Let's Write: This Week with David Harrison

Today I'm featuring a guest, poet David Harrison who has developed a new video series to help in teaching children the writing process. It sounds terrific. He shares the details below.

LET’S WRITE: THIS WEEK WITH DAVID HARRISON
by David L. Harrison

When I visit classrooms I like to give students tips on how they can enjoy their own writing more and improve the results of their efforts. Over the years I’ve developed a number of these tips, all of which are based on methods that real writers really use. I’ve used the same techniques myself so I know they work. Some are tricks of the trade, some are common sense advice, but student writers benefit from all of them.

When I became Drury University’s Poet Laureate, I began to consider worthwhile projects I could do that would fit my responsibilities. I decided to create video vignettes of me doing what I’ve been doing for more than 40 years when I visit classrooms. I began by making a list of five broad categories – how to get started, poetry, fiction, nonfiction, and how to rewrite. Under each of those headings I taped four presentations. For example, under Getting Started I talk about 1) finding ideas through association, 2) beginning with a single word, 3) the power of observation, and 4) reading to discover things to write about.

I kept each episode brief (five minutes) so that busy teachers can display me on a Whiteboard while I present to their students the tip for the week and then follow up with reinforcing activities. The episodes are not sequential so a teacher can choose any topic that fits the current unit being taught.

I’m finishing an accompanying Teacher’s Guide with Dr. Laurie Edmondson, Interim Director for Drury’s School of Education and Child Development. Each of the 20 Writing Tips featured in the DVDs is expanded for the teacher in the guide book. Laurie is providing classroom activities that teachers can use to complete the lesson. We also present what research says about each category, a home connection to help gain family support, and how each lesson ties into the Common Core State Standards.

In addition to the 20 video sessions and the Teacher’s Guide, the kit includes a set of 20 Student Writing Journals and three of my trade books – one each of poetry, fiction, and nonfiction – that we use as examples to help students see exactly what I’m talking about on the videos. What began in my mind two years ago as a set of taped writing tips for students has evolved into this hands-on, interactive, creative writing program that can bring me into classrooms anywhere. The full kit, which is designed for use in grades 3-5 (but could be used in later grades if desired) will be available by late summer or early fall and will be priced at $499. The publisher is Phoenix Learning Resources. Sales will be handled through Stourbridge Distributors. You can contact them at www.stourbridgedist.com.

Further, Laurie is going to teach an online course for graduate credit based on LET’S WRITE THIS WEEK WITH DAVID HARRISON. Those who are interested in signing up for the course or learning more about it can contact Laurie directly at ledmondson@drury.edu .

IRA Symposium: Using Humor to Engage Students in Poetry

Today I have the honor of presenting a poetry symposium at the annual convention of the International Reading Association in Chicago-- along with J. Patrick Lewis, Marilyn Singer, and Jane Yolen. (Thanks to Lili DeSisto and Charlesbridge Publishing for their support in making this happen.) Here's the lowdown.

In our session entitled, "Using Humor to Engage Students in Poetry," we are discussing the use of humor and constructing humorous poems to introduce students to this often intimidating form of writing.

 Using a bibliography of humorous poetry, we hope to illustrate how a poem can tickle a child's funny bone, and lead to an interest in poetry, reading, and writing in general.

 We address the different kinds of humor one can find in poetry such as slapstick, puns, limericks, etc. Handouts with lists and activities that educators could use with students (such as poetry performance, which was also demonstrated during the session) and sample poems were provided.

Each poet shared poetry, poetry strategies, and participated in a Q&A discussion. Here are some of the questions I posed to them:

1. What is your favorite kind of humor? In life or in poetry!
2. What are some of your favorite funny poems? Or funny poets?
3. When did you start writing funny things or what inspired you to write humor?
4. Do you have favorite funny forms or topics you like to explore?
5. Is it easier or harder to write funny poetry (than “serious” poetry)? Why/how?
6. When you’re writing, do you plan for humor or does it catch you by surprise? Which happens when?
7. Are there tricks that will make a poem funnier? Like the surprise ending or the k sound...
8. Have kids ever surprised you with their reactions to a humorous poem? Or laughing at a serious poem? Care to share any funny stories of unexpected kid responses?
   

I spoke about humorous poetry for young people in general, citing some of my favorite poets and collections and involved the audience in performing many poems together. I provided a massive handout of material drawn from my new book, The Poetry Teacher's Book of Lists along with some new compilations, including a list of:

107 Humorous Poetry Books for Young People

PLUS lists of:

*Children’s Poetry in Audiobook Form: A Sampling
(in case you don't have access to a "live" poet)
*Song Tunes for Matching with Poems: A Sampling
(along with a "live" demonstration of singing poems)
*Poetry Books about Dogs: A Sampling
(a popular topic in children's humorous poetry and a familiar place to begin in guiding children in writing poetry based on personal experiences-- same with cats)
*Poetry Books about Cats: A Sampling
*Halloween and Monster Poetry Books: A Sampling
(another popular topic in children's humorous poetry and a good place to begin in guiding children in writing fanciful poetry)
*Folk Poetry Books for Children: A Sampling
(a good place to begin in bridging the gap from oral poetry to writing poetry)
*Exploring Forty Fun Forms of Poetry Writing with Young People
(including Marilyn Singer's reverso and J. Patrick Lewis's zeno)
*Poetry Books for Young People that Showcase Poetic Form: A Sampling
(helpful models of poet thinking behind the writing)
*Poetry Celebration Occasions: A Sampling
(places to begin incorporating poetry sharing and poetry writing)
[FYI: All these lists are in my book, The Poetry Teacher's Book of Lists.]

