Hi everyone,
I’m pleased to welcome Nebraska’s Poet Laureate, MATT MASON, as my guest this week on Poetry from Daily Life. Here’s the link to his column. Matt, thank you for joining us today.
As always, I ask you to share the column with as many as you can through your own social media networks. I appreciate the generosity of our guest columnists and want to be sure that as many readers as possible have a chance to enjoy their poetry and comments.
Hi everyone,
I mentioned this several weeks ago when A Tree is a Community came out. The book received a starred review by Kirkus and KATE COSGROVE’S artwork was chosen to be exhibited in New York in The Original Art show. I want to come back to the exhibit because it’s really a big deal. I’m not only proud of Kate for having her talent recognized at such a high level but I’m also delighted that it’s my book she illustrated!
Since 1990, The Original Art has been at home in the Museum of American Illustration at the Society of Illustrators in New York City. It is a juried event, with a committee of children’s book artists, art directors, editors, and publishers selecting the best books from among hundreds of submissions and awarding Gold and Silver medals to the top pieces and the Dilys Evans Founders Award to the most promising newcomer to the field.
The Original Art is an annual exhibit created to showcase illustrations from the year’s best children’s books published in the U.S. For editors and art directors, it’s an inspiration and a treasure trove of talent to draw upon. For art students, it’s a marvelous opportunity to examine—up close—the work of the best in the field. And for the public, it’s a chance to appreciate the enormous range of artistic styles and visual storytelling that children’s books offer.
This is not the first time that Kate has been chosen to have her work exhibited in this elite collection. She has been selected twice before, including for her illustrations of our previous collaboration, The Dirt Book, Poems About Animals That Live Beneath Our Feet. Both books were edited by GRACE MACCARONE and published by Holiday House.
And there’s more! Kate has the distinction of having a book she illustrated land in the Number 1 spot on the New York Times Bestseller List, and she did it with a book that has no words in it. The book, titled A Day With No Words, was written by TIFFANY HAMMOND and invites readers into the life of an Autism Family who communicates just as the child does, without spoken language.
Hi everyone,
Lately our back yard has been a way station for migrating robins. Bands of them, maybe thirty or more, suddenly appear, flit among the thinning limbs of the hackberry trees, drop down to the swimming pool to take drinks of the brackish water on top of the cover. They help themselves to a hackberry or two and make messes on the deck furniture. One or two may crash into windows. In that sad way, some journeys end here at Goose Lake. After a few minutes of general chaos, the birds leave as they came. I don’t know where they’re headed. Texas maybe. Florida.
The robins aren’t looking for a warmer climate. Cold weather doesn’t bother them. They’re looking for a food supply. Around here they eat worms all spring and summer, but when temperatures start dropping, worms aren’t easy to find and when hard frosts chase the worms out of sight, robins have a decision to make.
Not all robins leave. As long as they can find enough to eat, they’ll stick out the winter. But many others fly south and change their menu. Mostly they eat fruit in warmer areas. For them it’s worms all summer, berries all winter. I suppose if I ate worms for months, I’d want a palate freshener too. I wrote about one such band of travelers (starlings in that case) in The Purchase of Small Secrets (Wordsong, Boyds Mills Press, 1998).
Bright-Eyed Good-byes
Birds
busily
tidying up
the season
Shouting
bright-eyed
good-byes
Joining
choosing sides
forming teams
Arguing
plans
Debating
from treetops
Everyone
talking
at once
Swirling
down
to the lawns
like black leaves
Pecking
for snacks
Gusting
skyward
Diving
wheeling
practicing
Days
of false
starts
Where
is the leader?
Who
is in charge?
When
was the signal?
I
missed the vote
same as always
They’re gone!
(c) 1997 David L. Harrison, all rights reserved
NOTE: 40 Poems for 40 Poets comes out today. It already ranks #200,579 in Books, #1 in Bibliographies & Indexes (Books), #11 in Education Curriculum & Instruction, and #55 in Bibliography & Index Reference
Hi everyone,
It is my pleasure to feature MATT MASON this weekend as guest columnist on Poetry from Daily Life. Matt, who lives in Omaha, Nebraska, was Poet Laureate for Nebraska from 2019-2024. His poetry has appeared in The New York Times and he has received a Pushcart Prize as well as fellowships from the Academy of American Poets and the Nebraska Arts Council.
Matt’s column comes out on Saturday in Springfield News-Leader and through the week in other papers in Missouri, Kansas, and South Dakota. When the online link is available Sunday morning, I’ll post it here on my blog. Be looking for it. Thank you, Matt!
Hi everyone,
Tomorrow, December 12, is the publication debut of my new book with TIM RASINSKI and I couldn’t be happier. It’s the only book I’ve ever done specifically with children’s librarians in mind, and that’s because the idea was inspired by a children’s librarian, ANGELA KNIGHT. Dr. Knight is the librarian at David Harrison Elementary School and it was her habit of reading a poem aloud each week to the kids at Harrison that sparked this book. She was kind enough to write the foreword for the book.
SYLVIA VARDELL, professor emerita from Texas Woman’s University and just concluding a term as president of the International Board on Books for Young People, wrote the introduction to the book, which features 40 poems by 40 poets, enough for a read-aloud poem each week of the school year so that students have a special treat to anticipate each week and teachers have a prompt to introduce other poetry into their classroom activities throughout the year.
The poets in the book are amazing. Many of them are already favorites of the young people who are about to meet them on a more personal basis. Each poet is featured on four pages so that students become acquainted with them as real people who write poems for them to enjoy. Page 1 is a photograph of the poet; page 2 is a kid-friendly autobiographical chat from the poet; page 3 is the featured poem; and page 4 is a word ladder designed by Tim Rasinski, a widely respected scholar, professor, and researcher, who is known and appreciated nationally and internationally for his word ladders.
To top it off, the poets also suggested their own favorite books of poetry for young people and we listed them all at the back of the book, all 120 of them! That alone is one very large resource. 40 Poems for 40 Weeks can be purchased or ordered from any book store and ordered online wherever you prefer to order books. You can also find it on the Routledge/Taylor & Francis site. Tim and I are proud to introduce this book tomorrow and we hope to see schools, public libraries, and families across America and beyond take advantage of this great way to introduce poetry to children and keep up their interest through a full school year. Thanks, Angela. Great idea!
Children's Author David L. Harrison's Blog 