Welcome to the Poetry Friday roundup and to New Mexico, the land of enchantment. Today we're celebrating the exquisite beauty of Nikki Grimes's latest release, hot off the press, Southwest Sunrise.
From Children's Literature Legacy Award winner Nikki Grimes and
highly-acclaimed illustrator Wendell Minor comes a stunning picture book
about the beauty of the natural world and finding a new place to call
home.
The beauty of the natural world is just waiting to be discovered . . .
When
Jayden touches down in New Mexico, he's uncertain how this place could
ever be home. But if he takes a walk outside, he just might find
something glorious.
Flowers in bright shades . . . Birds and lizards and turtles, all with a story to tell . . . Red rock pillars towering in the distance . . . Turquoise sky as far as the eye can see . . .
Perhaps this place could be home after all.
Gorgeously
poetic and visually stunning, this story from acclaimed creators Nikki
Grimes and Wendell Minor celebrates the beauty of the Southwest as a
young boy sees it for the very first time.
I lived in Socorro, New Mexico from 1998-2002, and like the young protagonist in Southwest Sunrise, I fell unexpectedly in love with the landscape. Surrounded by desert on three sides and big sky overhead—
View from the front porch. This is the rainbow that greeted us when
we arrived home from the hospital with my first born in May of 2000.
An abundance of blooms—and the desert off to our right.
"M" mountain (which I've written about here) was our view from the back patio.
I loved watching roadrunners and families of quail scoot along the back fence.
New Mexico will always be one of my favorite places to feel grounded, inspired and awed. More than any other home, New Mexico soothed my spirit.
Photo credit: Aaron Lemen
Apparently Nikki Grimes was affected similarly by the beauty and intrigue of the Southwest. I'm delighted to welcome her to Today's Little Ditty to talk more about her inspiration for writing Southwest Sunrise.
Knowing me as she does, she even went so far as to include a poetry challenge at the end of her post! Please leave your poem in the comments if you wish. We'd both love to read them.
Story. For me, poetry is always about story. From the earliest years of writing, I challenged myself to paint a picture or tell a story using as few words as possible. I still do.
The inspiration for my narrative poetry comes from everywhere. Sometimes I'm sculpting a memory from the past, at other times, I'm molding a moment from the present. In either case, I keep my eye out for something that will spark my imagination, some thing that will lead to a nugget of story.
In writing Southwest Sunrise, my newest title, I drew from the landscape, flora, and fauna of the Southwest, itself, as did illustrator Wendell Minor. Many an artist and poet have been inspired by the sensual treasures of that environment. (There's a reason the region is known as O'Keeffe Country!)
Adobe houses,
Photo: Nikki Grimes
red-rock mountain ranges,
Photo: Nikki Grimes
and flowers with names like Fire Wheel, Calypso, Wine Cup, and Yellow Bell certainly got me going.
Wait! There's the one called Wine Cup spilling its burgundy beauty for me to drink up.
And aren't those Yellow bells? They wake up the desert with their silent ring.
There's a patch of Calypso Orchids... dancing purple in the wind...
Photo: Nikki Grimes
If the landscape with its sun-bleached bones, and the flora doesn't spark your imagination, the animal life will. There are prehistoric looking lizards, elegant ravens, and those morning noise-makers, the magpies. All of these sparked ideas for poems. Here are two.
I shiver from the silence unbroken by the familiar sound of sirens— but not for long. A few yards down the road, I pick up the mad chatter of winged gossips passing secrets from one unfamiliar tree to another. The guidebook calls them Pinion trees.
Someone should tell these flying chatterboxes Magpies are beautiful when their beaks are still, when they sail on air and write across the sky with the long black tips of their tails.
TODAY'S CHALLENGE: Try to find a story in one of the images I brought back from the Southwest, or one of Wendell's paintings, then write a poem about it. Any form of poem will do, but you get bonus points if you can paint a picture or tell a story in a haiku or tanka poem. Whatever form you choose, have fun!
For more about Southwest Sunrise, visit NikkiGrimes.com to read starred reviews from Kirkus and School Library Journal. I also recommend visiting Poetry for Children and A Fuse 8 Production for two other guest blog posts.