Plus, I shared a dozen or more sample poems and invited the audience to join in performing.

I hope to be able to share some video snippets from this session at a later date, as well as videos from the Poetry Olio featuring several different poets reading from their works. More on that soon.

Meanwhile, here's one humorous poem to tide you over. It's from Jack Prelutsky's new book out this year, I’ve Lost My Hippopotamus.

My Stomach, Every Now and Then
By Jack Prelutsky

My stomach, every now and then,
Decides to sing aloud,
Which quickly draws a curious,
Enthusiastic crowd.
The music’s unpredictable,
Each note is a surprise.

The songs are strangely out of tune
And hard to recognize.

My stomach’s voice is squeaky,
Yet astonishingly strong.
No wonder people marvel
When it plunges into song.
Though I’m certain that a stomach
Is a necessary thing,

Nonetheless I’m disconcerted
When my stomach starts to sing.


From: Prelutsky, Jack. 2012. I’ve Lost My Hippopotamus. Ill. by Jackie Urbanovic. New York: Greenwillow, p. 123.

Now, try singing this poem to the tune of “99 Bottles of Pop." Be sure to end the last line with exaggerated slowness. Pretty hilarious, right? Jack is quite a musician and many of his poems work perfectly set to music. Try it, you'll see!

Image credit: 

IRA

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

POEM IN YOUR POCKET FOR YOUNG POETS by Bruno Navasky

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

Today’s tagline: Poems to tear out

Featured Book: Navasky, Bruno. 2011. Poem in Your Pocket for Young Poets; 100 Poems to Rip Out & Read. Abrams.

What a fun way to end Poetry Tag—with a poetry collection kids can manipulate and make their own. The Academy of American Poets has a new poetry book out for young people-- that's totally rippable! Open the hard cover and inside is a pad of paper with each page containing a poem-- 100 poems in total-- each page designed to be ripped out like a tear-off calendar. Very fun! (The book is also available for purchase as a hardback with pages that are bound-- and aren't designed to be ripped out!)







The 100 poems are primarily by published for an adult audience, but are chosen with appeal to young readers (particularly tweens and teens) in mind. For example,

Substantial Planes
by A. R. Ammons

It doesn't
matter

to me
if

poems mean
nothing:

there's no
floor

to the
universe

and yet
one

walks the
floor.

Doesn't that have great kid appeal?!
Perhaps this will prompt young readers to take the poem with them, learn it/share it, build their own personal collections of favorite poems, tuck a favorite in their pockets, or look for another poem just like the one they love. 



Perhaps this will also prompt you to look for the next poetry book to tag and share. An anthology? A picture book collection? A new one? An old favorite? Keep the momentum going all year long.

Tag, you’re it!

[That’s it! Thus ends National Poetry Month. But don’t stop now. You can share a poem a day any month with 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.]


Image credit: Photo Source: Center for the Art of Translation Blog.

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

Readers Guide for DARK EMPEROR

I’m teaching my graduate course in poetry for children this semester and we have all kinds of projects percolating that I hope to share soon-- including readers’ guides for many different poetry books. Toward that end, I created a mini-example readers’ guide for my students for Joyce Sidman’s Dark Emperor, a Newbery honor book this year. Let me first say that Joyce has several excellent resources for this book available on her own web site. I purposely created my guide before checking hers and there’s a wee bit of overlap, but together, we offer multiple ways to approach this wonderful book.

At Joyce’s web site, you’ll find:

• A readers guide
• Audiofile of her reading select poems
• Links to interviews with Joyce
• And more…

READERS GUIDE: Dark Emperor by Joyce Sidman
By Sylvia Vardell

Sidman, Joyce. 2010. Dark Emperor and Other Poems of the Night. Houghton Mifflin. Recommended age levels 7-12

1. Summary of book
This collection of poems about the forest at night—owls, moths, porcupines-- is the last in the trio of “ecosystem poetry books” that began with Song of the Water Boatman (pond) and continued with Butterfly Eyes (meadow). It also offers a parallel layout with beautiful linoleum prints in a double-page spread for each of 12 poems, alongside an accompanying prose paragraph. This marriage of lyrical poetry, science-focused topics, and beautifully executed art has become a Sidman (and collaborating illustrator) trademark.

2. Review excerpts/awards
*Newbery Honor book

*Booklist Editors’ Choice
*Booklist starred review; “this picture book combines lyrical poetry and compelling art with science concepts”
*School Library Journal; “it invites lingering enjoyment for nature and poetry fans”
*Horn Book Fanfare
*Bulletin Blue Ribbon
*Chicago Public Library Best Book of the Year
*NSTA-CBC Outstanding Science Trade Book
*ALA Notable Book
*Junior Library Guild Selection
*Cybils Poetry Award finalist
*Lee Bennett Hopkins Poetry Award honor book

3. Questions to ask before reading
Invite the children to discuss the following:
*What is an “emperor”? Look at the book’s cover and speculate about the book’s content and the meaning of the word “emperor.”
*Imagine what happens outside your home when you sleep at night. What animals might be active? What noises might be heard?
*Which is easier to write—prose or poetry? Why? This book has both. Why do you think a poetry book might include prose paragraphs, too?

