.
42 pp.
ISBN 978-99935-7-199
Ages 8-10

As part of the celebrations of the author’s 100th anniversary these series of poems and folk tales about nature and social injustices were published especially for children. The tone is soft without sadness or harsh feelings. The texts are historical in the sense that they were written while the author was in jail under the dictatorship and were written for his son who was only five at the time A lot of the poems are allegoric and are very relevant to children.

IRELAND (Irish)
Ní Ghlinn, Áine
Brionglóidi agus aistir eile
(Dreams and other journeys)
Ill. Carol Betera
Clár Chlainne Mhuiuis: Cló Mhaigh Eo, 2008.
84pp.
ISBN 978-1-899922-49-9
Ages 10-13

This collection of 40 poems on the theme of dreams encompasses an interesting range of voices guaranteed to bring a fresh perspective to the ordinary. A mouse dreams of sprouting wings to swoop like a bird-of-prey on its enemy like the cat, while a dinosaur skeleton in the natural history museum imagines falling in love and fathering the first dinosaur babies in sixty-five million years. A school trip to Mars, a library in which characters are dislodged from their books and a flirtation between the sun and a grey cloud, are just some of the surprising happenings in this vibrant collection. The poems are rhythmic, the imagery vivid and the language musical. While each poem is a gem in itself, the themes are beautifully developed in the collection as a whole.

ITALY (Italian)
Quarenghi, Giusi
E sulle case il cielo
(The sky above the houses)
Ill. Chiara Carrer
Milan: Topipittori, 2007 (Parola magica)
61 pp.
ISBN: 978-88-89210-20-8
Ages 5+

One whole year of poetry: four seasons pulse with the beat of verses and landscapes of land and soul, experience and mood. Verses and images; figures, colours and sounds, form a symbolically rich and delicate map of the passage of time. Searching for the internal beauty of things, the words and pictures invite the reader on a journey through the forms, observations and feelings of the secret life of being.

MEXICO (Spanish)
Paso, Fernando del
¡Hay naranjas y hay limones! Pregones refranes y adivinzas en verso
(There are oranges and lemons)
Ill. Josel
Mexico: CIDCLI, 2007
31 pp.
ISBN 978-968-494-225-7
Ages 8-12

The old rhymes and sayings of the vendors who sold their wares throughout the streets of Mexico up to the last century are recreated in this book of poems. The author takes a humorous journey through popular forms of poetry and invents word games, riddles, songs, recreating the proverbs that grandparents often repeated. Through these poems and rhymes children can learn what the past generations have talked about and this helps to keep alive the vast oral tradition of Mexico. The book is complemented by comic illustrations by Josel that reproduce older images with touches of humor.

NETHERLANDS (Dutch)
Gerlach, Eva
Het punt met mij is dat ik alles kan
(The issue for me is that I can do everything)
Ill. Charlotte Vonk
Amsterdam: Querido, 2008
60pp.
ISBN 978-90-451-0414-0
Ages 10+

John inherits a luck-bringing little dragon called Fu from his grandfather. John writes about all kind of adventures—real and imaginary—that he had with his grandfather before he died. In prose he tells about the story of the dragon Fu, who, at the end, is set free. The adventures with his grandfather are written as poetry. One of them is about when they fought against the big seven-headed dragon! The poems are accompanied by attractive and moving black-and-white humorous illustrations. The friendship with his grandfather and the great loss John feels form the thread of the book. They observations and the memories are written in a beautiful literary language and are recognizable for anyone who has lost someone he or she has loved very much.

HONORED FOR ILLUSTRATION

ECUADOR
Illustrated by Chamorro, Marco
Cielos descalzos
(Barefoot skies)
Written by Wafi Salih
Quito: Manthra Ed., 2009
68pp.
ISBN 978-9978-353-35-6
Ages 8-12

This is a book of poems that has a strong connection between sounds, rhythm, haikus and illustration. A haiku is a three-line poem made from two lines of five syllables and the middle one of seven. It is the synthesis between each poem and the uncomplicated drawings by the illustrator that results in a profound connection between the two components of the book. The techniques used are combined with great importance given to handmade paper, enabling readers to see and feel its textures. The illustrator regards the form and colour for each haiku to be minimalist, at the same time they communicate perfectly the rhythm and meaning of the poems to the reader.