For more about Nikki Grimes at Today's Little Ditty, you can read our Spotlight ON interview (featuring Poems in the Attic), our Classroom Connections Q&A (featuring Bronx Masquerade and Between the Lines), and my Book Love review (featuring Words with Wings).
Not surprisingly, Margaret Simon's May challenge to "write a mindful poem about the present moment" has really taken off, both on the padlet and on Twitter using the hashtag #PoemsofPresence. Click HERE
for more details about the challenge and to read Margaret's Reader
Spotlight interview. Featured daily ditties this week included poems
by Heidi Mordhorst, Linda Baie, and Rebekah Hoeft, plus an applicable Two Line Tuesday with a quote by Elizabeth Appell.
Feel free to grab and use this logo I designed for blog posts, etc.
Earlier this week, for Two Line Tuesday, I published the first part of a quote by George Bernard Shaw:
I'm not a teacher:
only a fellow traveler of whom you asked the way.
The quote continues:
I pointed ahead—ahead of myself as well as you.
I think it's fair to say that most teachers pride themselves on also being lifelong learners. Same goes for poets, actually. So that's why I'm delighted to introduce another new series on Today's Little Ditty called "Classroom Connections." It provides me with the opportunity to share some of my own experiences with poetry in the classroom, as well as learn from "fellow travelers" who are also poetry ambassadors.
Last fall, I had the privilege of working with students from Sequel Residential—a juvenile residential facility for boys, 11-19 years old, who have been committed to the Florida Department of Juvenile Justice as first-time offenders.
I was invited by Gabrielle Byam of We The People Theater Arts Initiative to conduct a series of three poetry workshops on the theme of identity. Specifically, she asked me to help the students explore identity from the viewpoint of "man vs. man"—how our sense of identity is impacted by the way others see us. In future workshops, the students explored identity through self-portraits ("man vs. self") and monologues ("man vs. society").
This video describes the program I was a part of and highlights some of the results.
For our first session, I shared two mentor poems from the Coretta Scott King Award-winning Bronx Masquerade by Nikki Grimes. I chose two poems that I thought might speak directly to these boys' experience—"Self-Portrait: a Poem for My Father" and this one:
Black Box BY DEVON HOPE
In case I forgot to tell you, I'm allergic to boxes: Black boxes, shoe boxes New boxes, You boxes— Even cereal boxes Boasting champions. (It's all a lie. I've peeked inside And what I found Were flakes.) Make no mistake, I make no exceptions For Cracker Jack or Christmas glitter. Haven't you noticed? I'm made of skeleton, Muscle and skin. My body is the only box I belong in. But you like your boxes So keep them. Mark them geek, wimp, bully. Mark them china doll, brainiac, Or plain dumb jock. Choose whatever Box you like, Mike. Just don't put me In one, son. Believe me, I won't fit.
The mentor poems did have an impact... a profound one. What I found most remarkable was the lack of inhibition from these teen writers—just fast and furious scribbling onto the page.
Here is one of the poems that resulted from these workshops. This student (who goes by the pen name Lil Fijjii) was one of several who chose to write about his relationship with his father.
blurred lines by Lil Fijjii if you dis me best believe that there’s no coming back if I'm lying then you’re a slave because your skin’s black they call me kodak young santana even call me black i'm tired of names once you say it you can’t take it back i been through storms rains hell and back you say you love me i'm sorry i can't believe that you dissing blood over water i can’t believe that but i sent you letters and pictures—did you receive that? see 8 years i was strong but i lost strength and now you home and you never even knew my friends. it's like ‘boom’ everybody looking so surprised i was raised wrong sorry if you think i'm telling lies. wise man full of knowledge that's a huge mind i know you know you love me i can feel it from shoes to spine if I could guess it’s a world full of blurred lines listen to my story. if you can't, just listen to my rhymes.