4. Suggestions for reading poems aloud
*“Welcome to the Night”-- invite the whole group or class to read each stanza’s end line (“Welcome to the night”) as a repeated refrain; try this same strategy with “I Am a Baby Porcupette” and with “The Mushrooms Come” (for the repeated title line in each poem)
*“Oak After Dark”-- invite 7 volunteers to read one couplet each; try changing the order of the couplets in repeated readings just for fun
*”Ballad of the Wandering Eft”—Divide the class or whole group into 4 small groups, one to read each of the 4 poem stanzas. Then invite the whole (large) group to sing the repeated stanza in italics as a song to the tune of “On Top of Old Smoky.”

5. Follow up activities (writing, art, science, etc.)
*Art block prints
The illustrator, Rick Allen, created woodblock prints for the pictures in this book. Collaborate with an art teacher or local artist to learn about printmaking; experiment with simple potato prints to create print pictures for a favorite poem.

*Poem writing
Joyce Sidman writes poetry in many different forms. In this book, she includes an “ubi sunt” (“Moon’s Lament”), a medieval poem that “laments the loss of heroic, beautiful things.” Invite the children to work in pairs to try creating their own lamenting ubi sunt poem.

*Science observations
Children can work in pairs to create nature poems and prose paragraphs about creatures in their immediate environment based on observing them for a set period of time. Combine them to create a collaborative book.

6. Related web sites/blogs
*Joyce Sidman’s web site
http://www.joycesidman.com/
[Look here for a readers guide that she has created as well as a digital trailer for this book.]

*Nocturnal animals web site
http://nocturnal-animals.com/
[Look here for factual information and photo-images of animals that are most active at night.]

*The Miss Rumphius Effect
http://missrumphiuseffect.blogspot.com/
[Look here for science plus poetry connections and ideas for teaching.]

7. Related books (poetry, nonfiction, fiction)
*Sidman Ecosystem Poetry Trilogy:
Sidman, Joyce. 2005. Song of the Water Boatman and Other Pond Poems. Ill. By Beckie Prange. Boston: Houghton Mifflin.
Sidman, Joyce. 2006. Butterfly Eyes and Other Secrets of the Meadow. Ill. by Beth Krommes. Boston: Houghton Mifflin.
Sidman, Joyce. 2010. Dark Emperor and Other Poems of the Night. Ill. by Rick Allen. Boston: Houghton Mifflin.


*Other collections of nature poetry organized around an ecosystem theme:
Singer, Marilyn. 1989. Turtle in July. New York: Macmillan.
Singer, Marilyn. 2003. Fireflies at Midnight. New York: Atheneum.
Yolen, Jane, comp. 1997. Once Upon Ice and Other Frozen Poems. Honesdale, PA: Wordsong/Boyds Mills Press.
Yolen, Jane. 1998. Snow, Snow: Winter Poems for Children. Honesdale, PA: Wordsong/Boyds Mills Press.

*Nonfiction books about nocturnal animals:
Cooper, Wade. 2008. Night Creatures. Cartwheel.
Fraser, Mary Ann. 1999. Where Are the Night Animals? HarperCollins.
George, Jean Craighead. 1999. Morning, Noon, and Night. HarperCollins.
Weber, Belinda. 2006. The Best Book of Nighttime Animals. Kingfisher.

Meanwhile, stay tuned and I hope to share more information about other student-made poetry resources as National Poetry Month (April) nears.

Image credit: Houghton Mifflin

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

Margarita Engle in BOOK LINKS, plus

I’d like to plug the January issue of Book Links (now an ancillary publication with Booklist) and my “Everyday Poetry” column about poet and author Margarita Engle. This time last year in Book Links, Jeannine Atkins offered a fine introduction to three books by Margarita Engle-- The Poet Slave of Cuba, The Surrender Tree, and Tropical Secrets including research suggestions for the classroom. In my column, I followed up with more info and curricular connections. Here’s an excerpt:

Margarita Engle burst onto the scene only 5 years ago and has already garnered multiple Pura Belpre recognitions (another one THIS year!) and a Newbery honor distinction. Her work thus far is a unique amalgamation of spare and powerful free verse, unheralded historical subjects, vividly realized settings, and multiple contradictory points of view. She has fused history, poetry, and biography to tell authentic stories about real people from the past. Her work lends itself to cross-curricular applications in history, science, and language arts, in particular.

Her unique style provides opportunities for young people to connect with her work in a variety of ways. The use of many viewpoints lends itself to dramatic reading ala readers theater. (Her first three works are also available in audiobook form.) Her use of imagery and distinctive settings begs for artistic interpretation in drawing, painting, collage, etc. The history and geography nuggets may prompt further digging into nonfiction and web-based resources. Put it all together and students can create digital trailers using archival photos, period music, and evocative voiceovers to bring her works to life.

So far, Engle has authored five novels in verse beginning with The Poet Slave of Cuba: A Biography of Juan Francisco Manzano, illustrated by Sean Qualls. The life of nineteenth-century Cuban slave Juan Francisco Manzano is portrayed from multiple points of view in this complex and gritty poetry-story. Pair this book with other stories of enslaved peoples in studying the history of the Americas. It offers interesting parallels to Marilyn Nelson’s Fortune’s Bones or M. T. Anderson’s two The Astonishing Life of Octavian Nothing novels for older readers.

