POETRY STICKS TO YOUR CLOTHES and PHOTOS OF POETS!

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Howdy, Campers!

And yes, it's National Poetry Month!

But first...midnight tonight is the deadline to enter our book giveaway for a chance to win 30 PEOPLE WHO CHANGED THE WORLD (Seagrass, 2018).  Check out Carla Killough McClafferty’s March 26 interview with the book’s editor Jean Reynolds, then scroll down from the interview to enter our TeachingAuthors drawing.

Esther started off our celebration of National Poetry Month; now it's my turn.

I'm at the Texas Library Association's Annual Conference, #TLA18, having a fabulous time at the Poetry Rodeo created and sponsored by Pomelo Books.  Truly P-o-e-t H-e-a-v-e-n.

Poets included:  KathiAppelt, Jorge Argueta, Brod Bagert, Carmen T. Bernier-Grand, Jen Bryant, Shirley Smith Duke, Margarita Engle, Nancy Bo Flood, David L. Harrison, Juan Felipe Herrera, EricOde, Guadalupe Garcia McCall, Ann Whitford Paul, Greg Pincus, BobRaczka, Laura Shovan, Elizabeth Steinglass, Holly Thompson, Sylvia Vardell, April Halprin Wayland and Janet Wong. Wow, right?

Here are a few photos from My Most Excellent Adventure:

me, ready for the conference!

Janet Wong

Dr. Sylvia Vardell & Juan Felipe Herrrera

David Harrison

Carmen T. Bernier-Grand  & Ann Whitford Paul

 the best 1/2 of Margarita Engle, Kathi Appelt, Nancy Bo Flood, Bob Raczka

my apologies to the rest of my poet friends whose photos were too blurry to share!

Ah, poetry.

Poetry Month inspired me to begin writing a poem a day in 2010...and I've never looked back. Maybe it will inspire you to write a poem each day, too.

This one is from August, 2013:

A POEM STICKS TO YOUR CLOTHES
by April Halprin Wayland

It's like something that clings to your shirt—

one of those blue sticky flowers,

or a foxtail.

At the end of the day,

you take off your jacket

and there it is,

soft like a real fox's tail,

tenacious,

pointed,

and sometimes

painful.

It must be dealt with.

poem (c) 2018 by April Halprin Wayland, who holds all rights

...here's the backstory, which I wrote to my friend Bruce, who also writes a poem a day--we send them to each other:

Gary came home last night and I was frantic because I like to write my poem before he comes home.  At least THAT.  So he came home and I asked him if he had any ideas for a poem, for something that sticks...and as I said it, I got an image of the things that stick to my clothes on a hike and I was off and running.

Sometimes God is good to me.

Well, most times, actually.

Make sure you check out Jama Rattigan's Kidlitosphere Poetry Events Round Up...

Then scoot on over to Amy at The Poem Farm, this week's Poetry Friday host

posted with love by April Halprin Wayland, who is grateful to our kind and inclusive Poetry Friday tribe

7 Ideas From My Messy Desk

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Howdy, Campers~ Happy Poetry Friday! My poem and the link to PF are below.

We at TeachingAuthors are easing our way back into blogging after a lovely summer s-t-r-e-t-c-h. Ahhhhh.

Our round-robin topic is The View From Our Desks.
Bobbi started us out from her new home, which she and her cat, Comma, are just moving into. She posted a poem aptly titled, The View From the Window by R.S. Thomas; Carmela's view is itinerant, beginning with her Creativity Camp, followed up with conference presentations (Carmela deserves a vacation!); Esther gave us stunning out-the-window views from her Chicago office; JoAnn is spending the summer writing poetry in her outside office, and Carla shares the long view: both the view from her office window...and also what she's thinking as she edits her upcoming book.

I've titled this post, "7 Ideas From My Messy Desk" because I've read that including numbers in a blog title attracts attention. (For you, dear readers, there really are seven ideas at the end.)

You and I know we can prove anything with sources from the internet, (which is why I use Snopes.com to check who actually said a quote, among other things)...and (surprise!) I've found a post which cites several studies indicating that a messy desk actually spurs creativity. Just the kind of study I love!

And...my desk is messy--or at least the side table is. I was going to clean up my office up for you...but why pretend?

I try to keep my desk itself clear, but on my side table you'll see:

• the aftermath of our annual block party (I want to print up new signs for next year before I put them away); 
• books I'm going through for my revised Writing Picture Books for Children class this fall; 
• two books my father loved by Tagore, which he discovered in India during WWII that I've been meaning to read for decades; 
• my handout, "Social Change Through Every Day Actions" from my presentation at the International Literacy Association's conference in Orlando two weeks ago; 
• a pile of 50-year-old letters from my father; 
• books and notes from my trips to New Zealand and Japan this spring;
• a bunch of nearly unreadable ideas jotted down in the middle of the night.

W

Not neat. But an office I would have died for when I was a teenager.
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Here are two poems on today's topic:

MY DESK 1.
by April Halprin Wayland

If you come by
I'll clean it up

but if you don't

I won't.

MY DESK 2.
by April Halprin Wayland

My desk's a sorcerer's printing press,
a paper field
of don't-forgets.

Memos piled in mountain peaks.
Scrawled ideas
in ancient Greek.

Each brilliant message?
Lost in space.
Possibly a sign of grace. 

poems (c) April Halprin Wayland 2017. all rights reserved.

Do you ever write notes to yourself at night...brilliant ideas that are sure to rock the literary world...and when you wake up, they're either utterly incomprehensible, absurd or worse, ho-hum? Here's seven from the last few weeks:

1. Never say no to a rubber band; 
2. "I'm not shouting!" she shouts; 
3. a friend wrote to me: "so glad the conf was good and...that you had fun at the Penguin dinner. (which sounds like the start of a poem)"; 
4. per Nancy Bo Flood: Some languages have no tenses; so they can't talk about the past or future; 
5. Two kids: one named Smoke, one named Mirrors;
6. from A.Word.A.Day: "Natalie came home from school excited and worried, announcing, “Laura was hit by the school bus and had a conclusion!”;
7. Mr. Tongue Goes to the Unemployment Office (I have no idea what I was thinking, but I'm still laughing!)

I'd love to read ideas you've jotted down late at night!

Thank you, Donna, at Mainely Write for hosting Poetry Friday today!

 posted with the help of Monkey (can you find him in the picture of my office, above?) and Eli, who is pictured in his uncluttered corner office: