Two Sure 😊-Producing Picks for World Read Aloud Day!

Start warming up your vocal chords! World Read Aloud Day is just around the corner!

I ’fessed up to my Read Aloud Fandom – first as a student, next as a teacher and then as a TeachingAuthor - in my 2016 post.
Many of the resources I shared then, representative of my Professional World, are still worth checking out for this year’s celebration.

Today, however, I’m approaching Read Aloud from my Personal World View - specifically my role as my one-and-only 8-year-old grandson’s Vovo. “Vovo,” by the way, is an affectionate variation of the Brazilian Portuguese word for “grandmother” – “avó.”
I’ve been reading aloud to my bi-lingual grandson since his baby days, when I first held his tiny hand and beat out the rhythms of Karma Wilson’s incurably-rhythmic BABY CAKES (Little Simon).
And I do so every chance I get – in person, via SKYPE, phone, Facetime or MarcoPolo.
Poetry is a favorite, with rhyme even more so once Gabe was able to complete the patterns.
His Most Favorite of all, though? Silly rhymes. 😊

Our Book du Jour all 7 days of my last visit was THE NEW KID ON THE BLOCK (Greenwillow), a book I'd read to his Papi at age 9 when it was first published in 1984.
How can either the Reader or the Listener NOT smile when lost in an inventive Jack Prelutsky poem?!
And, oh, to have caught my carioca on tape when I first read aloud “Homework! Oh, Homework! I hate you! You stink!” 
Gabe’s brown eyes widened, his mouth formed a perfect O which he quickly covered in embarrassment. Next he fingered the words to make sure I’d read them right.
“Flabbergasted” doesn’t adequately describe his wonder at seeing those words that captured his mindset there in a book I'd bought at a store.

We read that Homework poem again and again, then again and again, until he’d committed the words to memory.
His Plan was to bring the book to school the Monday after vacation and recite that poem aloud. He practiced daily, imagining his teacher’s face, his friends’ faces. I recently learned, though, not to my surprise, that my ever-cautious grandson is saving his poetic recital for the last week of school. 😊

Prelutsky’s clever, silly yet sophisticated word choice, names and phrasing are downright delicious.
Clara Cleech. Griselda Gratz.   Seymour Snorkke.
His subject matter is 100% child-friendly.
Monsters. Rats. Scaredy cats.  Angry Dads.  Friends who sock. Rotten moods. Dracula.
And what a fun way for my bi-lingual grandson to increase his English vocabulary!
“What’s that word mean, Vovo?” he’d ask at least once for each spread. I, of course, lovingly obliged.
Unaccountably.  Discreetly.  Uncanny. Squandered. Dispatch.  Panache.  Semicolon.

Listen yourself to this Poetry Foundation podcast in which the first Children’s Poet Laureate’s poems are read aloud.
I dare you not to smile. 😊


I’m certain my upcoming visit will once again produce contagious giggling as Gabe and I read aloud many of the poems in THE NEW KID ON THE BLOCK as well as the new book of silly rhymes I’ve got tucked away in my suit case – Chris Harris’ I’M JUST NO GOOD AT RHYMING AND OTHER NONSENSE FOR MISCHIEVOUS KIDS AND IMMATURE GROWN-UPS (Little, Brown, 2016).  The second poem – “I’m Just No Good at Rhyming” will especially appeal to my second-grade grandson’s silly bone.

“I’m just no good at rhyming.
It makes me feel so bad.
I’m just no good at rhyming.
And that’s why I’m so blue.

So,
read aloud a silly poem!  Share a smile.  Catch a giggle.  Celebrate World Read Aloud Day this Thursday, February 1!

Esther Hershenhorn
p.s.
Check out Betsy Bird’s List of 2017’s Best Poetry Books for Kids for more child-friendly titles.

A Golden Shovel Poem in Honor of Gwendolyn Brooks

On Monday, Esther suggested writing a Golden Shovel poem in honor of poet Gwendolyn Brooks as a way to celebrate National Poetry Month. I have long admired Brooks's poem "We Real Cool." However, even though Brooks and I both grew up in Chicago, I didn't know much about her before reading Esther's post and this bio about her on Chicago's Gwendolyn Brooks College Preparatory Academy website. According to the Prep Academy bio, Brooks wrote more than 75 poems by the time she was sixteen. While I also wrote lots of poetry in my tween and teen years, I don't believe I came close to that number.

I've been so wrapped in freelance writing and novel editing that I rarely write poetry these days. So I decided to take up Esther's challenge and try my hand at a Golden Shovel poem. I haven't had time to polish it, so please don't judge the poem below too harshly. 😊

My Golden Shovel was inspired by Brooks's poem "Mayor Harold Washington," which begins:    

Mayor. Worldman. Historyman.
Beyond steps that occur and close,
your steps are echo-makers.