I often tell middle and high school students who claim they "don't like" or "don't get" poetry that it probably just means they haven't been exposed to the right poems yet. Poetry is like music. Some might identify with hip hop or rap, while others, classical, jazz, rock, or Broadway show tunes. Most students have only seen the tiniest fraction of what's out there waiting for them in the wide world of poetry. I also let them in on the secret that poets don't like their work force-fed, analyzed, and regurgitated. Poets like when a poem is experienced—when the reader is allowed to make their own connections and draw their own conclusions. And that's when I introduce them to poets like Nikki Grimes who knock their socks off.
Imagine my surprise and delight when I discovered that a companion book to Bronx Masquerade was coming out in 2018.
Between the Lines hit the shelves last month. It boasts a repeat performance of the highly successful format that's helped to make Bronx Masquerade beloved to teachers and students for 16 years and counting. A young adult novel in prose and poetry, the story focuses on a diverse cast of true-to-life students who participate in "Open Mike Fridays" in Mr. Ward's English class. Together they not only discover a newfound love for poetry, but also the benefits of self-awareness, empathy, and community. Read the Shelf Awareness starred review HERE.
Tyrone Bittings, one of the central characters from Bronx Masquerade, makes an appearance in Between the Lines to get the open mike sessions rolling.
The poem also does a great job describing my experience working with the students from Sequel Residential—
split skin...
blood on the page...
cracking the code...
fearless...
revealing heart, truth... and, I might add, hope.
I was honored to bear witness. (Read my own poem about the experience HERE.)
After my third and final workshop, one of the
boys was visibly upset. He told me that following our previous session, he returned to his room and wrote three or four more poems. It was his
"poetry therapy," as he called it. Unfortunately he couldn't find them to share with me. Nearly broke my heart.
Truth be told, all of the boys were appreciative of the time we spent together, though I'm not sure if it was the poetry
lessons they were drawn to or simply the gift of unconditional attention and encouragement. Frankly, I'm satisfied either way. It wasn't important for me to know their histories or the events that landed them at Sequel. All that mattered was that we
shared an experience that was eye-opening, cleansing, uplifting, and
transformative... for them and for me.
If you're a teacher of middle or high school, I hope you'll bring Bronx Masquerade and Between the Lines into your classroom. It's not difficult to do with this combined discussion and activity guide offered by Penguin Young Readers School and Library Marketing Team. You'll find other useful educator guides and resources available at Nikki Grimes' website.
Since she was last here, Nikki has added to her numerous accolades. In 2017, she was presented with the Laura Ingalls Wilder Award for a substantial and lasting contribution to children's literature. Is it any wonder I can't get enough of that Grimes magic?
For today's post, I asked if she would answer a couple questions related to poetry in the classroom and provide this month's DMC challenge. Her 2015 challenge (to write a free verse poem using wordplay) was wildly popular both in classrooms and within the TLD community, so I can't wait to find out what she has in store for us this time!
Thanks so much for being with us today, Nikki.
Why is bringing poetry into middle and high school classrooms important and how should it be done?
Poetry should be introduced long before middle and high school, but poetry is particularly pertinent then, as young people are beginning to explore their own identities, and looking for ways to express themselves. Many are already drawn to poetry through the lyrics of the music they listen to, while others are secretly jotting down poems their own, and hiding them away in their dresser drawers. They are both mentally and emotionally ready to dig deep, and poetry can help them do that.
As for the "how to" of your question, today's marketplace is rich in poetry, both in collections, and novels-in-verse. There's lots to choose from. Young readers are particularly captured by novels-in-verse because the genre is less intimidating then the traditional prose novel. Something about all that white space. I suggest a combination of reading to, having students read on their own, and incorporating open mic or slam poetry sessions to give students an opportunity to share their work aloud, with their peers.
Can you recount a specific instance of when your poetry impacted a student or group of students in a personal way?
I get many letters from students and teachers about my work, none more so than about Bronx Masquerade. One of my favorite communications from a student said that this poetry taught him we are more alike than we are different, and I love that. His thinking about those around him who were "other" was transformed. I can't imagine anything better than that.
What have you chosen as this month's ditty challenge?
Take a line from one of the poems included in this post, and turn that line into a golden shovel poem. That is done by lining up the words of the original line in the right column, one word at a time, and create a new line ending in each word. If the borrowed line, called a striking line, is five words long, you will end up with a five line poem. If it is 7 words long, you would end up with a seven line poem, and so on. Have fun!