Her 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 in the 1850-1899. It is a compelling narrative of escape and hiding, heroism and healing set in the lush landscape of Cuba’s jungles and caves across three wars fought by natives and fueled by outsiders. It offers an interesting counterpoint to books about the Civil War in the U.S during this same period, such as the classic Bull Run by Paul Fleischman, also told from multiple viewpoints or J. Patrick Lewis’s poetry collection, The Brother’s War: Civil War Voices in Verse.

In Tropical Secrets: Holocaust Refugees in Cuba, Engle shifts to Cuba in 1939 and the contrasting, interweaving paths of a Jewish boy who is a refugee from Germany and a daughter of a corrupt Cuban official and their growing awareness of the conflicted, adult world. Follow up with other stories about refugees such as the popular Swedish novel, The Faraway Island by Annika Thor, translated by Linda Schenk, or the memoir in verse, The Year of Goodbyes by Debbie Levy, or the picture book, Brothers in Hope: The Story of the Lost Boys of Sudan by Mary Williams, or the contemporary nonfiction work, Children of War, Voices of Iraqi Refugees by Deborah Ellis.

Next up: The Firefly Letters; A Suffragette's Journey to Cuba, based on the diaries and letters of Swedish suffragist Fredrika Bremer. It is set in 1851 and is built upon three female perspectives: a Swedish feminist, a slave from the Congo, and a privileged Cuban girl, weaving together notions of freedom and choice, culture and family. Engle’s focus on the roles of girls and women against a backdrop of cultural expectations and economic limitations parallels many of the struggles in another novel in verse, Crossing Stones by Helen Frost and for older readers, the novel Climbing the Stairs by Padma Venkatraman.

Margarita has a new book coming out this year, another historical novel set in Cuba—but going further back several hundred years. In Hurricane Dancers, The First Caribbean Pirate Shipwreck, set in the early 1500’s, Engle’s protagonist is Quebrado, named by the sailors, el quebrado—half islander, half outsider, “a broken one,” a child of a Taíno mother and Spanish father. He navigates the “words and worlds” between his mother’s Taíno Indian language and his father’s Spanish after a devastating hurricane and shipwreck. Michael Dorris’ historical fiction novel, Morning Girl, is set in this same time period, also in a Taíno village and offers another interesting native perspective. Or look for factual informational books about hurricanes like Hurricanes by Seymour Simon or for more poetry by poets of the Caribbean such as Monica Gunning, Lynn Joseph and James Berry.

Conclusion
What a powerful poetic voice, inspiring Latina writer, and distinctive ambassador for Cuba’s history. A “poet unit” focused on the works of Margarita Engle will yield a model of rigorous research, sensory description, elements of memoir, mastery of perspective, and elegant writing. Her treatment of the “true story” is eloquent and engaging, balancing the rigors of researching primary sources with the gift for telling a gripping story—all with a poet’s heart.

MARGARITA’S NOVELS IN VERSE
Engle, Margaret. 2006. The Poet Slave of Cuba: A Biography of Juan Francisco Manzano. New York: Holt.
Engle, Margarita. 2008. The Surrender Tree. New York: Holt.
Engle, Margarita. 2009. Tropical Secrets: Holocaust Refugees in Cuba. New York: Holt.
Engle, Margarita. 2010. The Firefly Letters; A Suffragette's Journey to Cuba. Henry Holt.
Engle, Margarita. 2011. Hurricane Dancers; The First Caribbean Pirate Shipwreck. Henry Holt.

FREE POEM
Be sure to check out this January issue of Book Links which also includes a previously unpublished poem by Margarita, free for teacher and librarian use. The accompanying poem, “Quietly,” is a lovely tribute to her mother and her mother’s influence on Margarita’s own memories.

MINI INTERVIEW QUESTIONS
Margarita was kind enough to respond to several interview questions as I was working on this article. I think you’ll find her answers fascinating!

SV: You seem to be drawn to the stories of “real” people from history. Why do you choose to tell their stories in poetry, rather than prose? Do you also rely on exhaustive research to get your details correct? Can you describe your research process?

---Margarita: I am haunted by stories about people who make hopeful decisions in situations that seem hopeless. The verse novel form allows me to distill complex historical situations down to their emotional essence. I need to learn the facts and figures of history, but I don’t want to clutter my books with information. My goal is an uncrowded page that flows easily and quickly, without intimidating reluctant readers.

Researching real people and historical events requires obscure references. I start with recent publications, and work my way back in time by searching for references listed in bibliographies. When I find a diary, I feel like I’ve won a prize, because first person accounts offer emotional aspects along with the details of daily life. Since rare books are not usually available in a digital form, I depend on interlibrary loan, an amazing service that gives me access to University collections and the Library of Congress.

SV: Conditions of war and armed conflict are often an important part of your books. What parallels do you see across those historical events (and today)?

---Margarita: Peace is the attraction, not war. I exist in the space between two hostile countries, Cuba and the U.S., so the interface between cultures fascinates me. In Hurricane Dancers, I wrote about the first encounter between my Cuban Indian ancestors and my Caribbean pirate ancestors. I hope my books offer empathy. The Poet Slave of Cuba is about the injustice of slavery and the yearning for literacy. The Surrender Tree shows a small country’s desire for independence from powerful nations. Tropical Secrets is about the plight of refugees. The Firefly Letters portrays women who are regarded as property. These are all ongoing situations throughout the world. They are topics that are relevant today.

