Be sure to head to Matt at Radio, Rhythm & Rhyme.  He is hosting the Poetry Friday Round Up and celebrating the arrival of Friends & Anemones: Ocean Poems for Children, created by members of The Writer’s Loft in Sherborn, Massachusetts.

Do you like challenges?  
The Poetry Sisters have an invitation:
You’re invited to join our challenge for the month of November! We’re writing an Ode to Autumn. An ode is a lyrical poem, a way of marking an occasion with a song. Whether you choose an irregular ode with no set pattern or rhyme, or the ten-line, three-to-five stanza famed by Homer himself, we hope you’ll join us in singing in the season of leaf-fall and pie, and sharing on November 26th in a blog post and/or on social media with the tag #PoetryPals. 

The #inklings offer this challenge: “Write a poem that includes the idea of percentage or percent. Percentages are all around us in recipes, prices, assessments, statistics. Include the idea of percentage in your poem in some way.” 

Friends & Anemones: Ocean Poems for Children, created by members of The Writer’s Loft in Sherborn, Massachusetts, was officially published November 8, 2020!

JRM: GOOD LUCK GOLD was your debut book for kids in 1994.  What was it like to take a class from Myra Cohn Livingston? 
JW: Myra Cohn Livingston mentored a whole generation of children’s poets in her Master Class in Poetry. This was a UCLA Extension class that was offered only to those Beginning Class alums who were invited by Myra; there was seldom an opening. As a result, Myra’s Beginning Class was full of students who had taken it five or more times and were not beginners at all: Monica Gunning, Kristine O’Connell George, Joan Bransfield Graham, and more.
 
Some people who took Myra’s classes were published picture book writers who wanted to know more about poetic techniques: Alice Schertle, April Halprin Wayland, Ruth Bornstein, and Tony Johnston, for example. Earlier this year I was invited by Julie Hedlund to speak with the 12x12 group, and I felt like I was channeling Myra with my emphasis on assonance, consonance, and internal rhyme.
 
Myra died in 1996, but you can still learn from her book Poem-Making: Ways to Begin Writing Poetry (now out of print, but you can find it at a library).

JRM: And you can also find it at Thrift Books. GOOD LUCK GOLD  was written twenty-seven years ago. How has life experiences informed you when writing the new content?
JW: Five years ago, I thought that the discussions about anti-Asian racism weren’t really needed any longer. I was content to let the original GOOD LUCK GOLD rest in peace. But the recent surge in anti-Asian racism has scared me. I’m afraid for my 86-year-old father, worried that some crazy racist will attack him on the street. I’m even afraid for myself sometimes; I’ll think twice before walking somewhere alone. Because of all this, I felt an even greater urgency when writing the prose pieces about racism, an immediate need to connect with readers on a basic human level.

JRM: I could see this book being a mentor text for students to write their own poems about their parents and grandparents, food, and culture. Have you worked with students to create their own collections?
JW: In 2013 I worked with some students from Chadwick School in California to create anthologies—a 6th grade anthology and a 3rd grade anthology where every student was involved somehow: writing, illustrating, editing, copyediting, typing, doing technical work, and even marketing the books that they created, selling them on Amazon to raise funds for charity. I think those students really enjoyed having a “real world” publishing project. If schools want to embark on this kind of project for students in a certain grade or in a publishing club, I know that there are several poets who could provide guidance (for a fee). Jone, YOU would be an ideal poet to help schools make their own books. (Parent volunteers: raise some funds and hire Jone!)
 
JRM: Was there one poem that was more challenging to write?
JW: The poem “Bound Feet” went through many, many drafts. The prose piece, too. There is so much that can be said about the complicated history of foot-binding. After trying to write a narrative poem, I finally decided to keep the poem close to my own personal experience, writing about how I felt as a child when my grandmother first told me about her grandmother’s bound feet. When a poet—or any writer, even a writer of nonfiction for adults—is having difficulty with a topic, I think one good approach is to pretend that you are a child again and write from the child’s point of view.

JRM: What would you like readers of this interview to know about #StopAsianHate and bystander training?
JW: The Hollaback! bystander training session is free and takes just one hour of your time; you can sign up in a minute at ihollaback.org. There are sessions focused on anti-Asian racism and also on different communities and issues. My main takeaway: as a bystander, we sometimes worry about getting involved because we know that we can’t fix the situation alone. And maybe we’re scared. But you don’t have to resolve the problem all by yourself. Just do something to get things started. You can distract. You can document. You can delay until more help arrives. Be the first bystander to step up, and others will follow.
 
JRM: What is your next project?
JW: ​Sylvia Vardell and I plan to continue with our Anthologies 101 and 201 courses next year, working on books similar to the THINGS WE DO book of ekphrastic poems with your fun poem "ZOOM,” Jone. People can learn more about these workshops at our website here. Next up for the January/February 2022 Anthologies 201 group is THINGS WE EAT, a topic near and dear to my heart (and stomach). One of the photos that Sylvia and I have selected features a Korean restaurant scene and the word "kimchi." I am super excited for that book—you could even say I’m hungry for it!

For fun: Sylvia's and Janet's next project is THINGS WE EAT.  What would be a food for the letter X?  Comment below.  Janet is generously sending 6 books to people who comment (3 from last week and 3 this week) I will announce the winners next FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 19.

Thank you, Janet for providing readers with great back story about GOOD LUCK GOLD and More.  Looking forward to the next books that you write.