I had moved to the suburbs by the time Washington was elected mayor of the city, but his influence was felt throughout the metropolitan area. So I was especially struck by the line:

 your steps are echo-makers

I've used these words as the end words for my poem:

            Baby Steps
                 --after "Mayor Harold Washington" 

            Inspired by your life, your words, your
            Poetry, I take timid baby steps,
            searching for my own words, ones that are
            powerful enough to also be Echo-makers.

                        © Carmela Martino, All rights reserved.

image courtesy of Pixabay

If you missed the explanation of the Golden Shovel form, see Esther's post for details. If it inspires you to write your own Golden Shovel, I hope you'll share it with us in the comments.

By the way, in her post, Esther mentioned that there will be a celebration of The Golden Shovel Anthology: New Poems Honoring Gwendolyn Brooks (University of Arkansas Press) at Chicago's Poetry Foundation this Wednesday, April 12, 2017. You can find details on the Poetry Foundation site.

For more Poetry Month fun, check out this week's Poetry Friday roundup hosted by Irene Latham at Live Your Poem.

Remember to Write with JOY!
Carmela

Happy Blogi-VERSE-ary!!!!!

Hip (to the 5^th power) Hooray!
It’s our Blogiversary!!!!!
Our TeachingAuthors group blog has been teaching authors since April of 2009!

To celebrate the occasion, we’re celebrating you!  Enter our Raffle drawing to win one of FIVE Blogiversary Book Bundles – each bundle a set of five books hand-selected by a TeachingAuthor that includes at least one autographed TeachingAuthor book.  Check the end of this post for details.

But wait!

It’s also our Blogi-VERSE-ary, so smartly re-named by our reader Mary Lee of A Year of Reading, because we six TeachingAuthors chose to celebrate the occasion by reciting our favorite poem in honor of Poetry Month.

I suggested the idea once I read about the Poetry Foundation’s current Favorite Poem Project: Chicago which grew out of former Poet Laureate Robert Pinsky’s national Favorite Poem Project – Americans Saying Poems They Love which celebrates poetry as a vocal art. 

Poetry Foundation President Robert Polito shared in his project description that “a favorite poem can be a talisman or mantra, a clue, landmark or guiding star and dwells deep down in our psyches.”

Thank you for your interest in the Favorite Poem Project: Chicago. Check this page regularly to view the six videos in the series which will be release twice each week starting on Monday, April 14.Hana Bajramovic
"The Order of Key West" by Wallace StevensNaomi Beckwith
"The Children of the Poor" by Gwendolyn BrooksMayor Rahm Emanuel
"Chicago" by Carl SandburgThank you for your interest in the Favorite Poem Project: Chicago. Check this page regularly to view the six videos in the series which will be release twice each week starting on Monday, April 14.Hana Bajramovic
"The Order of Key West" by Wallace StevensNaomi Beckwith
"The Children of the Poor" by Gwendolyn BrooksMayor Rahm Emanuel
"Chicago" by Carl FYI: the Poetry Foundation, located in beautiful downtown Chicago, is an amazing resource – for writers and readers, for teachers, of course, but really-and-truly, for anyone human.

To plan a (highly-recommended) visit, click here.

To explore the children’s poetry resources, click here. 

Students can find recitation tips and look for poems here.

Teachers can learn all about Poetry Out Loud in the classroom by clicking here.
So you’re never without a poem nearby, click here to download the Poetry App.

The poem I chose to recite via SoundCloud (and – fingers-crossed – successfully uploaded to today’s post so you can hear it) is Robert Louis Stevenson’s MY SHADOW.

The poem dwells deep, deep, deep in my psyche, placed there by my mean-spirited third grade teacher Miss Atmore at Philadelphia’s Overbrook Elementary.  (Think every gruesome teacher Raoul Dahl created, to the max (!), down to the spit that sprayed the air when she’d lean in close to admonish a mistake.)

In between Halloween and Thanksgiving of that third grade year, each of us was to choose, memorize and then recite before the class eight lines of a poem.  I instantly knew the poem I’d choose.  I treasured my copy of A CHILD’S GARDEN OFVERSES.  How could I not choose my favorite poem, My Shadow? I loved the poem’s sing-song rhythms; I loved its playfulness. I even recall jumping rope while I recited the poem, practicing, practicing, practicing.  I so wanted to get it right.  Standing before my classmates in the front of my classroom, beside Miss Atmore seated dispassionately at her desk, demanded Courage and Moxie, both of which I lacked.

"My poem is My Shadow,” I bravely began, and Miss Atmore stopped me, cold, mid-sentence.

“Po-em is a two-syllable word, child!” she shouted. “How many times must I tell you all that?!  Now raise your head, start again and this time, for goodness sake, speak the words correctly!”