Golden shovel poems, it is!
Easier said than done, mind you. They can be tricky! I wrote a golden shovel poem in 2014 (at the end of this post), but have only attempted one or two since then.
Nikki, however, has perfected the art.
If you haven't yet read her book One Last Word: Wisdom from the Harlem Renaissance (Bloomsbury, 2017), I encourage you to pick up a copy of this award-winning poetry collection. In it, her original golden shovel poems were inspired by, and are paired with, works by poets of the Harlem Renaissance. Within the past month alone, One Last Word has been honored with the Claudia Lewis Award, the Arnold Adoff Poetry Award for Middle Grade Readers and the Lee Bennett Hopkins Poetry Award!
For even more inspiration for this challenge, poet Irene Latham has rounded up links to golden shovel poems that have appeared on blogs within the Poetry Friday community since One Last Word's release.
So dig deep, my friends. I know you have a golden shovel in you. Thanks to Penguin Young Readers, we will be giving away a copy of BETWEEN THE LINES to one lucky DMC participant at the end of the month. (Winner to be selected randomly, US addresses only.) Finally, won't you please help me thank Nikki Grimes for being with us today? Not to mention all that she is and does as a poet and poetry ambassador!
HOW TO PARTICIPATE:
Post your golden shovel poem on our March 2018 padlet. Stop by any time during the month to add your work or to check out what others are contributing.
By posting on the padlet, you are granting me permission to share your poem on Today's Little Ditty.
Some poems will be featured as daily ditties, though authors may not be
given advanced notice. Subscribe to the blog if you'd like to keep
tabs. You can do that in the sidebar to the right where it says "Follow
TLD by Email." As always, all of the poems will be included in a wrap-up
celebration on the last Friday of the month—March 30th for our
current challenge.
TEACHERS, it's great when students get involved! Ditty of the
Month Club challenges are wonderful opportunities to learn about working
poets and authors while having fun with poetry prompts. Thank you for
spreading the word! For children under 13, please read my COPPA
compliance statement in the sidebar to the right.
FIRST-TIMERS (those who have never contributed to a ditty
challenge before), in addition to posting your work on the padlet,
please send your name and email address to TodaysLittleDitty (at) gmail
(dot) com. That way I'll be able to contact you for possible inclusion
in future Best of Today's Little Ditty anthologies.
BLOGGERS, thank you for publishing your poems on your own blogs– I
love that! Please let me know about it, so I can share your post! Also remember to include your poem (or a direct link
to your post) on the padlet in order to be included in the wrap-up
celebration and end-of-month giveaway.
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
Last month's challenge to write an epitaph poem was so much fun! (What a great way to start off 2018!) Thanks once again to everyone who contributed poems or cheered us on by leaving comments. We even broke a record for most poems posted on the padlet—60 (!) in total. Considering the short month, that's incredible! I added five or six more since last Friday, so I hope you'll stop by and take another look.
Random.org has determined that the copy of Last Laughs: Prehistoric Epitaphs by J. Patrick Lewis and Jane Yolen, illustrated by Jeffrey Stewart Timmins, will go to . . .
LANA WAYNE KOEHLER
Congratulations, Lana!
Renée LaTulippe is hosting this week's Poetry Friday roundup at No Water River, and I am thrilled to be joining the poetry video library that's housed there. Talk about a terrific resource for teachers! Thanks so much, Renée, for featuring me and The Best of Today's Little Ditty.
Nikki Grimes does not consider herself a bona
fide storyteller, but, as she told an audience at the Library of
Congress, she is happy to own the title Poet. Born and raised in New
York City, Nikki began composing verse at the age of six and has been
writing ever since that time. In 2006, she received the NCTE Award for Excellence in Poetry for Children.
