Eight years ago, my poetry pals and I stumbled into something bigger than we knew we were stumbling into. We decided to write a poem together — a big poem — a Crown Sonnet — from afar. At that point, only a few of us had ever met in person and the idea of an online collaboration still felt… surprising.

What was more surprising, maybe, was how much we loved it. Enough to try at least one big project every year since then — often formal poetry, often with assigned themes, always together from afar. We’ve all met now, at least once. We’ve grown to love each other’s poetry and truly love each other.

So this year we went bigger than big. As a sort of birthday present to Tricia (but really to all of us) we decided to do a poem every single month. And we have. Triolets and pantoums, etherees and odes. It’s been damn hard, sometimes pressure-filled, sometimes an inconvenience, and soooo delightful.

Our final poem needs a few finishing touches so it’s actually getting it’s big reveal in January (when we’ll also launch our 2016 effort — we can’t give up now!), so for today I’ll share this, from Lucille Clifton, with gratitude for my sisters.

sisters

me and you be sisters.
we be the same.
me and you
coming from the same place.

(Read the whole thing — and listen to Lucille Clifton read it! — here.)

Here are the other’s posts for today:
Tricia
Laura
Tanita
Andi
Kelly
Sara

And the link for all the Poetry Friday posts. May they bring a little necessary light into all of our lives.

Friends… I’m late to the party here. Traveling without good access to wifi. But, tra la, my November poem. We tackled ekphrastic poetry this month — aka making a poem based on a piece of art. Here’s the piece of inspiration we chose, and here’s my accompanying poem:

I was twelve.
I didn’t fit in anywhere.
I know what you’ll say –
that no 12-year-olds
fit, not exactly, and plus,
fitting isn’t the goal.

But let’s say
it was my goal – to be
a simple spoon stacked
in the kitchen drawer
with the other spoons,
to be useful and plain
as soap.

What if what I wanted
more than anything
was to be the cabbage,
the pale white potato,
the single stalk in the endless
acres of corn, wrapped up
tight and tidy, just the
smallest wisps and curls
of silk showing.

But I was twelve, a girl,
and it was hard to hide.
I tried. I wintered alone
in the greenhouse – an iris
bulb under peat moss, sore
with everything, the who
I was, the who I’d come from.
The who I would become.

Now, please please please go read the poems written by my pals:
Sara Lewis Holmes
Tanita Davis
Laura Purdie Salas
Kelly Fineman
Tricia Stohr-Hunt
Andi Sibley

And Poetry Friday, you ask? HERE IT IS!!

Back with my poetry pals this month and the only thing I’m sort of sad about is that our year-long project is drawing to a close. So this month is our 10th of 12, and I took it really seriously. Like, instead of writing one assigned poem I wrote 39. Yes, I got a little obsessed.

Our form for the month was the etheree — a ten line poem wherein each line is one more syllable than the last. Which makes them really … rhythmic, I guess. Yeah, that’s what I like about them.

So, I won’t share all 39 but here are my first 2.

Dear
Martin,
I like you
and I wonder
what you think of me?
I’ll give you two choices:
If you like me, circle yes.
If you don’t like me, circle no.
Give the answer to Maddie at lunch
and don’t tell anyone about this note.

Dear
Sophie
(or Maddie),
Is this a joke
or is it for real?
I want to answer but
I don’t like being laughed at.
Can you give me some kind of sign
so I know that it’s true and it’s you?
P.S. I didn’t tell anybody.

But don’t stop here! Check out more etherees here:
Tanita Davis
Andi Jazmon Sibley
Sara Lewis Holmes
Kelly Fineman
Laura Salas
Tricia Stohr-Hunt

And for more poems of every variety? Poetry Friday at My Juicy Little Universe!

Enjoy!

Ta-Da!! Another month’s gone by and we’ve pulled ourselves together again, just in the knick of time! We’re happy to present “Found” poems this time around. Found, as in extracted in bits and pieces from text that already existed.

