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Mortimer Minute

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Today I’m participating in The Mortimer Minute, a bunny hop through the children’s poetry blogosphere. The Hop was started by April Halprin Wayland with these guidelines:

1) Pose and answer three questions you’ve always wanted to be asked in an interview about children’s poetry. (Ideally, use one question posted by the person who invited you to the Hop.)

2) Invite one, two, or three other bloggers to go after you.

3) In your post list the names of the bloggers you invited and give the dates when they’ll be posting.

April tagged Laura Shovan who tagged Janet Flagal who tagged me. Unfortunately, Janet’s post has been delayed but I will jump ahead.

 

Do you compose on paper or on a computer?

I like starting poems in my notebook on old-fashioned paper. Starting on paper with a carefully chosen pen allows me to get the flow and rhythm going without interrupting myself with revisions. It also allows me to write when I’m away from my desk (otherwise known as the kitchen table). After I have a first draft, I move to my computer so that I can revise more easily. I try to save my drafts. I write one, copy it, paste it above and revise. I do this over and over until I have a draft I’m happy with. I save my drafts so I can see how far I’ve come, so I can go back if I prefer something in an earlier draft, and so I can show students how terrible my first drafts are.

 

What’s your favorite “serious” poem for kids?

I love funny poems and looking-close-at-nature poems, but I also love poems that address the harder parts of being a human. One of my favorite poetry anthologies is The 20th Century Children’s Poetry Treasury edited by Jack Prelutsky. The theme of pages 64-65 is hard feelings. I love these poems: “The Bad-Mood Bug” by Brod Bagert, “Mad Song” by Myra Cohn Livingston, “When I Was Lost” by Dorothy Aldis and “Moving” by Eileen Spinelli. Can’t we all relate to the heavy feeling of being lost, the pain of moving, and the urgent need to slam a door?

 

If you could have any “superpower” what would it be?

I wish I could talk to animals. I have some questions for the squirrels who have been pelting me with hickory nuts.

 

I have tagged Cynthia Grady who is a poet and a middle school librarian and has written a gorgeous book of poetry entitled I Lay My Stitches Down: Poems of American Slavery. The poems incorporate history, quilting, music, religion, art and so much more. I hope Cynthia will have time to hop next Friday.
 
I have also tagged Ruth at There is no such thing as a God-forsaken town. I always enjoy Ruth’s posts and I saw this hop as a chance to get to know her a little better. She plans to post next Friday.
 
For more Poetry Friday, visit DoriReads.

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My Pumpkin

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I saw this pumpkin at the grocery store and I had to have it. It called to me. So I bought it and brought it home and stood it on the stoop. I heard myself think, “But I don’t want to carve it. I like it like this.” Then I heard myself think, “There’s a poem there.”

Here it is:

 

My Pumpkin

I don’t want to carve my pumpkin.
I don’t want to give it a grin.

I like my pumpkin like it is.
I like its smooth orange skin.

I like that it’s a little tall.
I like its hollow thump.

I like its tiny tree-trunk stem.
I like its warty bump.

Of all the pumpkins in the pile,
this one said “Pick me!”

I don’t want to carve my pumpkin.
I want to let it be.

 

I’m still thinking about the last line. Do kids say “Let it be?” Do they know what it means?

For more Poetry Friday, visit Amy at The Poem Farm.

 

(c) 2013, Elizabeth Steinglass, all rights reserved

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Your Neighbor

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That woman who walks around
in clothes that look like yesterday’s,
with hair that might not have been washed
today, that woman who mumbles strange
rhythms too low to hear, who stops
to examine the small and the dead,
all things invisible from the window,
that woman sitting on the stoop scratching
in the notebook she carries everywhere,
that woman you see from time to time
but never the same time, that woman
isn’t crazy. She hears voices for sure,
but she isn’t crazy. She’s me.

 

I’m sure hoping some of you can relate to at least some of this?

For more Poetry Friday visit Teach Mentor Texts.

(c) Elizabeth Steinglass, 2013, all rights reserved

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Chalk-A-Bration!

Betsy at Teaching Young Writers has us celebrating poetry and sidewalk chalk at the end of every month. My daughter and I decided to join the fun this last Saturday of August. Here’s my daughter’s poem:

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Chalk decorations
covering the sidewalk
with colorful dreams

Here’s mine:

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What gets you to stop and look?
A red light?
A starry night?
A poem left on the sidewalk?

But here’s my favorite thing about putting my poem on the sidewalk. When my youngest son read it, he said, “Everything.”

Happy Saturday. Happy Chalk-a-bration.
For more visit Betsy at Teaching Young Writers.

(c) Elizabeth Steinglass, 2013, all rights reserved.

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Fuzzy Tails

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There are tails in the garden
That sway in the air
Like the tips of fine cats
Who expect you to stare.

Gently, I pet them.
Their fur starts to shed.
These cats spread themselves
All over the bed!

(c) Elizabeth Steinglass, 2013, all rights reserved

 

Just a poem today.

For more Poetry Friday visit Betsy at I Think in Poems.