Thanks to Mary Lee Hahn for hosting the Poetry Friday Community this week.  Her post is up and includes the Inklings challege for November:  “Write a poem that includes the idea of percentage or percent. Percentages are all around us in recipes, prices, assessments, statistics. Include the idea of percentage in your poem in some way.” Thanks, Linda Mitchell for the idea. #inklings
​Do you like challenges?  
The Poetry Sisters have an invitation:
You’re invited to join our challenge for the month of November! We’re writing an Ode to Autumn. An ode is a lyrical poem, a way of marking an occasion with a song. Whether you choose an irregular ode with no set pattern or rhyme, or the ten-line, three-to-five stanza famed by Homer himself, we hope you’ll join us in singing in the season of leaf-fall and pie, and sharing on November 26th in a blog post and/or on social media with the tag #PoetryPals.

I've been reading GOOD LUCK GOLD and MORE by Janet Wong. This is her re-issue and expanded collection of poems from her DEBUT book in 1994. I have the original book signed by her.

I highly recommend this book be in every elementary and middle school for sure.  These poems are timeless.  I remember reading them twenty-seven years ago and being astonished by the treatment given to the author and now reading them they still give me pause at how some humans treat others.  The “story behind the story” or “story after the story” additions are powerful and provide such a good bridge to talk to students about racism.

In preparing for this blog post and next week's post, she and I put together that I attended a joint library conference for Oregon and Washington in the late 1990's.  At the time, Janet used a chop  with the ancient Chinese pictogram for good luck (not the contemporary Chinese character). Janet would  encourage people to make their own pictogram showing what their personal vision of good luck (or a lucky day) would be. Mine lucky day would be  reading all day (sun + moon + head + book). She drew two versions of a book, traditional and simplified. I must have also said that being able to nap outside was another lucky day. (sun + moon + head and body in bed).

JRM:What were your favorite books as a child? How aware were you that books about Asian characters weren’t available? (I’m thinking how there are students I know that would love to read this book and see themselves in it. I remember getting it for the library when it first came out)
JW: I was totally oblivious to the lack of Asian faces in the books I read—but part of that was likely because, as a very young child, most of my favorite books featured animals. The Story of Bubbles the Whale was my tip-top favorite; I had fallen in love with the pilot whale Bubbles on trips to Marineland. When we talk about diversity and inclusion and children being able to “see themselves” in a book, I worry that we sometimes think too restrictively. If anyone had pressed me to talk about it, I would’ve identified as much as a “Bubbles fan” as I did as an Asian American. That being said, if there had been a book featuring Bubbles AND a short, plump Asian American girl who loved watching TV and eating shrimp chips, that would’ve been PERFECT.
 
JRM: Wow, I remember Marineland and I was a tiny bit sad to learn it no longer exists recently.
GOOD LUCK GOLD was your debut book for kids in 1994.  What was it like to take a class from Myra Cohn Livingston? 
JW: Myra Cohn Livingston mentored a whole generation of children’s poets in her Master Class in Poetry. This was a UCLA Extension class that was offered only to those Beginning Class alums who were invited by Myra; there was seldom an opening. As a result, Myra’s Beginning Class was full of students who had taken it five or more times and were not beginners at all: Monica Gunning, Kristine O’Connell George, Joan Bransfield Graham, and more.
 
Some people who took Myra’s classes were published picture book writers who wanted to know more about poetic techniques: Alice Schertle, April Halprin Wayland, Ruth Bornstein, and Tony Johnston, for example. Earlier this year I was invited by Julie Hedlund to speak with the 12x12 group, and I felt like I was channeling Myra with my emphasis on assonance, consonance, and internal rhyme.
 
Myra died in 1996, but you can still learn from her book Poem-Making: Ways to Begin Writing Poetry (now out of print, but you can find it at a library).

JRM: How long did it take to write the forty-two “story behind the story” or “story after the story”? Did you go back through old journals and notes to write the new additions?
JW: It took about six months. It was a difficult project because several of the poems are about unpleasant topics such as racism and bullying. It was really important that the prose pieces and writing prompts were engaging enough to draw the reader in. I hope this book helps families and teachers and librarians to get kids talking about important issues—and working toward change.
 
JRM: What surprised you when you were writing the additional content?
JW: I was surprised by how vividly I remembered details from some things that happened when I was in my 20s. I still remember the “ching chong Chinaman” taunting from when I was in law school as clearly as if it happened last week. And yet I had blocked out my childhood memories of those similar incidents.

JW: Sylvia Vardell and I plan to continue with our Anthologies 101 and 201 courses next year, working on books similar to the THINGS WE DO book of ekphrastic poems with your fun poem "ZOOM,” Jone. People can learn more about these workshops at our website here. [link: https://pomelobooks.com/anthologies-101] Next up for the January/February 2022 Anthologies 201 group is THINGS WE EAT, a topic near and dear to my heart (and stomach). One of the photos that Sylvia and I have selected features a Korean restaurant scene and the word "kimchi." I am super excited for that book—you could even say I’m hungry for it!

JRM: Ooh, I love this idea.  Food is such a great topic to write about.  I did that as a topic for National Poetry Month in 2020.

Next week, I will have the second half of Janet Wong's interview.  I'll be sharing about why 100% of the proceeds of the book will going to #StopAsianHate and bystander training.

BONUS: Janet is offering six books for prizes. Three this week and three next week. Comment  on this blog post.  Win a copy of GOOD LUCK GOLD and MORE. Janet will generously send one to the winners. Good Luck!