LATVIA
Illustrated by Jansons, Edmunds
Brinumbebisa gads. Dzejoli musu gimenei
(Year of the wonderbaby)
Written by Inese Zandere
Riga: Liels un mazs, 2008
50 pp.
ISBN 978-9984-820-15-6

This book is a 22-poem cycle telling the story of a family with a new addition—a newborn baby. It is a chronicle of the events of the first year of its life and their place within the context of family, nation, nature, the course of seasons, language and traditions. The red thread of the cycle—the tiny baby—is also the key to awareness of family togetherness. The illustrations enhance the imagery of the poems and extend the boundaries of the written text. The artists has created a magical world of anthropomorphic beings that, nevertheless, is ruled by the universal order of thing and human relationships on which a child can safely rely. 


SLOVENIA
Ilustrated by Stepančič, Damijan
Majhnice in majnice. Pesmi mnogih let za mnoge bralce
Buddings Songs, Maying Songs
Written by Tone Pavček
Dob pri Domžalah: Miš, 2009.
243 pp.
ISBN 978-961-6630-87-0
Ages 13+

This bilingual (Slovene-English) volume of poetry by Tone Pavček was published to present one of the most prominent of contemporary Slovene poets to readers worldwide. The selection in this collection offers the poet’s best works, which are mostly poems for children and young readers, but also some poems for adult readers. In the foreword, Pavček has given an informative portrait of himself and his work. The illustrator has given the poems unique and surrealistic, sometimes almost dream-like images. The colours of his double-page illustrations, which delineate the collection, together with the vignettes in sepia, breathe a touch of the old and a lyricism. The illustrator is characterized by his use of various artistic means of expression.

NOTE:
BTW, I was honored to serve on the US committee for the IBBY Honour List recommendation and we chose We Are the Ship by Kadir Nelson for illustration, The Wednesday Wars by Gary D. Schmidt for writing, and Garmann’s Summer written by Stian Hole (Norway) and translated by Don Bartlett in the translation category.


Annotations from IBBY Honour List booklet. Posting by Sylvia M. Vardell © 2010. All rights reserved.

A new poetry calendar coming in 2011

One of the things I gleaned from attending this year’s Bologna Children’s Book Fair in March was the news about a new “poetry calendar for children” coming out for 2011. It’s being produced by a German publisher and you’ll find more info (in German) here. Dr. Christiane Raabe told me about it—she is the Director of the International Youth Library in Munich and I have written about that amazing library before. They hosted a fantastic poetry symposium last summer (that I attended and wrote about) and one of their exhibits featured children’s books of poetry from around the world. Well, that exhibit has now been transformed into a gorgeous week-by-week calendar for 2011.

Here’s the informational paragraph I picked up in Bologna, “Children between 4 and 9 years can travel around the world week after week with 53 wonderful, witty, funny, serious and mostly rhymed poems from all over the world. The illustrated texts have been chosen carefully by the International Youth Library, Munich. They come from 30 countries such as Italy, England, Canada, USA, South America, Spain, Portugal, Greece, Turkey, Iran, Japan, Russia, Lithuania, Poland, Croatia, Czechoslovakia, the Netherlands, France, Denmark, Norway, or Germany. Every page shows the original illustration and the original poem plus the translation into the German language by well known translators. The calendar will be published in July by Arche Kalender Verlag, Zurich-Hamburg."

58 pages, in color, 33 x 30.5 cm ca.
16 Euros
ISBN 978-3-0347-7011-8
Publication date: July 2010

I had the chance to look at a partial proof copy and it’s just gorgeous! Rich color on every page and a wonderful assortment of world poetry—many poems in English. Wouldn’t it be fun to have this calendar in your school or library and see if you could find translators for the non-English poems among your circle of patrons, community members, students, families, and friends?

Join the rest of the Poetry Friday circle this week at Alphabet Soup hosted by Jama Rattigan.

P.S. My Mom (Ingrid) is finally doing better. Thanks so much for the support!


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

Image credit: http://arche-kalender-verlag.com/4-0-Arche-Kinder-Kalender.html

Moms and roots

I may have mentioned before that my first language was German and my parents immigrated to the U.S. when I was a baby. My first books were collections of German fairy tales and nursery rhymes. One of my first “literary” memories is finding a poem in one of those books, memorizing it, and performing it for my parents for a special birthday. So, in honor of Mother’s Day, I decided to see if I could resurrect that gem. I can’t seem to find the book itself now, but this is the poem, as best as I can remember it (or spell it in German).