SV: Presenting multiple points of view seems to be a hallmark of your works. How do you choose and balance those perspectives?

---Margarita: Giving voices to characters I admire feels natural, but it’s a struggle to let the ones I detest have their say. When I wrote The Surrender Tree, I really didn’t want to let the slave hunter speak. I had to force myself to write his voice, but he was part of the story, so it had to be done. I’m currently working on a shorter novel in verse with only one voice, inspired by stories my grandmother told me about her childhood. She struggled with dyslexia, so I am dedicating the book to reluctant readers. Also, my picture book, Summer Birds, uses a single voice. I think it is a function of the complexity of the story.

SV: You create such a pungent sense of place in your writing with flora and fauna, food and landscape coming vividly to life. Is that an intentional counterpoint to the vivid description of war, death, and disease you also portray?

---Margarita: I’m an agronomist and botanist, as well as a hiker and birdwatcher. I love the outdoors. I love wilderness. I can’t imagine writing in any other way. Tropical landscapes are constantly bursting with life and death. Everything grows fast, and everything rots. It’s a setting filled with fragrance and stench. It can only be described with all five senses on high alert. Your question about counterpoint is interesting, because for centuries, Cuban writers have portrayed a striking blend of natural beauty and moral corruption. It may seem surrealistic, but it’s actually a completely realistic image of life in the tropics.

SV: Several of your characters serve as translators in their stories and language plays a pivotal role in the characters’ relationships. Would you care to elaborate on the why and how of that element?

---Margarita: My parents met, fell in love, and got married without speaking the same language. I was born and raised in my father’s hometown of Los Angeles, but my Cuban mother taught me Spanish while I was little, and when we spent summers in Cuba, I was immersed in Spanish. Growing up bilingual was a formative experience. I am always aware of the different ways of thinking that come with a language. For instance, in Spanish we say we dream ‘with’ someone, instead of dreaming ‘about’ them. In English we say we ‘fly’ from coast to coast, but in Spanish people can’t fly. They have to ‘go by airplane.’ Language is a magic window. It lets you glimpse the human mind.

Wow, right?


I can’t wait to see what Margarita writes next…

And be sure to stop by Tara's for the Poetry Friday gathering at A Teaching Life.

Image credit: 

schoollibraryjournal.com;wppl.org;piedmon.k12.ca;jacketflap.com;tower.com;usmacmillan; freepicturesfreepictures.com

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

Jame, Rivers, and Movies

Jame Richards’s first novel in verse, Three Rivers Rising, is a historical tale based on a true event (the Johnstown Flood) weaving multiple story threads toward a vivid climax. It has 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 Jame’s web site.

Here's just a snippet to give you a taste of the book. It's from the long opening passage from the protagonist's (Celestia's) point of view:

Now about me--
if I am not the fun-loving beauty,
then I must be the serious one,
the one who would toss the croquet ball back,
wave and sigh,
but be more infinitely more fascinated
with my book
than with the superficial cheer
of the society crowd.
The one who gets the joke
but does not tolerate it.
The one who baits the hook
and guts the fish
with Peter,
the hired boy.

From: Richards, Jame. 2010. Three Rivers Rising. Knopf, p. 5-6.

One of my favorite activities to use with tweens and teens is to discuss the possible adaptation of a book into film, particularly the casting of the main characters. It really helps them visualize the characters and discuss their attributes. So, I tossed the challenge to Jame, as the author of the book.

If they were to make a movie of THREE RIVERS RISING, whom would you want to cast in the leads?

Jame: Naturally when Hollywood calls they’re going to be on pins and needles waiting for me to help them cast the leads, right? How fun would that be—I can’t wait. I hope Hollywood has a time machine handy, though, because all my picks would be too old to varying degrees. So qualify all my choices as “in the vein of…”

I love when films are cast so that family members truly look similar. So for Celestia and Estrella, I picture Natalie Portman or Keira Knightley or young Winona Ryder in some combination.


For Peter, whoever’s the next Brad Pitt, I guess. He has that golden quality and he’s a good actor.



For Kate, I like Chloe Sevigny because she has that monochromatic coloring, long narrow face and heavy rope braid.



And, for contrast, I picture Maura having a rounder or square face and curly or wavy hair—so Keri Russell.


What do you think? I’m sure there are readers who know the young stars out there better than I do—I’d love to hear their thoughts!

Challenge kids to create a digital book trailer for the book, using actor images they choose for the characters’ portrayals, archival photos of the Johnstown area and flood, period music, and/or other elements to make the story come alive visually.

More historical novels-in-verse
I also like to link books, one to another, to keep kids reading. So, if they like Three Rivers Rising, they may also enjoy the work of Helen Frost, particularly Crossing Stones, which also includes romance, conflict, and societal pressures. And of course, they should look for Karen Hesse’s Out of the Dust (the inspiration for Jame’s use of the verse novel format) as well as Witness. Paul Janeczco’s novel in verse, Worlds Afire offers another counterpoint, with its focus on a real life disaster, the horrible circus fire in Hartford, CT. And I’ve heard through the grapevine that Allan Wolf is publishing a novel in verse about the voyage and sinking of the Titanic—out next year. Other novels in verse set in the U.S. (1850-1950) include Walter Dean Myers’s Here in Harlem: Poems in Many Voices (coming out shortly in a new audiobook format), Carole Boston Weatherford’s Becoming Billie Holiday or Marilyn Nelson’s Carver: A Life in Poems. To follow up, create a Poetry Timeline and place these titles in chronological order based on their settings.