A bestselling author and a prolific artist, Nikki has written many award-winning books for children and
young adults including the Coretta Scott King
Award winner Bronx Masquerade; the Coretta Scott King Author Honor books Jazmin's Notebook, Talkin' About Bessie, Dark Sons, The Road to Paris, and Words with Wings; Horn Book Fanfare for Talkin' About Bessie; ALA Notable books What is Goodbye? and Words with Wings; the popular Dyamonde Daniel chapter book series, and numerous picture books and novels including The New York Times bestseller Barack Obama: Son of Promise, Child of Hope and, most recently, Chasing Freedom and Poems in the Attic. You will find teacher guides for many of these books on her website, as well as a ton of other useful information.
I should probably tell you...
When it comes to Nikki Grimes, I'm prone to gush.
Last year, I was lucky enough to meet Nikki in person. You can read about it HERE. (I'll wait while you take a quick look.)
Seriously. What's not to gush about?
Nikki is one of those versatile authors that writes with warmth and honesty for children across the spectrum. Yet each child who picks up one of her books secretly knows she's writing just for them. Her work sings– not only with the music of language, but with the promise of hope.
Today we'll be focusing on her newest picture book, Poems in the Attic, which releases later this month.
It's the story of a young girl who discovers a box of poems in her grandma's attic. The poems act as a journal of sorts, written by her mother when she was growing up. Reading the poems introduces the girl to the many interesting places her mother lived because of her father's military career. It also helps her feel close to her mother because she's seeing the world through her eyes. Inspired by her mother's poetic impressions, the young girl decides to write her own reflective poetry in response.
Poems in the Attic alternates between two poetic forms: tanka for the mother's poems and free verse for the daughter's. The poems are paired on each two-page spread and complemented beautifully by Elizabeth Zunon's vibrant paint and collage illustrations. (You can read Nikki's interview with Elizabeth Zunon HERE.) Overall, the effect is warm and inviting, and, in the words of the School Library Journal:
Sweet and accessible but never simplistic, this collection captures the experience of a military childhood with graceful sophistication.
At the back of the book, you'll find an author's note, a list of the eleven U.S. Air Force bases where the poems are set, a description of the free verse and tanka forms, and an invitation to the reader to write their own:
The word is an
amazing thing.
Set it loose
upon a page,
let it blossom,
hear it sing!
My invitation to you is to sit back and enjoy today's interview. There will be an opportunity to write a poem later. You can count on it.
Please help me welcome Nikki Grimes to Today's Little Ditty!
Nikki's five favorites:
Favorite color:purple Favorite music:jazz and classical Favorite sound:violin
Favorite smell:roses
Favorite vacation spot:Santa Fe, NM
Please describe your “writing zone” for us – when, where, how do you prefer to write?
The great thing about being an author is that I get to go to work in my pajamas! I roll out of bed, walk a few steps to a cushy leather armchair, grab a yellow lined pad from the leather ottoman that serves as my desk, and begin my writing day. (That's where I'm writing this!) As for my reference to rolling out of bed, my most critical writing time is first thing in the morning. That's when I get my best work done.
"Painting a rose from my garden taught me to see in a new way" – Nikki Grimes
Not only are you an artist of the written word, but you have many other creative outlets as well—painting, music, gardening, jewelry making, paper craft, textiles… I could go on. Do you notice that your artistic endeavors ever cross-pollinate? For example, does what you’re painting help you with your writing, or vice versa?
Visual art teaches you to see in a new way. The mind has a habit of supplying images pulled from its vast catalog of memory. We look at a cup, and we don't necessarily see the cup we're holding, but we see the generic image or idea of a cup from memory. We don't realize we're doing this until someone asks us to draw a particular cup that's right in front of us, and what we end up drawing, instead, is our idea of a cup. When we're made to study the drawing and the actual cup side by side, we notice how far off we were. Once we learn this, we're able to draw the cup we actually see, rather than the idea of the cup in our mind. That gift of truly seeing gives a writer enormous clarity. So, yes: my forays into art, especially visual art, have a definite impact on my writing. When you see something as it really is, you're better able to write about it with a true and clear perspective.
For Poems in the Attic, you chose to use a story-within-a-story format. What unique challenges presented themselves by using that approach?
I didn't find it so much a challenge as an aid. I had two stories I wanted to tell: the story of a girl's relationship with her mother, and the story of a girl finding creative ways to cope with the challenges of growing up as a military brat, constantly uprooted throughout her childhood. The story-within-a-story format allowed me to do both.
