THE PROPER WAY TO MEET PAUL B. JANECZKO

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Howdy, Campers, and Happy Poetry Friday! (Be sure to visit this week's Poetry Friday host, Michelle at MoreArt4All)

Today's post is about Sadness and Celebration.

SADNESS

Many of you know Paul B. Janeczko died on February 19th. Paul was an original, he was a force of nature, and he was funny. He was also the author of more than fifty books, including poetry anthologies, novels for young readers, books of his own poetry, nonfiction, and guides for teachers. The loss is a big one in our poetry community.

Here's Publishers Weekly obituary, Cynthia Leitich Smith's post in memory of Paul, and a wonderful spine poem by Heidi Mordhorst.

Oh, Paul...

Paul's wife captioned this one, "Keep smiling"

I met Paul in 1996 through a mutual friend, super librarian and library activist Richard K. Moore. Paul showed up on the porch of the TeachingAuthors treehouse twice: when I interviewed him in 2015, and the following week, when he shared an exercise he used in school writing workshops. My poems are in six of his anthologies.

Though I only saw Paul a few times in person, we corresponded about politics, poetry, the weather and our families. I learned a lot from his sunny emails (signed pbj), especially stop being so uptight and enjoy the frickin' ride. (Paul would have phrased that more poetically or funnier.) I will miss those emails.

CELEBRATE!

THE PROPER WAY TO MEET A HEDGEHOG and Other How-To Poems (February 2019, Candlewick Press) is beautifully illustrated by Richard Jones--please look at a few of his luscious illustrations here.

Something to celebrate? I should say so! It's gotten three starred reviews (from Publishers Weekly, Booklist and Kirkus)!  Kirkus says: "The engaging artwork nudges the poems into the foreground, giving them ample room to breathe. The collection closes with "How to Pay Attention," just two lines that are almost a sacred offering. "Close this book. / Look." Young people lucky enough to find this miraculous collection in their hands will indeed look."  

That four word poem is mine :-)

I wrote my other poem in this collection after my husband and son gave me a shiny white bike for Hanukkah. I named her Bird. I didn't understand her brakes. Oh, what a wonderful, hairy-breezy first ride...until I had to brake fast to avoid a car. Bird was aptly named: I flew over her handlebars--oy! That's how "How to Ride a New Bike" was born.

HOW TO RIDE A NEW BIKE
by April Halprin Wayland

Reflector?

Head protector?

            Let’s ride!

Quick quiz, Cycling Whiz:

when car turns in a flash,

how won’t you crash?

            Brake hard!

            Brake fast!

You won’t last.

You’ll fly

past handlebars

seeing stars.

Next guess?

(Less mess, please)

Feather brakes slow

bike doesn’t throw me

so I touch ground

safe and sound?

Yup. You’ve got guts—

A plus!

poem (c)2019 April Halprin Wayland. All rights reserved.

There are 46 poems in this collection (many by several likely posting links on today's Poetry Friday blog). Here they are, listed in order of appearance: Charles Ghigna, J. Patrick Lewis, Elaine Magliaro, Allan Wolf, Marilyn Singer, Christina Rossetti, Calef Brown, Monica Shannon, Rebecca Kai Dotlich, Karla Kuskin, Douglas Florian, Irene Latham, Marjorie Maddox, Kwame Alexander, April Halprin Wayland, Anne E. Jordan, Robert (Bob) Louis Stevenson, Margarita Engle, Ralph Fletcher, Charles Waters, Martin Garden, Nikki Grimes, Steven Withrow, Helen Frost, Pat Mora.

In Irene Latham's wonderful post on this collection, the dialogue between Irene and poet Allan Wolf is filled with affection, both for poetry and pbj.

What a loss to our community; what a lovely, final book you leave us to savor, Paul.

Posted with love by April Halprin Wayland

6 Word Memoir ~ Fearlessly Looking Forward To The New Year!

Howdy, Campers ~

Happy New Year from all of us at TeachingAuthors! We are kicking this year off with a tip-of-the-hat to Smith Magazine's Six-Word Memoirs http://www.sixwordmemoirs.com/  More on this in a bit.

Thank you, Linda, for hosting Poetry Friday today. The link to PF is below, as is my small poem.

"The first and great commandment is: Don't let them scare you." ~ Elmer Davis

When I was young, my blood froze if I saw a spider across the room. I experienced sheer terror at the thought of a spider. When I was in college, I lived in a student co-op, with six guys and six girls. We were like a large family whose parents were gone for a very long weekend. We cooked and had dinner together each night—my kind of heaven. One of my first chores was to clean the downstairs bathroom. This was the University of California, Davis, originally an ag school, surrounded by fields and vineyards. So the Davis Student Co-op was filled with ...spiders. Of course it was. And the downstairs bathroom was apparently their party room.

