 There is a lot of goodness to be had in the Poetry Friday community today. Please visit Janice at Salt City Verse for more places to read poetry. I will get right to it. Yesterday was the official book birthday of HOP TO IT: Poems to Get You Moving, edited by Janet Wong and Sylvia Vardell. It features 100 poem by 90 poets that will make you wiggle your hands and toes, hop, skip, stretch, and jump in puddles. The Children’s Book Council (CBC) selects a small number of new releases to highlight on their “Hot Off the Press” page ever month. This month, they chose HOP TO IT. What an honor. Lucky me to have my poem, "Umbrella" in the collection. Living in the Pacific Northwest, there's plenty of rain and puddles for jumping, I've always been that person.  Janet Wong and Sylvia Vardell create books that are treasure troves for anyone sharing poetry with kids. In HOP TO IT, each poem is paired with a book. This is something I did when I taught poems and books, they make a lovely paring. So I am thrilled that The Big Umbrella by Amy June Bates and Juniper Bates was selected to be with my poem. 
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Welcome to Poetry Friday. For other places to find poetry in the world, please go to Bridget at wee words for wee ones  If you haven't gotten THIS POEM IS A NEST by Irene Latham and illustrated by Johanna Wright yet, go to your nearest independent book store and order. What a delight: poems as nests and little nestlings inside the nests. Today I decided that I would play with the poem nest, "Autumn" and see what nestlings I could find.  It's really fun and soothing to do blackout poetry.  climb the branches where the crispcool world settles +++++++++++++++++++ dizzy leaves flood the stage below a sun puddle, clouds still +++++++++++++++++++ imagine another life the whisperweight of faith with ancient memory +++++++++++++++++++ What nestlings can find? The art work is by one of my favorite local artists, Johanna Wright. I will be featuring an interview with her soon. Stay tuned!
So glad to see that Tabatha at The Opposite of Indifference is providing all the poetry goodness this week. I've been taking a poetry class through Georgia Heard's The Poet's Studio. It's a reminder if the importance in connecting with other poets during this crazy time period of history. For the final assignment, we focused on the music and sounds with poetry. Given the option to revise a poem, I chose Grandmother's Garden. I was surprised today to discover I actually wrote the original poem, almost ten years ago! we waited for moonrise atop the roof while the beets grew lesser moons below in the garden soil we forgot to plow stars flickered as we tried remembering constellations and slugs harvested garden greens in the garden soil we forgot to plow as we waited for moonrise atop the roof Below are the pages from my notebook. I decided to write the 2010 poem as a pantuom in 2016. So for class I looked at the sounds by color coding sounds and thinking about revisions such as moving it to present tense.   I've been thinking about the comments and feedback from class. One thing I have spent time with over the past few days is the purpose of this poem. For me, it's the dreamlike quality of waiting for the moon to rise in late summer. It's a magical moment. A comment was made about the word "pummel". The idea of watermelon seeds flying through the sky makes me smile but I wondered if pummel was the best word for this dream like poem. So I changed the word, Same with the line, "Then Ursa Major growls, bares her teeth". I love that image but I was it what I really wanted? So I made a change in that line as well.  In Grandmother’s Garden by Jone Rush MacCulloch We wait for moonrise in grandmother’s garden Below us, beets, the lesser moons grow loamy soil between our toes in grandmother’s garden we search for slinking nightcrawlers loamy soil between our toes watermelon seeds soar through the sky we search for slinking nightcrawlers slugs harvest zucchini flowers watermelon seeds soar through the sky as stars in a celestial bowl slugs harvest zucchini flowers purple-blackberries ripen on vines as stars in a celestial bowl nectar bats hover low purple-blackberries ripen on vines below us, beets, the lesser moons grow nectar bats hover low We wait for moonrise
CONGRATULATIONS TO
Irene Latham Michelle Kogan Sara Lewis Holmes Bridget Magee Carol Labuzetta Please HOP TO IT and email me at macrush53 @ yahoo dot com with your snail mail address so the books can be sent out mid-October. Much thanks to Pomelo Books for providing copies.
Welcome, welcome, welcome. I've been wanting up my website game for awhile. I'm so glad you are here! Today, I have a special treat because I get to share the latest collaboration of Janet Wong and Sylvia Vardell, HOP TO IT: Poems to Get You Moving. This is a SNEAK Peek because the book's birthday it OCTOBER 15, 2020. PLUS...five people who comment on this blog, will get their very own copy thanks to the generosity of Pomelo Books. How cool is that? A few poems in the book tie in well with today being NATIONAL MATH STORYTELLING DAY #MathStorytellingDay as well as #NationalBraveDay 
Everyday Use reminds us that good muscles, a compassionate heart can help us to be brave as we march on the long road to justce.
In March, I met Xelena Gonzalez at the AWP2020 convention in San Antonio, TX (maybe one of the last conventions before the Covid shutdown). I love the idea that sometimes we just need warm up in our chair to be brave enough to dance.
In Reach!, Rebecca Balcárcel, reminds us that we can reach for our dreams and reach for bravery if we stretch our hands to the sky.
Our final sneak peek involves math and what a poem it is! Mixing math and science and movement with a stamp and clap. Thank you Joan Bransfield Graham.
What poetry goodness do you bring to the world today? We certainly are in need. Please join the fun. Don't forget to comment for a chance to win a copy which will be mailed to you in mid-October.
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