Come meet Jame at our session at the upcoming NCTE convention in Orlando, A.9 POETS AND BLOGGERS UNITE: USING TECHNOLOGY TO CONNECT KIDS, TEACHERS, AND POETRY on Friday, Nov. 19 (9:30-10:45am).

Be sure to check out my fellow bloggers’ sites featuring fellow presenters, Lee Bennett Hopkins (at Elaine Magliaro's Wild Rose Reader) and Marilyn Singer (at Tricia Stohr-Hunt's Miss Rumphius Effect). And for more Poetry Friday fun, go to Scrub-a-Dub-Tub hosted by Terry.

Last chance: Post questions for Jame Richards or Pat Mora (in the Comments area below) or simply comment and win a chance at a free autographed copy of Three Rivers Rising (by Jame) and Dizzy in Your Eyes (by Pat). I'll post responses from Jame and Pat next week and will follow up on our joint session AFTER the NCTE conference. Thanks!

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

Mora and YALSA

¡Hola! from the biennial YALSA Symposium (sponsored by the Young Adult Library Services Association, a division of the American Library Association) currently wrapping up in Albuquerque, New Mexico. I was honored to host a presentation here that included a panel of five fantastic poets who write wonderful works for young adult audiences. This included our focus poet Pat Mora, as well as Jen Bryant, Ann Burg, Margarita Engle, and April Halprin Wayland. (Betsy Franco had hoped to be part of our panel, but had to be in NYC to act in her son, James Franco's movie! Cool, huh?)

The Symposium theme asks, “Does today's young adult literature reflect the many different faces, beliefs and identities of today's teens?” And I would argue YES, that poetry for teens, in particular, reflects great diversity in both form and content, from art-based anthologies to novels-in-verse, by mainstream poets, as well as poets of color. It also offers an invitation to and model of self-expression that is especially appealing to readers in their teen years.

Since this Symposium is a smaller, more intimate gathering of some of the most cutting-edge YA librarians, we tried something a little different with our session. We spent half the session on a kind of pre-planned Q&A or mock interview, and half the session on a somewhat pre-planned “poetry improv.”

POETRY Q & A
Here are the questions I gave our poets (in advance). Some answered one question, some another, some piggy-backed on each other’s responses.
• What were you like as a teenager?
• If you were to build a poetry timeline of your life, which poems, poetry books or poets most influenced you at which points in your life?
• Describe your poem writing process. What is your favorite writing place like?
• How do you know if you are writing a poem collection vs. a novel in verse? Why do you choose or prefer one format over the other?
• If you were to pair your poetry with music, what music would you choose? With a movie? (An individual book or your body of work)
• Tell us about the teens in your life. About teens who have responded to your work.
• What are you reading right now? Writing right now? Listening to right now?

If you’re working with teens, these questions could be helpful as they reach out to their favorite poets or as they respond to favorite works of poetry or as they attempt their own poem writing.

POETRY IMPROV PROMPTS
Next, we had a poetry reading. I had the following prompts printed on individual slips of paper all jumbled in a jar and invited audience members to draw randomly from this selection of topics. The poets were then invited to share one of their poems (or novel-in-verse excerpts) that fit that topic in some way. Sometimes the topic connected with several poets and poems, sometimes only one. Sometimes one poem prompted another poem.
• School sucks
• The perfect Christmas gift
• An awkward first date
• My parents always argue
• What am I good at?
• My best friend “gets” me
• No one “gets” me
• The future scares me
• I feel so alone
• I love to laugh
• I wish I could be a little kid again
• My current Facebook status
• My secret hope
• Girls have it so much easier
• Boys have it so much easier
• The struggle continues
• My heart is aching
• I wish I were free
• How can I go on?
• My family

This session was a hit, if I do say so myself, and the response was so positive. The poets did a terrific job—interacting easily with one another, sharing honestly about their work, their process, even their failures, and giving us moving poetry readings to take home with us. Pat shared the musical structure that emerged in creating the poetry for Dizzy in Your Eyes. Margarita revealed the new writing life that emerged when she injured both wrists in a zipline accident in Costa Rica. Ann bravely shared from a manuscript that she decided should NOT be published. Jen openly discussed the phases of her process and the tactile way she interacts with poetry. April shared her daily poetry writing discipline and the serendipitous discoveries along the way. We were all completely absorbed!

I was so pleased that YALSA included so much poetry on the docket of presentations and that our session, in particular, could offer such an amazing range of voices, with Pat Mora and Margarita Engle who channel their cultures in unique and universal ways, Jen Bryant and Ann Burg who create masterful historical novels-in-verse, and April Halprin Wayland who offers a visually graphic poem compilation. The audience learned about the variety of teen poetry available today, about the poets who create it, heard it read aloud, experienced creative ways to promote poetry with teen audiences, and left with a list of the best new poetry for teens.

