Poetry Friday Spring & Children’s Book Week

Happy Poetry Friday! Wow, what a busy month we had in April with oodles of poetry reaching up out of the ground along with our rugged plants, despite our chilly temps. The forever inching of my perennial spring garden kept me going. So many wonders this last month …

To mention a few I tried keeping up with … A seed was born, captured a name, and finally bloomed as Poet’s Jasmine on the Progressive Poem–Begun by Irene Latham and now resting on her site Live Your Poem,   Irene was blogging daily on ARTSPEAK! sharing artists from the Harlem Renaissance and writing daily poems from their Art. Michelle Heidenrich Barnes on her blog Today’s Little Ditty, filled us with a month of Dinoriffic  poems inspired by DON’T ASK A DINOSAUR a new picture book by authors Matt Forrest Esenwine, and Deborah Bruss, and illustrated by Louie Chin. 
Renée LaTulippe took my breath away with her stellar posts each day featuring a new author or poet throughout the month, along with a writing poem prompt opportunity at her blog No Water River. I also dipped in periodically on Linda Baie’s daily haiku journal on her blog Teacher Dance; Margaret Simon’s daily ekphrastic poem’s, many inspired by her father’s gorgeous art on her blog Reflections on the Teche; Laura Purdie Salas at Writing the World for Kids, as she wrote daily haikus on posit notes; Amy Ludwig VanDerwater at The Poem Farm wrote daily poems in a different poetic form each day on the Orion constellation; Mary Lee Hahn penned 30 Golden Shovel poems on either quotes her 30 students selected, or attributes of her students a.k.a. The Hahn Squad at her blog A Year of Reading; Diane Mayr wrote daily ekphrastic cherita poems at her blog, Random Noodling; Heidi Mordhorst, on her blog My Juicy Little Universe, took her students–penned as the Diamond Miners–on a take off of the Progressive Poem called 2 BY 2 IN 2ND. Each student added 2 words of their own each day, and they each did this twice over the month creating one poem! Jama at her blog Jama’s Alphabet Soup held us all together offering a Roundup for many of the poetry offerings throughout the month! Ah … And there was more, but alas I had to work a lot, sleep a little, write a little, and draw a little. Thank you all for this fantastically rich month!

For Today I’m sharing a golden shovel poem I wrote taken from Mary Oliver’s poem “The Summer Day.”

SPRINGTIME RENEWAL

Breathe in spring with
new senses. Become aware of your
yearnings and desires, especially one
that awakens life’s wild
possibilities within you, and
appreciation for your precious
inner calling in life!

© 2018 Michelle Kogan

Here’s Mary Oliver Reading her poem The Summer Day

.  I heard through the grapevine that it’s Children’s Book Week, April 30th –May 6th. In honor of this event I’m sharing two books. the first is The Death of The Hat, A Brief History of Poetry in 50 Objects, a poetry anthology selected by Paul B. Janeczko and illustrated by Chris Raschka. BTW Mary Oliver’s poem “The Summer Day” is included in this collection. The poems begin in the Middle Ages and travel through to contemporary times focusing mostly on 5o different objects, though nature seems to be included in there too, as so many of us poets seem to be smitten with the natural world! It’s a book I had out of the library so many times, I eventually purchased my own copy.

The second book is That is My Dream by Langston Hughes and Daniel Miyares–who also did the illustrations. It evolved from Langston Hughes’ poem “Dream Variation.” In the story we are taken on a days journey of a family that struggles daily with inequality while another family breaths in hope. I found it particularly poignant for the times we are living in. While the message is strong the book is filled with airy uplifting illustrations leaving us with hope! I picked up this book on my weekly trip to the library, but I have a feeling it will also end up in my own collection.

My friend Brenda Davis Harsham at  Friendly Fairy Tales is hosting Poetry Friday this week, thanks Brenda! I’m sure she’ll have some poetic pleasures and visual treats awaiting us, so drop by her blog!