Wenn Vater oder Mutter Geburtstag haben
Was sol ich dir sagen? Was sol ich dir geben?
Ich hab nur ein kleines, ein junges Leben
Ich hab ein Herz das denkt und schpricht
Ich hab dich lieb, mehr weiss ich nicht!

Just saying that poem out loud makes me feel 8 years old again!

 Here’s a close approximation in English (although not nearly as rhythmic and musical):

If Father or Mother have a birthday
What should I say? What gift should I give?

I’m only a little, young life
I have a heart that thinks and speaks
I love you so much, that’s all I know.

I realized recently that the roots for my obsession with poetry are buried deep. For me, poetry was part of the music of learning English, too. It was the rhyme and rhythm of Mother Goose and playground chants in English that helped me learn to speak—and then read—my new language. Something to keep in mind when we think non-English speakers can’t “handle” poetry til they are fluent in English.

Happy Mother’s Day to all the moms out there. My own Mom is in the hospital having a difficult recovery after two surgeries. I’ve been worried crazy about her, but I think she’s slowly mending. If you’re a praying person, please add “Ingrid” to your list. Thanks!

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

Image credit: me as a kindergartener in Germany!

Happy VDay and love from Pat Mora

In honor of the day of love, I’m celebrating Dizzy in Your Eyes; Poems About Love, Pat Mora’s new collection of poetry (Knopf, 2010). Don’t miss this innovative anthology of nearly 50 poems about all kinds of love, a chocolate box of many flavors and forms of poems (clerihew, tercet, list, dialogue, blank verse, tanka, letter poem, pantoum, sestina, villanelle, sonnet, cinquain, anaphora, haiku, acrostic, triolet, blues, couplet, lyric, ode, and song) with brief notes on each form in the “wrapper.”

There is clearly a youthful point of view and voice, but the poems reference love of parents, friends, family, pets—acknowledging the depth of feeling in many relationships and at many stages of life. (“Old Love” about an uncle’s mourning his wife’s passing is especially beautiful and poignant.) Besides the variety of forms and voices, many poems also incorporate Spanish words, always in a clear and musical context that adds another layer of sweetness. “Ode to Teachers” is particularly special to me and appears twice, once in English, once in Spanish.

I predict these poems will really resonate with young readers in middle school through high school, although older elementary school age readers will enjoy and understand the poems, too. There is great sensitivity and heart, without being explicit or scintillating (read: safe for school libraries), yet the emotions are often intense and authentic. And the look of the book is so accessible and inviting. The “psychedelic” cover in black/white/red circles and swirls is crazy-fun and a parallel grayscale geometric design of patterned circles and stripes decorates the book throughout giving it a strong, graphic impact. In fact, there is no poetry on the pages on the left side throughout the book—every poem begins only on the pages on the right-hand side—which I think kids will love. Plus they’re placed perfectly on the page, in an inviting font in this small trim size (5x7) volume. Congrats to the book designer for these judicious and effective choices!

Finally, I think the kids will also enjoy performing many of these poems, particularly since the voices and points of view are so strong and varied—that would come alive when read aloud. “Doubts,” for example, is constructed with a series of questions, which would be so powerful read aloud with a different person reading/reciting each question, beginning:

Doubts, p. 11
By Pat Mora

What if guys think I can’t kiss because I can think?

What if I ask her out and she laughs?

Believe it or not, that poem reminds me a bit of Shel Silverstein’s poem “Whatif” that I’ve used with many, many groups of kids for reading aloud and it always gives me gooesbumps (and the kids respond strongly too) when hearing the different “worry” lines voiced by the kids who FEEL those worries. Powerful stuff!



I’d also like to showcase one whole sample poem to give you a feel for Mora’s fine walk between romance and reality, love and heartache. (Plus the title of the book comes from this quartet.) Here’s her haiku series on love. She writes in the accompanying note, “Since haiku traditionally contain a seasonal reference, I decided to use the four seasons as the settings for four haiku that chronicle a relationship.”

Love Haiku
By Pat Mora


I
Everything’s in love.
Birds, butterflies, and now me,
dizzy in your eyes.

II

Love blooms in hot nights.
Under stars, hand-in-hand strolls.
Kisses like star sparks.

