2019 April National Poetry Month

LIGHT verse dept.

[Cocoa, Florida]

After work

by JG Annino

How curious it is

villages called

Coffee, Florida

 

or Tea or Juice

are absent from

the map

 

Out the newsroom door

of my summer job

into warm late night

 

search around downtown

only other visitor a dusty

armadillo

 

how can this

hot state have

a hot town

 

named Cocoa

and more than that

shouldn’t a person

 

find the best

cup of it, right

here

©JanGodownAnninoall rights reserved

 

GRAB a cuppa whatever – mine is water, no ice.

This month we mosey into Poetry Friday’s gift to 2019 National Poetry Month.

It’s the Progressive Poem! A line a day is added by your 2019 Poetry Friday

line leaders, to make a month-long-in-the-making, 29-line, poem.

I will grab a line

(out of a Cocoa box perhaps)

on April 25th – to post here that day. I haven’t looked at the other written lines yet,

deciding to only see them all of an early morn, on my designated Thurs & then

spin something fresh during that day, posting sooner rather than later. Shivers!

 

REQUEST Dept.

Editors, eagle-eyed readers, published Poetry Friday poem makers, if you

liked “After Work” above, please know that beta readers are collecting

for an upcoming poem project. Please send an email note to me with your availability

summer/fall, or send a fb message. I am dividing the poems to be read into

clutches of approx. 5, 7, 11, 1,211, etc.  For your volunteer reading, I can offer

enthusiastic appreciations,

with a package of dry ingredients

to make my special

best cuppa hot Cocoa recipe.

LINE LEADERS

Line Leaders of the 2019 April National Poetry Month Progressive Poem who are Pampered & Organized & Enthused & Memorialized by Poet Extraordinaire & friend of octopuses, IRENE LATHAM;

1 Matt @Radio,Rhythm and Rhyme

2 Kat @KathrynApel

3 Kimberly @KimberlyHutmacherWrites

4 Jone @DeoWriter

5 Linda @TeacherDance

6 Tara @Going to Walden

7 Ruth @thereisnosuchthingasagodforsakentown

8 Mary Lee @AYear of Reading

9 Rebecca @RebeccaHerzog

10 Janet F. @LiveYour Poem

11 Dani @Doingthe Work that Matters

12 Margaret @Reflections on the Teche

13 Doraine @Dori Reads

14 Christie @Wondering and Wandering

15 Robyn @Life on the Deckle Edge

16 Carol @Beyond LiteracyLink

17 Amy @The Poem Farm

18 Linda @A Word Edgewise

19 Heidi @my juicy little universe

20 Buffy @Buffy’s Blog

21 Michelle @Michelle Kogan

22 Catherine @Reading to the Core

23 Penny @a penny and her jots

24 Tabatha @The Opposite of Indifference

25 Jan @Bookseestudio

26 Linda @Write Time

27 Sheila @Sheila Renfro

28 Liz @Elizabeth Steinglass

29 Irene @Live Your Poem

c.2019allrights reserved
April 2019 “Kickin’ It” Cleveland, Ohio

 

Book winner, international women, climate change

 

Hello dear readers. It’s Poetry Friday, collected by My Juicy Little Universe

to consider climate change, posts I am eager to read.

 

First –  on Friday, March 15, the winner of a charming picture book,

BOOM! BELLOW! BLEAT! by Georgia Heard and Aaron DeWitte,

from Boyds Mills Press

is announced here.

 

Today I’m celebrating international women, a potent theme

collected last Friday here.

Two women I want to celebrate

Betty Mae Tiger Jumper, of Florida and Jennifer Worth of England.

Both were book authors and both were nurses. I am intrigued with each of their stories,

encapsulated here today.

 

[Important – if you know a fantastic book for any age student which illuminates

the path of a girl or woman whose legacy deserves wide attention,

will you please consider nominating it for honors of ALA’s Amelia Bloomer List (March-October nomination period 2019.]   Thank you! 

 

Betty Mae Tiger Jumper

 Think of a gigantic place near the end of land

A mamma alligator floats babies on her back

And itchy black bear takes a palm tree scratch

Leaving soft fur tufts for mice to fetch

©2010 all rightsreserved

-Jan Godown Annino

I came to know Betty Mae Tiger Jumper after our first conversation at a Florida festival.