Some of my pals pulled theirs from crossword puzzles and classic literature. Mine comes from pharmaceutical drug warnings — the ones that come as inserts when you pick up a prescription.

Prescription

If you experience severe
persistent
sudden
sharp
increased
painful
irregular
unusual
recurring

impulsivity
restlessness
fatigue
pain
or vivid dreams

Do not
Do not
Do not
crush
or chew

Do not
use exactly
or take more
or skip

Do not continue
or discontinue

Instead, watch
seek
ask

undergo
apply

And rise slowly
rise very slowly

You won’t want to miss the others:
Kelly Ramsdell
Andi Sibley
Laura Purdie Salas
Sara Lewis Holmes
Tricia Stohr-Hunt
Tanita Davis

You can also see them laid out together at our padlet this month.
Fancy, huh?

Still hungry for poems? Go read dozens at the Poetry Friday Round-Up, being hosted this week by TeacherDance!

Welcome Back!

Hey friends. There was an amazing full moon and a very pretty sky this weekend. Did you see it? It made me think of Paul and Ivy and a discussion they have in The Great Good Summer. When Ivy suggests that Paul knows more about the myths of the sky than he does about the stories of the Bible, Paul says they’re really not all that different:

“Ursa Major and Ursa Minor are a mother and a child. They’ve been through all sorts of terrible stuff, including getting turned into bears, but they end up right next to each other forever in the sky. Doesn’t that sound like the sort of ending you’d get in the Bible?”

Star Stories and Bible Stories
So let’s say he’s right! Here are some of those stories, ones that Ivy and Paul would both like an awful lot…

Greek Myths of the Zodiac

Stars — Myths, Legends and Lore

Book of Ruth summary

The Jane Hamilton novel by the same name!

Share and Win!
Remember that I’ll be doing a drawing — the last one! — at the end of this week. Simply read, like, comment or share to be entered! And thanks….

Who is This For?
Thanks for stopping by again. And I hope you’ll share this series with your friends. I mean, your reader-friends who would love to know more about the “real lives” of characters… your writer-friends who want to talk about ways to more deeply know and develop the folks they people their books with… your spacey friends and road trippy friends and anyone, really, who’s into some of the same of the same Great Good Stuff that Ivy Green and Paul Dobbs are into!

Wouldn’t Paul Love This?
My friend Paul Dobbs wants to get as far away from life in Loomer, Texas as possible. And when he says far away, he means outer space!

So how much would he love this story from The Atlantic about living on the International Space Station?

And what about this — a live feed of the view from up there!

And finally, if he absolutely positively has to stay down here on earth for awhile, here’s how he can get a glimpse of the International Space Station while keeping his feet on the ground.

There’s so much going on out there, isn’t it? And we don’t even think about it most of the time.

Share and Win!
Don’t miss out on your chance to win a copy of The Great Good Summer along with an extra treat or two. Simply read, comment, like or share and you’re entered! And thanks!

More Fun!
Thanks for coming back, friends. I’m happy to have shipped off prize packages to the first two Great Good Winners, and happy to have collected a couple of weeks-worth of Paul- and Ivy-related links and stories. Stuff That’s Great Good has been fun so far, at least for me.

Life or Art?
The whole idea of this blog series was to find and share things from Real Life that dovetail with Ivy and Paul’s quirks and interests, as revealed in my book The Great Good Summer. That means I’ve done posts on road trips, and space, and middle names, and even why only children should own dogs!

The Dreaded Dentist
But today, instead of going out to the interwebs to find you stories and links, I’ve got a personal tale to tell — and it’s one that would make Ivy both cringe and laugh.

One thing we find out in The Great Good Summer is that Ivy’s got terrible, cavity-prone teeth — and she’s not a fan of the dentist.Well, last week my younger daughter spent some time in the dentist chair herself — having her wisdom teeth pulled. It’s been a rough few days of pain, soft foods and chipmunk cheeks.

But I thought, to keep things fun for my pal Ivy, that I’d share a few of the best lines captured as my girl emerged from anesthesia:

“I just want to be free! That’s why I came to this country — to be free!”

“Did you know they took my feet? They took my feet. That’s why I don’t have feet anymore.”

“Why are you holding an orangutan? Why did you get an orangutan without me? I wanted to help pick him out! I wanted him to be named after me!” (This one got particularly funny after my husband said, “We did name him after you — we named him Willa!” and she said, “Well THAT’S not very creative.”)

It should also be noted that during most of this nonsequiturial discussion, she thought my husband was Obama. So. There you go, Ivy. Teeth.

Share and Win!
Don’t forget that everytime you like, comment, share or retweet one of these posts you’ll be entered into my weekly prize drawing! So go to it, and thanks… #greatgoodsummer

Ta-Da!
Last week I was slightly skimpy on the posts but you all were still enthusiastic with your likes and shares and re-tweets and what not. And for that, I thank you! So I put all of your names back in the bowl and…

Ta-da! This week’s winner is Doug Marshall! Congratulations, Doug. There’s a great good care package coming your way just as soon as get your snail mail address!

There’s More
Never fear — I’ve still got a few more links to share and prizes to pick. My Stuff That’s Great Good series will continue this week and next. Think of it as my way of dragging out summer as long as humanly possible!

Characters are People Too
Writing a novel takes a long time. Or at least it takes me a long time! So by the end of it all, you can grow kind of attached to the characters. In my case, I kind of feel like the main characters in THE GREAT GOOD SUMMER are my own kids or something. And, well, I just miss them. I’m constantly seeing stuff that they’d like or that would interest them. I want to tell them about this or that, and then I remember — darn — they’re just characters. Or are they?

This blog series, Stuff That’s Great Good, is my way of keeping Ivy and Paul alive and well, in my heart and on the interwebs!

Invading Astronauts
Ya’ll know by now that Paul is really into space. As in, obsessed. He wanted to be one of the astronauts to fly the Space Shuttle someday — until he heard that the Space Shuttle program was shutting down.

So imagine his thrill if he heard about all this super fun astronaut enthusiasm happening in Seattle! I’ve gotta say, I think it would inspire him — and his sidekick Ivy — to take another road trip.

Share and Win!
I’ll be doing another prize drawing sometime between now and Monday. To be entered, simply comment, share, retweet, whatever — here, on facebook or via Twitter. #greatgoodsummer And thanks!

Back At It!
This week has included a wisdom teeth extraction for one daughter, a nearly-botched airline trip for another daughter, some lost keys, some spoiled milk. You know the drill. Lucky for me, it’s also included the launch of a new picture book (IN THE CANYON, illustrated by the most-amazing Ashley Wolff) and my wedding anniversary (today!). But all that aside, I don’t want you to think I’ve forgotten about Ivy and Paul and the Stuff That’s Great Good series!

Dog Days
In fact, I was thinking of Ivy when I was writing the previous paragraph. I was thinking, Life. What a thing. And then I was thinking, Good thing I’ve got my dog. Because, y’know, he’s kind of what keeps me from crazy during weeks like these. And keeps me from lonely. And keeps me from lazy. It’s a lot of responsibility but he steps up every time.

But Ivy Green, my heroine in THE GREAT GOOD SUMMER doesn’t have a dog. She wants one. She really wants one. She actually says, “Personally, I think if you’re an only child, you should automatically be issued a dog when you’re born, as a consolation prize…”

So Ivy, these stories are for you.
(And I wish I could really get you a dog!)

Dogs and Only Children in India
12 Reasons to Get a Dog
Dogs: The Only Sibling a Child Needs
Pinterest Pets

Share and Win!
Remember, I do a prize drawing each week. So like, comment or share to be entered to win a copy of THE GREAT GOOD SUMMER and some other treats. And thanks! #greatgoodsummer