
The folks in these stores are paperback promoters, kidlit campaigners, poetry proponents, school supporters, chapbook champions and author advocates.
They hand sell, They create community. They read and recommend. They carry crazy amounts of inventory so we can walk in and touch before we buy.
So please don’t browse in their stores and then buy it “cheaper” online. Because it’s not cheaper if you put them out of business. Independents offer us so much more than books.
Okay, now…here my five favorite poetry books. Note that my favorites are always changing…these are TODAY’s favs--ones that influenced my writing and my life.
1. On my thirteenth birthday, my older sister’s friend gave me A Coney Island of the Mind by Lawrence Ferlinghetti. I was stunned and flattered that she thought I was adult enough to understand these beat poems. Some of the poems took my breath away.
Just as Anne Frank’s book showed Mary Ann Rodman that she, too, could become a writer, Lawrence Ferlinghetti’s little book taught me that my hidden journals filled with poetry might one day become something more than journals.
When I was an adult, Ferlinghetti signed my copy. I burst into tears.
2. My mentor Myra Cohn Livingston recommended All The Small Poems and Fourteen More by Valerie Worth, filled with poems about every day objects. Myra constantly said, “Tell me something new—or tell me something old in a new way. Make it fresh.” She said that the poet’s challenge was to get someone to see something as they had never seen it before.
3. Many years ago, Gale, the company that publishes the reference guide Something About The Author, commissioned me to write my autobiography for this series. Up to that point I had only written picture books, so the prospect of writing something long was daunting.
I read lots of autobiographies, trying to figure out how I wanted to tell my life. Finally, I came across Calling The Doves—el canto de las palomas by Juan Felipe Herrera.
4. The enchanting poetry book about the artist’s process, That's How it is When We Draw, written and illustrated by my dear friend, Ruth Lercher Bornstein, has taught me (again) that less is more.
5. I found This is Just to Say—poems of apology and forgiveness, by Joyce Sidman when I was searching for books to add to my list about forgiveness and apologizing, to tie into the publication of my new book, New Year at the Pier—A Rosh Hashanah Story, which deals with these issues.
So for today, those are my Fav Five!
Here’s a poem about the pleasure of books which Lee Bennett Hopkins has accepted for a forthcoming anthology:
BOOKTIME
by April Halprin Wayland
I stand on our couch
closing windows,
pulling down shades,
shutting out shouting streets.
Wheels, squeals and dust driven past
disappear.
Those constant distant drums outside
are gone.
Inside I sit close to Mom.
I lay my head against her.
Listen to her heart
Listen to the words.
Listen to the whisper
of each
turned
page.
© April Halprin Wayland
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1) Choose a poem you like.
2) Read it to yourself.
3) Read it aloud.
4) Write it in your own handwriting.
5) Now—write your own poem that does one of the following:
a) answers this poem
b) imitates this poem in content
c) imitates this poem in structure
d) takes one phrase from the poem and uses it in a completely different way.
6) Write with joy!

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