Poetry Notes

NATIONAL POETRY MONTH

http://www.poets.org/page.php/prmID/41

YOUNG PEOPLE’S POETRY WEEK

http://www.poets.org/viewmedia.php/prmMID/5625

A good basic reference for teachers and poets:

THE TEACHERS & WRITERS: HANDBOOK OF POETIC FORMS, edited by Ron Padgett (Teachers & Writers Collaborative, 2cd ed. 2000).

LITTLE CORNER ACTIVITY:

1.    Look into your own backyard or nearby park. What do you see?

2.    Put pencil to paper and write or draw the things that you saw without stopping.

3.    Try to arrange a few words and feelings into short lines.

4.    Think about fitting the ideas into a fun poetry form—an alphabet poem or a list poem. A haiku is short. A prose poem is longer. A couplet is just two lines that usually rhyme.

Here is my couplet poem:

In my garden, lives a green anole. He turns brown

when I chase him into the primroses that grow all ‘round.

Will I write another two lines? What else do I want to say?

5.    So keep writing—the secret to finding success is to never give up. If you write and read, you will be a better writer and reader.

Poetry books for reading aloud:

YOU COME TOO: FAVORITE POEMS FOR YOUNG READERS by Robert Frost (Henry Holt, 1959).

A FAMILY OF POEMS: MY FAVORITE POETRY FOR CHILDREN, edited by Caroline Kennedy (Hyperion, 2005).

SHARING THE SEASONS: A BOOK OF POEMS, edited by Lee Bennett Hopkins (Margaret K. McElderry Books, 2010).

More books for poetry study:

A POETRY HANDBOOK by Mary Oliver (Harcourt Brace, 1994).

RULES FOR THE DANCE by Mary Oliver (Houghton Mifflin, 1998).

A POET’S GUIDE TO POETRY by Mary Kinzie (University of Chicago Press, 1999).

Classic Books

NATIONAL LIBRARY WEEK on April 10-16

http://www.ala.org/ala/aboutala/offices/pio/mediarelationsa/factsheets/nationallibraryweek.cfm

SUPPORT TEEN LITERATURE DAY on April 14

http://wikis.ala.org/yalsa/index.php/Support_Teen_Literature_Day

Classic Books to Read or Read Aloud:

ALICE’S ADVENTURES IN WONDERLAND by Lewis Carroll 1866).

LITTLE WOMEN by Louisa May Alcott (1868-9).

HUCKLEBERRY FINN by Mark Twain (1884).

THE WONDERFUL WIZARD OF OZ by L. Frank Baum (1900).

THE TALE OF PETER RABBIT, story and pictures by Beatrix Potter(1902).

POEMS OF CHILDHOOD by Eugene Field (1904).

ANNE OF GREEN GABLES by L. M. Montgomery 1908).

NOW WE ARE SIX by A. A. Milne (1927).

LITTLE HOUSE ON THE PRAIRIE by Laura Ingalls Wilder (1935).

THE LION, THE WITCH AND THE WARDROBE by C. S. Lewis (1950).

CHARLOTTE’S WEB by E. B. White (1952).

A WRINKLE IN TIME by Madeleine L’Engle (1962).

A Real Best Friend

A REAL BEST FRIEND, story by Linnea Heaney (Hunger Mountain, 2011).

http://www.hungermtn.org/a-real-best-friend/
                                               

Serendipity

While writing A Real Best Friend, I honored old friends and my first teacher through the story. One of the experiences I like best about writing is how connections come to light. Old circles round to connect to new and suddenly everything fits. Getting everything to fit takes a drop of serendipity. A Real Best Friend has taken a thunderstorm of serendipity.

The final versions of A Real Best Friend were written over a few months while I was solving perplexing life mysteries. Into this period walked Bethany Hegedus, an author and an editor at Hunger Mountain. Bethany led a writing workshop that I attended at the last minute because of a change in travel plans. A “light bulb” moment occurred at the workshop. I realized how my quest for story and the mysterious fit into my life. With a whole new world view, I dove into my writing.

Later that month, I finished rewriting two picture book manuscripts. One was sent off to an editor I had met at a conference. A Real Best Friend was a question mark in my mind as to where to send it. I found that I had missed a contest deadline by one day at Hunger Mountain. The manuscript gathered dust while I considered the best course for it. It had received lovely hand-written rejections in the past year, but needed a special “home.” Could submitting the story as a general submission at Hunger Mountain be the next step? With no response to a half-hearted email sent through a social network, I sent it off to another publisher. It came back in short order. A Real Best Friend was to gather more dust. I was writing my first novel.

Three months later, I attended another workshop and had plans to meet a writer friend at a bookstore afterward. When I arrived at the bookstore, my friend was not there, but Bethany was there. I introduced myself again and we had a good conversation. I asked about submitting a picture book manuscript to Hunger Mountain since there would be no illustrations. The conversation ended with Bethany requesting to look over both of my picture book manuscripts. I visited with my friend, drove one hundred miles home, and emailed the manuscripts that Sunday night. Bethany responded favorably on Monday morning about, of course, A Real Best Friend.

We did go through revision, with Bethany’s gentle, but to-the-point comments. During this time, I learned about addressing editor suggestions and how to rewrite to find the story in the snuggest and most illuminating way. By the time I sent off the final version near the deadline and heard my phone ringing, I knew it was Bethany with the call all writers want to get. I thanked her for being my first teacher in the writing world!

Bethany Hegedus connects with Ms. Clements in being my first teachers, one for my childhood and one for my writing life. And I hope a friend always. Serendipity continues as my real life and my writing life finally unite with A Real Best Friend being my first publication in children’s writing. I am a real writer—and the A Real Best Friend story continues—waiting for more serendipity.