How could I admit my phobia to my fellows? I could not. Instead, I made a sign that said "Charlotte," pasted it just under the big spider in the corner above the sink, and used a rolled up newspaper to send the rest to spider heaven. 

Charlotte?
credit: https://morguefile.com/creative/ardelfin

Every week I'd talk to Charlotte. I grew fond of her. With Charlotte's help, my phobia disappeared.

Fast forward to my life these days. I am afraid of a boatload of things--but not spiders. For example, I am afraid of earthquakes. So I volunteer with CERT, Community Emergency Response Team. We learn to rescue people. CERT turns neighbors into team members so that in an emergency we band together. This doesn't mean I've lost my fear of earthquakes, it means if there is one, I have a job to do, and a community of people who will help me do it.

More fears: I am a TeachingAuthor who is afraid of teaching...and of writing. Of teaching badly. Of writing something mediocre. 

I am learning to walk through these fears with the help of others who have gone before me, including our tiny village of TeachingAuthors ~ and all of you, our readers. Thank you.

This year? I am afraid for democracy. 

Sometimes 

I am terrified.

Fear, I'm told, is the opposite of faith. I have faith in my own resilience, in the basic goodness of the universe, in a village of courageous and smart friends and fellows along the way.

So, I've decided to copy many of you who, like Irene Latham, choose One Little Word (OWL) to guide them each year. My word for 2017 is Fearless. Every day I tell myself I am fearless and everyday I believe it a smidgen more. I love the whole community of words that I could have chosen, including unflinching, unafraid, defiant, gutsy, and audacious.

In fact, SixWordMemoirs.com is having a contest right now about hope in the new year which ends January 13th: Basically, "Tell us how you keep hope alive in six words." You can read the rules here.

#HopeIn6Words
by April Halprin Wayland

Breathe.

Hold hands.

Move fearlessly

forward.

photo credit: https://morguefile.com/creative/thelesleyshow

What is your Six Word Hope in this New Year?

Check out a host of Poetry Friday hopes at Linda's TeacherDance

posted by April Halprin Wayland with a heart full of hope (with help from Eli, Monkey and Snot.)

15 Best Poetry Books of 2014...Pick 1!

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Howdy Campers!

Yippee!--it's Poetry Friday!  (the link's at the end of this post ~)

Confession regarding the title of this post: I lied. Although there were many wonderful poetry books this year, I'm going to talk about just one.

You may already have read it...or read about it on Laura Purdie Salas' TeachingAuthors post in May.

You may already know that it's gotten starred reviews in Publisher's Weekly, Kirkus, Booklist and School Library Journal.

You may have heard that it's one of Publisher's Weekly's Best Picture Books of 2014, it's a School Library Journal Best Nonfiction Book of the Year, it's in the American Booksellers Association Best Books for Children Catalog, and it's on lists predicting the 2015 Caldecott for illustrator Melissa Sweet.

Of course I'm talking about

Firefly July ~ A Year of Very Short Poems

selected by Paul B. Janeczko, illustrated by Melissa Sweet

Candlewick Press

In this beautiful collection, master anthologist Paul B. Janeczko has organized 36 very short gems around the four seasons, illuminated by Melissa Sweet's both sophisticated and whimsical illustrations.  Wow.

My father was a farmer and an artist. When he sketched my mother playing piano, his goal was to use as few lines as possible to tell that moment of my mother, the light from the window, that sonata.  

In the same way, these poems show moments...and so much more in a few short lines.

Here's one of my favorites from this sterling anthology:

FIREFLY JULY

When I was ten, one summer night,

The baby stars that leapt

Among the trees like dimes of light,

I cupped, and capped, and kept.

~ J. Patrick Lewis

Another of my favorites is the always amazing Joyce Sidman’s “A Happy Meeting,” which describes what happens when rain meets dirt (first, “soft, cinnamon kisses,” then, “marriage: mud”). 

And...surprise! I am honored that one of my poems is included in this collection:

SANDPIPERS

Sandpipers run with

their needle beaks digging--they're

hemming the ocean.

~ April Halprin Wayland

and look who just popped in to wave hello...

poet and anthologist Paul B. Janeczko and illustrator Melissa Sweet!

Thank you, Anastasia at Booktalking #kidlit 

for hosting Poetry Friday today!

posted with affection by April Halprin Wayland in honor of

my mother, who loved both words and music ~