Thanks to these marvelous poets for their whole-hearted participation and preparation and again to the publishers who supported this session: Tracy Lerner & Random House, Tim Jones & now Lucy Del Priore & Henry Holt/Macmillan, Jenny Choy & Candlewick, Stephanie Nooney and John Mason & Scholastic-- for bringing these poets to Albuquerque for the Symposium.

Pat Mora: On the Web and in Print

Many poets writing for young people maintain rich and lively web sites. They offer interesting biographical information, current booklists, and ideas and strategies for connecting kids with poetry, even for promoting poetry writing. Plus, they have an appealing look that engages kids. Some even provide opportunities for interaction and communication with the poet. There are book covers, photographs, and even audiofiles. These sites help budding poets see how poets live and work. Conversely, they can also help the poetry-phobic (teacher or librarian) feel less intimidated about poetry. It seems so friendly on the web. Pat Mora has such an exemplary web site with many resources to support poetry sharing. Not only does she offer information about all her books (for all ages) including activities and lesson plans, but you’ll find a wealth of resources for educators and librarians, too. Her site has even been recognized as one of the "Great Web Sites for Kids" by the Association of Library Service to Children!

Plus her blog, ShareBookjoy, is a gem of inspiration and information—always new and updated. Check out the current interview with Jeanette Larson (fellow Texas and UberLibrarian) talking about her connections with Pat and with the growing El dia de los ninos/El dia de los libros movement, the annual celebration of children and books on April 30. Jeanette has a new book about this coming out with ALA in the spring: El día de los ninos/El día de los libros: Building a Culture of Literacy in Your Community through Día (ALA, 2011). Pat also mentions a brand new grant opportunity for public libraries that want to promote Día. Check it out!



And just in case you’re not familiar with Pat’s body of work, here’s a compilation of all her books for children and young adults. Each one has such a fond place in my heart—I have a “brown bag book report” for Tomás and the Library Lady that I think I have used a million times!

• A Birthday Basket for Tia
• A Library for Juana: The World of Sor Juana Inés
• Abuelos
• Agua, Agua, Agua
The Bakery Lady/La señora de la panaderia
• Book Fiesta
• Confetti: Poems for Children
• Delicious Hullabaloo/Pachanga Deliciosa
• Dizzy in My Eyes
• Doña Flor: A Tall Tale About a Giant Woman with a Great Big Heart
• Hands; The Ways We Celebrate Life
• Listen to the Desert/Oye al desierto
• Love to Mama: A Tribute to Mothers
• Maria Paints the Hills
• ¡Marimba! Animales A-Z
• My Own True Name: New and Selected Poems for Young Adults, 1984-1999
• Pablo's Tree
• Piñata in a Pine Tree: A Latino Twelve Days of Christmas
• Song of St. Francis
• The Desert is My Mother/El Desierto es Mi Madre
• The Gift of the Poinsettia: El regalo de la flor de noche buena
• Gracias- Thanks
• The Night the Moon Fell
• The Race of Toad and Deer
• The Rainbow Tulip
• This Big Sky
• Tomás and the Library Lady
• Uno Dos Tres, One, Two, Three
• Yum! Mmmm! Que Rico!: America's Sproutings

***Plus, her “My Family--Mi familia" series of bilingual easy readers

Finally, a student of mine led me to this YouTube videoclip of Pat talking about her beginnings as a writer, the role of culture in children’s literature, and about the creation of her ingenioius food-focused haiku, Yum! Mmmm! Que Rico!: America's Sproutings. It was created by the book’s publisher, Lee and Low (a terrific publisher of multicultural books for children).

If you have any questions for Pat, post them below in the COMMENTS area and I’ll post her responses Monday, November 15, just before the NCTE conference session. Next week, I’ll be featuring new poet Jame Richards, also a member of our fantastic poetry + bloggers panel. Meanwhile, hop over to the weekly Poetry Friday gathering at Teaching Authors hosted by author JoAnn Early Macken.

Image credit: PatMora.com

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.

More trailers for Helen Frost's poetry

Summer school is over and the new fall semester begins today. Before I move forward, I'd like to share two digital poetry trailers created this summer by my students, Jennifer Curnow and Julia Vandiver (and shared with their permission). As it happens, they both choose works by Helen Frost, Keesha's House and Diamond Willow, respectively. I think they've done a good job capturing the tone of each book, in particular. What do you think? Here's Jennifer's trailer for Keesha's House.



And here's Julia's trailer for Diamond Willow below.

Catching up on ALA

Here’s one more better-late-than-never report from the ALA conference in DC last month. I was lucky enough to have a proposal of my own accepted and led a presentation on Sunday morning (June 27) that included Children’s Poet Laureate Mary Ann Hoberman, Stephen Young, from the Poetry Foundation, and Amber Rose Johnson, a Rhode Island high school student and this year’s winner of the Poetry Out Loud competition sponsored by the Poetry Foundation. It was a great morning, if I do say so myself! It was entitled, “CELEBRATING THE SPOKEN WORD WITH POETRY FOR YOUNG PEOPLE” and here was our initial proposal:

Why make poetry a priority when our shelves are full of many choices and our days are full with many tasks? Scholar Lissa Paul makes a case thus, “The history of poetry written for children begins in oral tradition” (Zipes, 2005, p. 1132). It’s a rich tradition that has stood the test of time and nurtured us from nursery rhymes onwards. Poetry provides a shared experience bringing adults and children together by virtue of its oral dimension. Poetry for children begs to be heard; to be shared aloud and talked about, providing a social connection as well as a language experience.

