Jane Yolen gives you writing advice

In case you  haven't been visiting Katie Davis' blog this month, she's featuring a poet a day. Today's poet, Jane Yolen, uses several poetic forms to tell you how to write those kinds of poems.
Fun, Fun.
Enjoy

More poetry for National Poetry Month

Do you need a poem a day?
There is a collection of links to poetry during the Month of April -- National Poetry Month -- at KidLithosphere Central, including someone who is writing poems to and about Dogs.

Celebrate -- April is Poetry Month

The amazing Katie Davis has been planning a really fun way to celebrate poetry month. She sent out invitations to every children’s poet she could think of asking to come and celebrate on her blog. 

Many amazing people responded including  Doug Florian, someone whose work she completely geeks out over, so she's thrilled. Who else will be visiting? Check out this partial list and make sure to visit her blog every day, starting April 1st.

Alan Katz
Renee LaTulippe
Jane Yolen
Gail Carson Levine
Leslea Newman
Lee Wardlaw
Laura Purdy Salas
Ed DeCaria
Anastasia Suen
Betsy Franco
Charles Ghigna
Michael J. Rosen
Irene Latham

April is Poetry Month

And because April is Poetry Month, there are all sorts of delicious things happening all over the Blogosphere:

Susan Taylor Brown will post Lessons Learned (Mostly about Me) in a Poem-a-Day at SusanWrites.

April Halprin Wayland will be writing and posting an original poem a day during April at her website's blog -- 2011 Poem a Day Challenge!

Liz Garton Scanlon will give us her third year of a Haiku-a-Day every day in April at Liz In Ink.

Jone MacCulloch will post 30 Days--30 Students: A Poem a Day from students at her blog, Check It Out.

At Deo Writer -- Musings to Spark the Spirit you'll find another Poem A Day: A Personal Journey.

There also is a Poetry Postcard Project. If you want a student-written and decorated poem sent to your home, send an email request to macrush53 @yahoo. com.

(Naturally, for security reasons she put spaces into that email address.)

Gregory K. will present 30 poets/ 30 Days -- a whole month of never-before-seen poems by a slew of fabulous poets writing for kids at his Gottabook blog.

Jama Rattigan will present her 2nd Annual Poetry PotLuck (original poem and favorite recipe by guest bloggers) at jama rattigan's alphabet soup.

Irene Latham will host a month-long Poetry Party: poetry quotes, trivia, craft tips, publishing resources and free books! at Live Love Explore.

Andromeda Jazmon will be doing her fourth year in a row of haiga (original haiku + her photos) at A Wrung Sponge.

Janelle at Brimful Curiosities will host a National Poetry Month Kids Poetry Challenge in which kids are invited to create pictures for the poems she posts each Friday. Check it out.

Biblio File will be featuring a poem or review of a novel-in-verse every day in April.

Anastasia Suen has set up a blog and a Twitter account for students (of all ages) to write Haiku (about what they learned at school that day).

Tricia Stohr-Hunt will host a Poetry in the Classroom series, which will highlight a topic, theme, poet, or book and talk about uses in the classroom at the Miss Rumphius effect blog.

Stasia Kehoe will be including poetry links, a giveaway of signed arc of the debut YA verse novel, Audition, plus reviews every Thursday of verse novels at Writer on the Side.

The Poem Farm will introduce a different poem idea-strategy or poetic technique for children and teachers every day. Each idea-strategy/ Technique will be followed by links to a few poems from this past year. The blog will also feature poem sharing ideas through "Poetry Peeks" into classrooms.

Lee Wind will present sprinkled-throughout-the-month GLBTQ poetry posts at his blog.

Mary Lee Hahn will be writing a poem a day again this year, and posting them at A Year of Reading.

National Poetry Month Poetry Friday schedule:

a.. April 1 http://poemfarm.blogspot.com/

a.. April 8 http://www.madiganreads.com/

a.. April 15 http://randomnoodling.blogspot.com/

a.. April 22 http://bookaunt.blogspot.com/

a.. April 29 http://www.tabathayeatts.blogspot.com/

Librarian of the Day -- Ann Wagner

As you may (or may not) know, this week is National Library Week. In celebration of this (AND to celebrate National Poetry Month), blogger Tina Nicholas Coury has an interview of Ann Wagner, youth Librarian for the Santa Monica Public Library Main Branch.

You can read this interview at Tina's blog, Tales from the Rushmore Kid.

Enjoy. -WendieO

Nonfiction Monday -- poetry -- Bee-bim Bop!

Bee-bim Bop! by Linda Sue Park. Illustrated by Ho Baek Lee. NY: Clarion Books, 2005. Still available in paperback. Hardback is OP.

I know that you all know that Linda Sue Park is an award-winning author of novels, but how many of you know that she's a poet, too? Nearly everything she writes mentions food. However,this book is all about her favorite dish -- Bee-bim Bop.

"Hurry, Mama, hurry
Gotta chop chop chop!
Hungry -- very hungry
for some BEE-BIM BOP!

Bee-bim is the name of a popular Korean food
and Bop means RICE.
Bee-bim also means "Mix/ mix."
So the whole name of the dish means "lets mix/ mix other foods (chopped cooked meat, sprouts, stir-fried veggies, scrambled egg patties) with rice and EAT!"

"Time for Bee-bim Bop!"

Instructions are in the back for parents and children to create this meal.

Another poetry book by Linda Sue Park is Tap Dancing on the Roof: Sijo (Poems), also published by Clarion.

More Nonfiction Monday messages can be found at the blog, Wrapped in Foil.
-wendieO

Nonfiction Monday -- Nature's Paintbox

Nature's Paintbox, a Seasonal Gallery of Art and Verse by Patricia Thomas. Illustrated by Craig Orback. Minneapolis, MN: Millbrook Press, 2007.

This is one of those WoW books, whose illustrations take the statements in the poem and fly with it.

Nature's Paintbox. I love, love, love books that move around the calendar year. This book of poetry compares seasons to various styles of art. (Remember -- poetry is in the nonfiction collection in the library.)

"Winter is done in pen and ink... black and white."
And it is -- lovely pen and ink drawings with only faint bits of colors inserted by photoshop. (Hey, I'm not that smart. I didn't figure that out myself. It's all explained at the back of the book.)

"And then...
Nature draws
SPRING
in pastel chalk,..."
warm as sunshine colors... blurry, furry, ...fresh green-fuzzy, baby leaf, baby fern colors....
Even the words of this poem change from the crisp, clean winter words to warm, soft, bilowy springtime words.

And then... Nature paints SUMMER
in watercolors ....

But for my favorite season,
"Nature works
AUTUMN in oils..."

Lovely lucious words
lovely lucious artwork.
enjoy.

More Nonfiction Monday posts are located today at the blog, Shelf-Employed.
-wendieO

NaPoMo is here

It's April and that means it's National Poetry Month. NaPoMo for short. A good many bloggers are either featuring poetry books or writing poems -- some of them ONE a DAY. (more power to them)

To see a list of who is participating in Kidlit NaPoMo, click on over to the blog, Finding Wonderland. Enjoy - wendieO