III

Now I walk alone.

Did autumn wind cool our love?

No hugs warm me now.

IV

Snow, advise my heart.
White whisper, “Friends. Books. Patience.
Bright new year’s coming.”

Mora, Pat. 2010. Dizzy in Your Eyes; Poems About Love. Knopf, p. 123.

This is a lovely collection about love, about relationships of all kinds, with a variety of poetic forms (and notes) to guide aspiring poets. It’s gentle and reflective, without being overly sweet, realistic and descriptive, without being overly graphic, and completely captivating. Great “occasional” poetry, too-- perfect for Valentine’s Day, Mother’s Day, Father’s Day and other occasions —the final poem, “My Song” would even be perfect for a graduation or commencement ceremony.

FYI: Be sure to look for Pat's previous collection of poetry for young people, My Own True Name: New And Selected Poems For Young Adults, which has one of my favorite poems about learning English, "Elena."
Posting (not poem) by Sylvia M. Vardell © 2010. All rights reserved.
Image credit: patmora.com

More thanks for poetry

One more day in our "thanks for great poets" thread. Today's winners of free copies of Dear One, a festschrift of poems and anecdotes celebrating Lee Bennett Hopkins are Karla Schmidt and Linda at Write Time (please email me with your preferred mailing address). Feel free to comment about him and all fifteen NCTE Poetry Award winners here. Two more lucky winners will be announced tomorrow drawn from this week's commenters.

And as we gather across the country to celebrate Thanksgiving, a new picture (not poetry) book just arrived by poet Pat Mora that I wanted to share. It's Gracias * Thanks, illustrated with colorful folk arty scenes by John Parra. Mora presents a very straightforward and inviting litany of things for which to be thankful, totally from a child's perspective and in a child-like voice, full of the details that kids notice and celebrate-- in both Spanish and English. The charm is in the perfect phrasing of each note of thanks which follows the pattern of "For..., thanks," beginning with:

Por el sol que me despierta y no permite que siga durmiendo por años y años, y que me crezca una larga barba blanca, gracias.
For the sun that wakes me up so I don't sleep for years and years and grow a long, white beard, thanks.

And continues with

Por mi hermanito, que la lanzó su puré de chícaros a mi hermana y me hizo reír tanto que me caí de la silla, gracias.
For my little brother, who threw mashed peas at my sister and made me laugh so hard I fell off my chair, thanks.

And ends with

Por el grillo Escondido que nos canta una serenata antes de dormir, gracias!
For the cricket hiding when he serenades us to sleep, thanks!

(Lee and Low, 2009)

It's sweet and poignant, but not afraid to make us laugh, and walks the line of sentiment beautifully. This will be a terrific read aloud for Thanksgiving and any day, to be followed by a round-the-table sharing of other things to notice and appreciate. Happy Thanksgiving!


P.S. Look for Pat Mora's upcoming book of poetry, Dizzy in Your Eyes, coming in 2010 (from Random House/Knopf).

Posting (not poem) by Sylvia M. Vardell c 2009. All rights reserved.
Image credit: patmora.com;leeandlow.com

Color poetry from Mexico/South Africa

Just a month ago I was in Bologna, soaking up my first Book Fair and looking for poetry gems from around the world. And I struck gold with the White Ravens list produced by the International Youth Library. I posted about it in my March 27 entry, “Poetry from around the world.” I found Jorge Luján’s Oh, los colores! (Oh, the colors!) published in Mexico in 2007. Then when I returned, I learned that Groundwood Books (in Canada) had published a bilingual edition in 2008 with accompanying English translations alongside the Spanish poems. It's now titled Colors! Colores! and was translated by John Oliver Simon and Rebecca Parfitt.

The white background for the cover and each double-page spread is a perfect blank foil for the lyrical, nearly abstract watercolor paintings that suggest as much as they reveal. They’re almost evocative of cave paintings, particularly with the repeated image of the small, angular antelope on every page.

The poems are short, metaphorical or personifying nuggets for 11 colors from beige to blue, pink, yellow, green, orange, red, brown, violet, black, ending with white. Here’s the first one.

Rocked
by the tide,
beige
fell asleep on the sand.

El beige
se durmió en la arena
de tanto que lo arrulla
la marea.