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Two Original Limericks

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There once was a girl who loved trees.
She swung from their limbs with great ease.
When asked to come in,
The girl made a grin,
Then hung upside down by her knees.

 

My mother once gave me a date.
I snuck the old yuck off my plate.
My mother found out
When she saw the dog’s snout
In a strangely gelatinous state.

 

Earlier in the summer Michelle Barnes asked me if I’d be willing to send her a poem for Limerick Alley. I was so honored and inspired by her request that I wrote and sent three. She posted one earlier this week with a fabulous illustration by her daughter. Above are the two others written for Michelle.

For more Poetry Friday, visit Renee at No Water River.

(c) Elizabeth Steinglass, 2013, all rights reserved

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Summer Scourge

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Summer Scourge

I cut their heads off eagerly
with a snip of the sharpest blade.
I lopped a few of the living too, carelessly
desperate to get the burnt and shriveled corpses
out of sight. I was the knight
finishing the dragon with one last
slice across the neck. And yet,
these daisies meant no harm.

 

Often my poetry comes from close observation of the natural world. Recently, I’ve realized that I also need to observe myself observing the world.

For more Poetry Friday visit Margaret at Reflections on the Teche.

(c) Elizabeth Steinglass, 2013, all rights reserved

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Sunflower

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Sunflower

Rising over the garden,
A helium sun on a string.
Parading above the lilies,
A crown fit for a king.

An eye with golden lashes,
A bonnet around a face,
A sprinter sporting a medal
For winning a backyard race.

A paintbrush dipped in lemon,
A splash of juicy light,
A toothless, sunny smile
Without a shadow in sight.

A nodding head grown weary,
A platter of snacks on a string,
A sprinkle of secret promises
To rise again next spring.

(c) Elizabeth Steinglass, 2013, all rights reserved

 

I wrote this last summer but I was reminded of it when this year’s sunflowers opened their bright, shiny faces.

For more Poetry Friday visit Semicolon.

 

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Haiku: The Wordless Poem

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

for sale
a sparrow slips into the attic
trailing toilet paper

 

watching fireworks
from the car
chickenpox

 

screen door
song of the birds
cry of the cat

 

a sudden fall
of acorns—

chipmunk looks
at me

 

I’ve been focusing on haiku again, preparing submissions for Modern Haiku (deadline July 15) and Frogpond (deadline August 1). (Hint, hint…) I set these aside to post here because they were the most kid-friendly.

Haiku are sometimes called “wordless” poems. The idea is that the reader connects directly with the experience being depicted, not with the words of the poem. For me wordless also refers to all the words that might have been included but weren’t–words that the reader constructs for herself. We know from the words in the second haiku that somewhere there is a screen door, birds singing, and a cat crying but there are no words explaining that the cat is crying because she is on one side of the screen door and unable to hunt the birds happily singing on the other. According to Cor van den Heuvel, the poet Ogiwara Seisensui once described haiku as a circle–half provided by the poet and half provided by the reader. This is just the kind of active reading I hope to inspire in kids.

For more Poetry Friday visit Michelle Heidenrich Barnes at Today’s Little Ditty.

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Back to Work

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The Tin Woodman as illustrated by William Wallace Denslow (1900) in The Wonderful Wizard of Oz by L. Frank Baum

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I’m back after end-of-the-school-year madness, an awful stomach virus, and a once-in-a-lifetime trip to Italy. I hadn’t intended to take such a long break from writing, but one thing after another made it difficult to focus. I don’t know about you, but after breaks like these I find it hard to get back to work. I feel like the Tin Woodman rusted and stranded in the forest. Where’s Dorothy with that can of oil? I was going to write that there is no Dorothy. I have only myself to get these rusty joints in motion. But that’s not entirely true. There are quite a few Dorothy’s out there. The two I turn to most often are Laura Purdie Salas and Miss Rumphius. When I’m stiff and need to get moving, I go to them for a squirt of oil.

This week Miss Rumphius prompted her readers to write a list poem. Her model was a list of all the reasons she hasn’t been able to write lately. Here’s my reply:

 

Things to do with Poems

Read them.
Read them out loud.
Read them when you should be reading something else.
Read them to remind yourself you’re not alone.
Copy them out, in your own hand, fold them into little squares, and stuff them
in your shoe.
Tape them to the mirror, the wall, the dashboard, your forehead.
Write them when the spring breaks ground.
Write them when you fear your chest will burst with all you stuff there.
Etch them on your brain.
Ink them on your arm following your veins.
Write them on the sidewalk in thick pink chalk.
Watch them dissolve and run off in the rain.
Pick their cotton shreds from your lint screen.
Recite them so the clock on the back wall can hear you.
Hide them in books and backpacks and pillowcases so someone else can find them.
Whisper them in the dark.

 

Yesterday, Laura Salas posted a mysterious blue image on her 15 words or less blog. Here’s my response:

blue blood flows
through sweeping skies
delivering life
to weary eyes

 

Ah, much better. I think I can move my arm again.
So, fellow poets, what do you do to get back to work after a break?
For more Poetry Friday visit Keri Recommends.
See you next week.
Liz

(c) 2013, Elizabeth Steinglass, all rights reserved

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