Air Force Brat Thanks to Captain Grandpa My mama had a childhood on wings, flitting from place to place.
Cedar Box
I choose you to keep all my rememberings safe, poems about home, no matter where that might be. Each place is special to me.
Would you share one of your favorite spreads from Poems in the Attic?
The art for this book is perfect. It's made of many different bits and pieces, just like the story of our lives.
"Chopsticks" is one of my favorite spreads. In both poetry and art, it is an image of an African American out in the wider world, an image we don't often see in books, or art, or any other medium, for that matter. And yet, in truth, we are citizens of the world, and a good number of us have enjoyed rich experiences living overseas.
Chopsticks At dinner I ask Grandma for the chopsticks Mama taught me to use. Once, I asked Mama where she learned, and she just smiled.
Cherry Blossoms JAPAN
Spring! Kimono time. I joined the parade of girls strolling avenues dusted with cherry blossoms. I caught a few, like snowflakes.
"As a foster child, I moved from
home to home, just like the miliary brat
in my story." – Nikki Grimes
What is a treasure that you would like to discover in an attic one day?
Stories of my family. I know so little about them, and now they're gone. Growing up in and out of foster care, I missed a lot of time with my family.
I’ve read that
reading and writing became your survival tools to cope with a difficult
childhood. What does your gift of creative writing and your ability to
reach children of all ages mean to you now?
It
means that none of my experiences as a child and a young adult were
wasted. It means, because of God's grace, I've learned to make beauty
from ashes. It means, perhaps, I've given my readers a road map to do
the same in their own lives, no matter how difficult their experiences
may be.
Can you give us a hint about what’s coming up next for you?
What's next? A book inspired by poets of the Harlem Renaissance. It will be for middle grade readers. I can't say more than that!
If you had all the world’s children in one room, what would you tell them?
Nurture your daydreams. They will lead you to magical, meaningful places in your life. If it weren't for my daydreams about being an author, I don't know where I'd be.
Finally, please tell us what you have chosen as this month’s ditty challenge.
When I first began to write poetry at age six, it was the result of wordplay. So try this wordplay exercise and create your own free verse poem. When I talk about wordplay, I'm talking about studying a word from top to bottom, and inside out, considering every aspect of the word: What it looks like, sounds like, feels like. What it does, how it's used, etc. The idea is to bring all of your senses into the act. The poem you create may end up being complex and sophisticated, or very simple. But whether you're writing a nursery rhyme, or a complex prose poem for adults, wordplay is a valuable skill in the process of creating dynamic, original, poetry, or lyrical prose. The following are a few simple examples to show you what I mean.
Ball is a round, rubber word. It fits inside my palm. I play with it outside, bounce it on the sidewalk. when it hits the ground, it makes a smacking sound. My cupped hand waits for it to come back home. Pumpkin is an orange word. I set its roundness out where others can enjoy it. I help Mama carve a crooked smile on its face. Come Thanksgiving, we bake others like it for dessert. But first we have to wait for them to arrive. Pen is a slim word, a tube of possibility. Poems and essays hide inside or ride the river of her ink. Pen jots down things that make you think. Pen is round. Pen speaks, yet makes no sound.
Okay. I'm sure you get the hang of it. Now, here is a list of ten words for you to choose from:
Some are loaded with more meaning than others, but I want you to approach each in the same way. Just choose one that particularly appeals to you.
1. Hold each word in your mind and close your eyes. Picture the item each word represents. Sift the word through your senses. Consider all aspects of it: how it looks, sounds, feels, tastes. What it does, what you can do with it, how it affects you. What it's made of, where it's found. Does it have an age, a color, a smell? Turn it over in your mind.
2. Write a paragraph about the word you've chosen.
3. Turn this paragraph into a poem. Use as many, or as few poetic elements as you like: metaphor, simile, repetition, alliteration, rhyme, etc. And as you write, pretend that the reader has never seen that item before. He is relying on you to paint a picture of it for him. Just have fun with it. That's what wordplay is all about.