Eventually with her agreement, I wrote a book for young readers about her, She Sang Promise.

Raised outdoors in the late 1920s/early 1930s, she helped her midwife mother and grandmother deliver babies in South Florida – when still a child. A teenager on her first day of kindergarten, she couldn’t read or write English. This path-setting nurse, newspaper editor, author and legendary storyteller’s many honors include her traditional singing recorded on two Smithsonian music CDs. She served a U.S. President on an advisory committee. In 1967, she was the first woman elected a leader of the Seminole Tribe of Florida.  And, she also wrestled alligators.

The international? A fascinating aspect of federal and tribal relations involves the fact that federally recognized tribes, such as the Seminole Tribe of Florida, are considered sovereign nations.

Jennifer Worth

Wind your way through the dockland, stenchland, fight land

Bandage the sad hand, worn hand, burned hand

Lift up the glad hand, smile hand, tiny hand

©2019 all rights reserved

-Jan Godown Annino

 

I came to know Jennifer Worth through a recent need to escape temporary

small miseries now past (loss of dear old pet, a despised nasty molar pulled.)

I found her through Call The Midwife, her first book,

also the name of the BBC series about her.

 

Jennifer Worth was a financially secure young woman who chose to study

how to deliver babies for impoverished families. In the 1950s she selected

wretched areas in the East End of London for her work. Her careful telling

of poignant stories about the bravery of women and older children living in

near-scavenger conditions is a movie series from her three nonfiction books.

 

 

Writing Room

For some bit of time this season, this will be one of very few posts here, as I pull back from social media  & its affiliates to focus on writing projects.

I will miss this community in-between-time  & look forward to more connectivity later. And there is always email, snail mail, the phone & perhaps we will bump into each other at an event. I hope so.

Book birthday! BOOM! BELLOW! BLEAT!

I’m so chortling to introduce a new picture book from poet Georgia Heard & artist Aaron DeWitt!

Please head over to my post about this inventive & interactive chorus of communication where I occasionally appear –  at Group Blog/Grog – a creative community established by school media wizard Todd Burleson. Comment there to win a copy of this new fun title.

March 8 Poetry Friday at Bookseedstudio

Hello kind readers –  Poetry Friday is here.

This short link goes to

*my sad cat post* this week – a short short original poem, there.

I also have a short link to

*my happy book post* this week, on another blog, with a give-away.

Please visit/comment over there – poet Georgia Heard involved!

Next week I expect to be back with

an International Women’s Day celebration,

so fabulous.

Ginger the cat

Ginger, the cat, in action . . .

“office clerk” c. 2007

 

“book reviewer” c. 2011
Ginger’s favorite story

 

“building inspector” c. 2009

* * * *

at sun-kissed window

waiting in wide-armed writing chair

for his pounce

* * * *

Losing a family pet is part of living with animals.

Many of you have eloquently expressed a similar

loss, which I would like to be reminded about if you

have a moment.  When it happened to me recently,

I was not expecting to be smacked off my feet.

Our Ginger cat, indoors-always for at least

12 years, was at age 17, feeling quite elderly.

So we knew we would be losing him. We were not

prepared for the sudden, unplanned, necessary

good-bye. It was challenging for us, massively

more difficult for him. I am grateful for our animal ER

open in the middle of the night & my husband, who saw me

through that & still eases me in this palpable absence

of my daily purring partner. We buried Ginger on a recent

brisk sunny morning at a high point of our back yard,

by whispering bamboo.

I am finding relief in poet Alvin Greenberg’s

WHY WE LIVE WITH ANIMALS (Coffee House Press.)

The words I scraped out above are thanks to

Laura Purdie Salas, whose book

CATCHING OUR BREATH, Writing Poignant Poetry,

(Capstone Press)

nourishes me.

 

For fans of buds & flapped fans + book winners!

This week Poetry Friday is collected at Teacher Dance!

* * * *

Hello & welcome to half-past winter time for some, spring for others.

On a walkabout just beyond my door this week, I didn’t pick any flower, as I like to do,

but left what I saw. And I collected a list poem (sort of . . .)