The rhythm of the lines ran away (probably scared); I mispronounced "India" as "Indian." All I could do was stare at the two shiny pennies that adorned my new brown loafers. 
But that failed recitation serves as a landmark. Thanks to Miss Atmore, I knew then and there that when – I – grew up to be a teacher someday, everything that Miss Atmore was, I would spend my lifetime making sure I wasn't.                                (IIllustration by Ted Rand)                                                                                                                                                                                                       

Ironically, when I was first trying my hand at writing for children, I wrote a poem entitled “P-O-E-M is a Two-syllable Word.” In time the title became a line in the first poem I ever sold, to Ebony Jr. magazine.  I’ve searched high-and-low for my copy so I might share the poem, but alas, no luck.  Even today, I can’t speak the word “poem” without enunciating clearly its two two-letter syllables.

           My Shadow by Robert Louis Stevenson

I have a little shadow that goes in and out with me,

And what can be the use of him is more than I can see.

He is very, very like me from the heels up to the head.
And I see him jump before me, when I jump into my bed.

The funniest thing about him is the way he likes to grow –

Not at all like proper children, which is always very slow;
For he sometimes shoots up taller like an india-rubber ball,
And he sometimes goes so little that there’s none of him at all.

He hasn’t got a notion of how children ought to play,

And can only make a fool of me in every sort of way.
He stays so close behind me, he’s a coward you can see;
I’d think shame to stick to nursie as that shadow sticks to me!

One morning, very early, before the sun was up,

I rose and found the shining dew on every buttercup;
But my lazy little shadow, like an arrant sleepy-head,
Had stayed at home behind me and was fast asleep in bed.

[Note: If you're receiving this post via email, here's the link to the Sound Cloud reading of Robert Louis Stevenson's My Shadow by Esther Hershenhorn ]


             * * * * * * * *
I offer at least five bundles of thanks to you, our readers, for embracing our blog, and to my fellow TeachingAuthors too – Jill Esbaum, JoAnn Early Macken, Carmela Martino, Laura Purdie Salas, April Halprin Wayland and currently in absentia but always in my heart, Mary Ann Rodman and Jeanne Marie Grunwell Ford, for embracing me.

I did indeed find that long-ago missing Moxie and each of you makes sure I maximize it bi-monthly.

Here’s to a month of poetic celebrations!

 Oh, and don’t forget to enter our BlogiversaryRaffle to win one of FIVE Blogiversary Book Bundles. 

Good Luck!

Esther Hershenhorn

Celebrating our BlogiVERSEary with a Favorite Poem (and Giveaway!)

A HUGE thank you to Mary Lee, who blogs at A Year of Reading, for coining the word "blogiVERSEary" when she commented on April's post announcing our celebration and giveaway.

BlogiVERSEary is the perfect word to describe our theme this year. (Wish I'd thought of it when I created our Fifth Blogiversary logo!) Since our blog's anniversary falls during National Poetry Month, we thought it would be fitting for each of us to share a favorite poem, à la this year's Chicago Poetry Foundation's edition of the Favorite Poem Project. Esther is the one who brought the Favorite Poem Project to our attention, so I'll let her talk more about it when she posts. Meanwhile, if you're a teacher or parent, you may want to go ahead and check out their poetry lesson plans and other resources (after you're finished reading here, of course!).

To make our blogiVERSEary posts extra special, some (perhaps all) of the TeachingAuthors will share their favorite poems not only in printed form, but also via an audio or video reading. It's an opportunity for those of you we've never met to at least hear our voices. Creating an online audio or video clip is new territory for me. Unfortunately, I don't have a video camera, so I'll be sharing an audio reading, as April did.

I created a new account with SoundCloud, just for that purpose, per these instructions from the Poetry Foundation. After a couple of tense days when I couldn't get my account validated, I was finally able to upload the sound clip. If you are reading this post via email, you can go online to listen to the clip here. If you missed hearing April's reading of her favorite, give a listen to her Friday post. And while you're there, be sure to enter our blogiversary giveaway to win one of our FIVE "blogiversary book bundles," if you haven't already done so.

It took me some time to decide on just which "favorite poem" I wanted to share. The first poems I thought of were classics by Robert Frost and Emily Dickinson. But I really wanted to share something a bit more child-friendly. So I went over to check out Greg Pincus's annual 30 Poets/30 Days project. Poking around on the site, I discovered the perfect poem for our blogiVERSEary: "How to Read a Poem Aloud." It happens to be written by our very own April Halprin Wayland! Greg originally posted it in his 2009 edition of 30 Poets/30 Days, on April 28, 2009, just days after our TeachingAuthors blog debuted. And now, with April's permission, I'm sharing it here, as one of my favorite poems. You can also hear me read it below.

            How to Read a Poem Aloud
                    by April Halprin Wayland

            First, read the title of the poem
            and the poet’s name.

            Be clear.

            Now completely
            disappear.

            Let each line
            shine.

            Then read it
            one more time.

            When the poem
            ends, sigh.

            Think about the poet at her desk,
            late at night, picking up her pen to write--

            and why.
                             © April Halprin Wayland. All rights reserved. 


Now isn't that just the perfect poem for our blogiVERSEary?




Happy Poetry Month, and Happy Writing!
Carmela