Poetry forms a bridge from children’s oral language development to their first steps in reading and writing, helping children move forward in their literacy development. Indeed, author and literacy expert Mem Fox writes, "Rhymers will be readers; it's that simple. Experts in literacy and child development have discovered that if children know eight nursery rhymes by heart by the time they're four years old, they're usually among the best readers by the time they're eight" (2001, p. 85).

This session celebrates the oral quality of poetry for young people by showcasing the current Children’s Poet Laureate, Mary Ann Hoberman who will speak about her life, work, and creative process; inviting participants to join in on interactive reading aloud of children’s poetry using a variety of practical strategies, and concluding with a performance by teen winner(s) of the new Poetry Out Loud National Recitation Contest, a program for fostering confidence and public speaking. Session participants will learn about resources available for selecting and promoting poetry with young people (e.g., poetryfoundation.org; poetryoutloud.org), as well as experience first-hand the special magic of the spoken word in sharing poetry aloud.

And that’s exactly what we delivered. I kicked things off by talking briefly about the importance of sharing poetry aloud and inviting young people to join in and participating in that sharing. I used Mary Ann’s poetry to demonstrate 6 ways of “doing” poetry orally, from simply reading aloud to reading aloud in unison to joining in on the refrain to using two groups for back-and-forth reading to reading in a “round” to inviting individual volunteers to read single lines. I had created what I call a “magic book” of 6 of Mary Ann’s poems to demonstrate each strategy. This is a simple booklet made out of a single (8.5 x 11) sheet of paper- just fold, fold, cut, and refold. It’s the cleverest thing which I learned YEARS ago and kids love it. You can find directions at WikiHow and I’ll include a pdf of my page here.

Then the lovely, twinkly Mary Ann Hoberman spoke about her life, work, and the creative process. She shared fun childhood memories that made an indelible imprint on her love of the word, led us in performing more of her wonderful poems, and recited her favorite childhood poem from memory—“Seeing Things” by Eugene Field. It was such a treat and the audience was completely enthralled.

Just in case you’re not already familiar with her work, here’s my BRIEF introduction of her:
As a teenager, Mary Ann Hoberman wrote for her school newspaper and edited her high school yearbook. She received a bachelor’s degree in history from Smith College and earned her master’s degree in English Literature from Yale University thirty-five years later. In the mean time, she married and had four children and eventually five grandchildren. She and her husband have lived for nearly fifty years in a house that her husband designed in Greenwich, Connecticut.

She has taught writing and literature at all levels and co-founded and performed with a children’s theatre group. But when her first book, All My Shoes Come in Twos, was published in 1957, she turned her attention to writing for children. Mary Ann Hoberman’s poetry often targets our youngest audience with rhythm and repetition, such as her “read aloud” rhyming “stories,” in the You Read to Me, I'll Read to You series. Other inviting collections include The Llama Who Had No Pajama: 100 Favorite Poems (Harcourt 1998), Fathers, Mothers, Sisters, Brothers: A Collection of Family Poems (Little Brown 2001) and My Song is Beautiful: Poems and Pictures in Many Voices (Little Brown 1994). Her most recent anthology is The Tree That Time Built: A Celebration of Nature, Science, and Imagination (Sourcebooks, 2009), a beautiful blending of classic and contemporary poems woven together via vivid science connections.

Her work has received many citations including a National Book Award in 1983 for A House is a House for Me, the National Council of Teachers of English Excellence in Poetry for Children Award in 2003 for her entire body of work, and of course in 2008 the Poetry Foundation named her the Children’s Poet Laureate.

Then, it was time for Stephen Young, Program Director at the Poetry Foundation. He served as Senior Editor of Poetry magazine for many years before he became Program Director at the Poetry Foundation in 2003. He has co-edited several poetry histories and anthologies. As Program Director, he develops public events and runs the Poetry Out Loud National Recitation Contest for high school students. He spoke briefly about the value of poetry today, of sharing poetry person-to-person, and about the Poetry Out Loud competition, in particular. It’s a nation-wide competition for high school students that offers an opportunity to learn and perform poetry from memory and earn a $20,000 cash award. This year 325,000 young people participated and it's growing each year.

Finally, Amber Rose Johnson was up and I was SO EXCITED to have a young person as part of our panel—on poetry for young people! She won the 2010 Poetry Out Loud National Recitation Contest last April, competing against 325,000 high school students nationwide. In the fall, she'll be a senior at Classical High School in Providence, Rhode Island. She is active in state politics, and participates in Young Voices, a youth-led research and advocacy program. She’s this “slip” of a girl who is dynamic and charismatic and confident—an inspiration for anyone who’s worried about “today’s youth!” She spoke briefly about the process of the competition and her experiences and then concluded with her (winning) performance of “For My People” by Margaret Walker. Oh. My. Goodness. She used her voice, her face, and her whole body to bring those powerful words to life. It was the perfect way to conclude our session and the audience was swept away by her passion and belief. It was another wonderful poetry moment at ALA.

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

Image credits: http://arts.ks.gov/pol/index.shtml;poetryfoundation.org;maryannhoberman.com