 

c.2019allrightsreserved pink buds of blue berries

c.2019allrightsreserved
pink chandelier of wild azalea

c.2019allrightsreserved blooms of lipstick plant

c.2019allrightsreserved
heirloom rose plant adopted from Goodwood Gardens

c.2019allrightsreserved
lemon fruit/ lemon buds

Bud time

Winter Beach

Winter Garden

Winter Haven

Winter Park

Winter Springs

 

Winter Flower, Florida

exists

only

on the

map

of my

heart

© all rights reserved JanGodownAnnino

The blooms are fresh-snapped from the last week of February in our North Florida garden yard. It is not uncommon to enjoy a sprinkle of snow, or to create icicles in winter here, with a bit of dripping water. So we appreciate February buds and blooms as much as any snow country flower fan. Our spot on earth, Little Yellow Cottage in the made-up Winter Flower, Florida, would be only half as lovely without a chance meeting I lucked into with garden guru Sharon Lovejoy. I hope her nourishing books are known by your library or bookstore. We correspond now & again; she is always a generous sharer of goodwill & joy (as befits her name.) And forever she is a marvelous author to read & read, again. Laura Jepsen’s Lichgate Cottage, is where we met.

c.2019 Sharon Lovejoy

 

Please read on for a link to next week’s book giveaway, & so important – last week’s book winners, announced just below! I have won, too  – your comments you left. And special thanks for so many words from the wild shared, such as flub, throttlebottom, porridge, murliks.

Smiles are due these winners of last week’s giveaway, courtesy of publisher Boyds Mills Press –

Christie, Dawn, Ramona & winner of the two books, Linda M., soon you will be holding

WHAT IF?… THEN WE… by Rebecca Kai Dotlich & Fred Koehler.

Linda M. also from me, the companion, ONE DAY, THE END, by the same creative team.

Enter again

There is still time to win a Boyds Mills Press book. Join me next Wednesday March 6, over at the friendly Group Blog, when I introduce and giveaway the fresh-minted BOOM! BELLOW! BLEAT Animal Poems in Two Voices from poet Georgia Heard & illustrator Aaron DeWitt.

Fan time

In a treasure hunt, I came across a boxed heirloom under my roof, and wrote a poem for it.

c.2019allrightsreserved
“Fan Souvenir”

Fan souvenir

flutter flip flap

avian wingspans inspired

fan fashion

© all rights reserved JanGodownAnnino

If you are ready for real blooms & warm breezes, soon enough, you in higher spots of the north hemisphere will skip through April. Down under the drape of Spanish moss in North Florida, April will find me in full fan mode (not with this under-glass antique!) to keep my cool. You can hang on until then, you can, you can . . .

To visit others adding to this week’s Poetry Friday, please remember to see Linda B at Teacher Dance.

 

c.2019 “Bunny picks a winner”

WHAT IF…? THEN WE… Rebecca Kai Doltich + Fred Koehler picture book giveaway

Looking for Poetry Friday? This is but one blip bit of it. Visit poet pal Robyn at her lovely  Life on the Deckle Edge. She is this week’s host, until next Friday, when we will meet at Teacher Dance with poet pal Linda

This moment at Bookseedstudio, we enter a double-decker day called  Friday Finds. One find  is “Try this one, it’s good”  a book to herald. The 2nd find is words from the wild . First up, the words.

Friday Finds 1 – words from the wild 

singed     kettle      minnow      incantation
tilt        pyjamas      paraffin

Most writers I’ve sipped a cuppa with collect words. Culled from hand-written menus, the subway wall, in listening to a busker at the plaza, maybe talk overheard in the Post Office line, or ___________________, where? You tell us.

My heart sparked as I read kettle at a travel website, reminding me of a Revere Ware copper-bottomed tea kettle. It  squatted on our kitchen stove in my child days. Haven’t listened to a tea kettle whistle in eons; I heat water for tea in a trendy, safe-glass, all-glass, sort-of tea kettle I do love. With no built-in music maker. I am partial to all the words above I hadn’t read or heard for too long. Minnow is now added to a notebook of the current writing project – minnow, I see possibilities for you. Another time here I expect to have words from the wild that I wouldn’t have thunk, because I never knew them until . . .found ’em in the wild.

Friday Finds 2 – “TRY THIS ONE, IT’S GOOD.“ In which I share a good good book.