I don't know about the rest of you, but I am very excited about this challenge! Even though we're choosing our subject matter from the same list, I can't wait to see how our unique experiences of these words come into play.
Now go set those words loose!
HOW TO PARTICIPATE:
Throughout the month, send your free verse poems to TodaysLittleDitty
(at) gmail (dot) com or use the contact form in the sidebar to the
right. For children under 13 who would like to participate, please read
my COPPA compliance statement located below the contact form.
BLOGGER FRIENDS: Thank you for publishing your poems on your own blogs– I love
that! Please also remember to send me a copy of your poem or a direct
link to your post. That way I know I have your permission to post your poem on Today's Little Ditty.
Some poems may be published on the blog as daily ditties, but all of
them will appear in a wrap-up celebration on May 29th, 2015.
Thank you for being here today, Nikki, and for generously offering a personalized copy of Poems in the Attic to one lucky participant! A random drawing will be held at the end of the month.
Thanks also to everyone who participated in last month's clerihew challenge,
brought to us by Kwame Alexander. With six new poems since last Friday,
you might want to give the wrap-up post another look. As usual, you did
an amazing job writing and supporting one another! It's a joy
celebrating poetry with you, not only during National Poetry Month, but
every month.
Random.org has determined that the winner of a signed copy of THE CROSSOVER by Kwame Alexander is:
Last week, my Five for Friday party was the best yet. With twenty Valentine kisses collected on one page, it was heartwarming to see the delicious variety of lip-smacking ditties. If you participated or visited, thank you! And if you haven't read all twenty, I invite you to go bask in all the smoochy goodness.
Today I am sharing the kiss of a special book-- Nikki Grimes' Words with Wings.
Words with Wings Wordsong, September 1, 2013
ISBN: 978-1590789858
Words with Wings is the story of Gabby, a girl who is prone to daydreaming, and her teacher, Mr. Spicer, who helps her to channel her imagination's wanderings. I love how this book celebrates creativity, friendship, and a child's indomitable spirit, and also showcases the talents of an exceptional teacher. Narrated in verse that is beautiful, accessible, and above all, honest, these are adjectives that can also be used to describe the author of this well-crafted story.
I recently had the pleasure of meeting Nikki Grimes in person. The event, which included a reading and an opportunity for questions, was sponsored by our wonderful local Friends of the Library volunteer organization. (Let's hear it for community book lovers!)
Of course it was wonderful to hear Nikki read her own words, but what I enjoyed even more was the discussion that followed-- getting to know this award-winning poet on a more personal level, discovering the connections between Nikki's own childhood and that of main character Gabby, hearing Nikki's thoughts on the best way to teach poetry (NOTE TO TEACHERS: "Do not present poetry as castor oil!"), and the whole Q&A smorgasbord of poetry, process, and publishing.
I appreciated Nikki's honest and approachable rapport with the adults in the audience, but what struck me most was the way she responded to children's questions. Maybe I'm imagining it, but I'd swear I saw a twinkle appear in her eye. This was also my 11-year-old daughter's impression when Nikki Grimes visited her school the following day. She was captivated by Nikki's presence, by the way she drew her into the story with her compelling reading-- using not only the words, but the pauses in between, and by the way Nikki made her feel "special" and "important" just because they were together at that moment in time.
Children are Nikki Grimes' number one priority. Her
books are the angels that sit on kids' shoulders, telling them, no, you are not alone.
Here is one of my favorite pieces from Words with Wings, used with the author's permission:
Cheri
The kids at my last school
called me weird,
and teased me,
or left me to myself.
Except for Cheri,
who picked me
to sit next to
in kindergarten
just because she saw me
staring out the window
and was dying to know
what made me smile
when all she saw
were raindrops.
I was shy about
telling her at first,
but Cheri didn't mind
my daydreaming.
She was color-blind, but said
whenever I described
my daydreams,
it was like
helping her see
the rainbow.
-Nikki Grimes, all rights reserved.
Thank you, Nikki, for helping others to see the rainbow as well.
It's always beautiful weather for poetry! Please pay a visit to Karen Edmisten who is hosting today's Poetry Friday roundup.
.JPG)