Luján, Jorge. 2008. Colors! Colores! Translated by John Oliver Simon and Rebecca Parfitt. Ill. by Piet Grobler. Toronto: Groundwood.

Jorge Luján and Piet Grobler are two of their countries’ best-known creators of children’s books, hailing from Mexico and South Africa, respectively. We have so many talented authors, illustrators, and poets here in the U.S., it's easy to forget that other countries also have their own rich body of literature and notable book creators. I was not familiar with Luján and Grobler until seeing this book at the fair, but I’m a fan now!

For more poetry about color and colors, look for:
Adoff, Arnold. 1982. All the Colors of the Race. New York: Lothrop, Lee & Shepard.
Adoff, Arnold. 1973. Black is Brown is Tan. New York: Harper & Row.
Iyengar, Malathi Michelle. 2009. Tan to Tamarind: Poems About the Color Brown. Illus. by Jamel Akib. San Francisco, CA: Children’s Book Press.
Mora, Pat. 1996. Confetti: Poems for Children. New York: Lee & Low.
O’Neill, Mary. 1989. Hailstones and Halibut Bones: Adventures in Color. New York: Doubleday.
Orozco, Jose-Luis, comp. 1994. De Colores and Other Latin-American Folk Songs for Children. New York: Dutton.
Sidman, Joyce. 2009. Red Sings From Treetops; A Year in Colors. Ill. by Pamela Zagarenski. Boston: Houghton Mifflin.
Yolen, Jane. 2000. Color Me a Rhyme: Nature Poems for Young People. Honesdale, PA: Wordsong/Boyds Mills Press.

Image credit: ecx.images-amazon.com

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

New Review: ANIMAL POEMS by Alarcón

I’m a big fan of Francisco X. Alarcón’s work—I love his succint language, in Spanish AND English, and the picture book format for his poetry that includes vivid and colorful mural-like illustrations. His latest is a wonderful addition, particularly for teachers and librarians who often feature ANIMAL poetry in their curricular units. His new book, Animal Poems of the Iguazú / Animalario del Iguazú published by Children’s Book Press, and illustrated by Maya Christina Gonzalez, is a bilingual poetry collection about the flora and fauna of the Iguazú rainforest and national park in South America.

When he read from the collection at this summer’s ALSC Poetry Blast (held in June at the ALA convention) he said the poems were based on his travels to a rainforest in South America where he “interviewed” the animals. Most of the 25 poems are in the persona of the subject, “following the Amerindian tradition… the animals of the Iguazú speak for themselves,” including the toucan, parrot, hummingbird, swift, lizard, mosquito, giant ant, monkey, turtle, and the falls and jungle themselves. Here’s my favorite poem (in Spanish and English) that reflects the very heart of the collection and the rainforest itself.

Jaguareté (Jaguar)
by Francisco X. Alarcón

dicen que ahora
estoy casi extinto
por este parque

pero la gente
que dice esto
no sabe

que al oler
las orquídeas
en los árboles

están percibiendo
la fragancia
de mis fauces

que al oír
el retumbo
de los saltos

están escuchando
el gran rugido
de mis ancestros

que al observar
las constelanciones
del firmamento

están mirando
las motas de estrellas
marcadas en mi piel

que yo soy
y siempre seré
el indomable

espíritu silvestre
vivo de esta
jungla

p. 18

Jaguareté (Jaguar)
by Francisco X. Alarcón

some say
I’m now almost
extinct in this park

but the people
who say this
don’t know

that by smelling
the orchids
in the trees

they’re sensing
the fragrance
of my chops

that by hearing
the rumbling
of the waterfalls

they’re listening
to my ancestors’
great roar

that by observing
the constellations
of the night sky

they’re gazing
at the star spots
on my fur

that I am and
always will be
the wild

untamed
living spirit
of this jungle

p. 19

Alarcón, Francisco X. 2008. Animals Poems of the Iguazú / Animalario del Iguazú. San Francisco, CA: Children’s Book Press.

Animal Poems is illustrated with mixed media art by Maya Christina Gonzalez, a 2008 Pura Belpré illustrator honor winner, in BOLD, vivid colors of thick deep green, turquoise and orange on thick pages of 100% recycled paper. It also includes a brief introduction and concluding information section. And for more information on Alarcón and his work, allow me to plug my book, Poetry People.

For more Poetry Friday connections, go to Biblio File.

Picture credit: www.deepdiscount.com