WHAT IF…? THEN WE . . .Creators: Rebecca Kai Dotlich, author, Fred Koehler, illustrator.
Boyds Mills Press fresh-published this picture book, subtitled Short, Very Short, Shorter than-Ever Possibilities.

Two polar bears who walk upright, like kids, enjoy adventures. Events are altered by the idea that everything could fall apart. WHAT IF…? is finishing up a BIG blog tour.** 

It rides the waves as sequel to this creative team’s ONE DAY, THE END, the short, very short tales that understandably won Golden Kite & Boston Globe Horn Book honor awards.

I love both these impish books for their pixie quality. And since they go together like spooled
typewriter ribbon & a manual Olivetti, I’m offering my personally bought copy of ONE DAY, to accompany a brand new, publisher-given WHAT IF…?, for your exploration.

This new partner book, WHAT IF…? will be sought for lap-readers,
school floor readers, bedtime readers, worrywart readers, park blanket readers, beach
hut readers, hill top readers, bus readers, high flown readers & their kin.

Why? Events bubble out of characters’ very own imaginations, which spins
the story wide to activate a young reader’s quick mind. As Rebecca says, she wrote
this book for those who “fish for dreams.”

Page after page pull my eyeballs to Fred’s big images of creativity – paintbrush, pencil, coloring tool, looking glass, origami, a map, musical notes & the like. Fred is generous in unfolding ambitious situations where the bear pals, (unnamed, better for the reader to provide them) might want to call upon these tools.

Quick pick: This tumbling-along story entices our youngest ones, offering a high-five that imagination is wonderful. The take-away is that it is good to be bold and experimental.

[Appropos of nothing but a smile, I want to share that one typeface name for text is Rather Loud (bold.)]

Fred’s website +
Fred’s TED-like talk on p.b. creation (in which you can learn to pronounce his last name, among other things)

I have written about Fred, (who we in Florida are lucky to claim as one of our own) in the launch of another picture book.

Rebecca’s blog + You can meet Rebecca – Highlights Foundation workshop

Highlights Foundation offers this great interview with Rebecca by my Poetry Friday pal,
Matt Forrest Esenwine, author of FLASHLIGHT NIGHT, Matt’s & Fred-Koehler’s irresistible picture book,)

**Don’t take my word for it!  Please visit other WHAT IF?…THEN WE... sites invited on the tour:

Monday, 2/11                       Simply 7 Interview    

Tuesday, 2/12                      Storymamas

Wednesday, 2/13                Librarian in Cute Shoes

Thursday, 2/14                    Mrs. Knott’s Book Nook

Friday, 2/15                          Miss Marple’s Musings

Monday, 2/18                      Bridget and the Books     

Tuesday, 2/19                      Radio, Rhythm and Rhyme

Thursday, 2/21                    KidLit Frenzy

Friday, 2/22                         Unleashing Readers

                                             Book Seed Studio       (you are here!)

COMMENT here at Bookseedstudio to win a chance for the two pal books & you could also win the new one, it’s own self. Try, try, try.

Comment with a collected word or two from your lists, mention a connection with author Rebecca or artist Fred (or with Highlights/Boyds Mills Press/WordSong) or maybe, just let us know who will enjoy this team’s clever ONE DAY &/or also the new book, WHAT IF…? You know you want a chance to win. Make sure to leave your name/contact info so I can ask your United States postal address. (You may also comment & mention that you don’t want to win.)

Leave a response by NOON next Thursday so I can announce winners on Poetry Friday March 1 hosted by Teacher Dance.

So many appreciations for your visit today. (And if we haven’t met yet at a Highlights Foundation writing workshop, then someday, I sure hope we do.)

Remember to visit poet Robyn Hood Black at Life on the Deckle Edge, for her blog & her wrangling of this week’s Poetry Friday collection of Kidlitosphere blogs.

c.2019 Fred Koehler from inside the expanding universe of WHAT IF?…THEN WE… by Rebecca Kai Dotlich & Fred Koehler, from Boyds Mills Press

UPCOMING – I travel to Group Blog on Wed. March 6, 2019 with another new Boyds Mills Press book. See you there?

 

[I recommend that you b l o g  AT WORDPRESS.COM.]