I traveled by bus to Houston today with my daughter and her entire 6th grade.
It was a long and noisy trip, but also a heavy one — we were visiting the Holocaust Museum there.
The students were amazing in the museum — quiet, wide-open, receptive, empathic.
It was a lot to take in, even for the adults in the group, and they did so beautifully.
So, at the end of the day when morning rain had cleared and the doors swung open, it was no wonder that the kids exploded into a nearby park like a flock of birds. It was a sweet and beautiful thing…
Haiku 2
Hundreds of students
School's out and the rain's stopped
Here's spring's candy cane!
April!
Spring!
My birthday month!
My sweetheart's birthday month!
And — ta da — National Poetry Month!
Each year I love it and each year I celebrate by writing and sharing a haiku every single day of the month.
This year is no exception — and what better reason to re-invigorate my sorry and neglected blog?
For the next month you'll find my haiku here, and/or on my facebook, and/or via my Twitter account.
And I'd like YOU to keep me company by writing haiku of your own. You can share yours in the comments here or on facebook, or with your own tweets. And I just may feature some of them in my occasional wrap-up posts along the way! Plus, at the end of the month, guess what? Prizes! So, let me know if you're in and then get on with it! Can't wait to read what you come up with…
Here's mine:
Haiku 1
Not a breath of wind
Kites hang hopeful in the tree
We all yearn for flight
It's been a good long while since I've posted here, but I'm so excited to share that my newest picture book releases today!
THINK BIG, illustrated by the vivid and imaginative Vanessa Brantley Newton, is a celebration of all things art. And when I say all things I mean all things.
If you want to know more about the how's and why's of that, here's a guest post I did at Cynsations today, thanks to the graciousness of author extraordinaire Cynthia Leitich Smith!
(And you should definitely pop over there if you'd like a copy of THINK BIG because there's a giveway!!! Wahoo!)
And if you'd like to know what the kind folks at Kirkus think of the book, you can have a look here. (That mention of Glee is, surely, the closest I'll ever get to having a TV show of my own so yay for that!)
But, blah blah blah and linkety link. What I REALLY want to say is this. It is summer. There are kids on vacation all over, at least, the northern hemisphere. And there is a lot of competition for their attention. Video games, blockbuster matinees, swimming and sleeping in and reading for pleasure. There are also just an endless array of fun, creative, self-inspired artistic opportunities at their fingertips.
Maybe they'll make a pinata! Or learn how to finger-knit! Or write and direct and perform a play (like the truly renown Mystery at Palm Hotel I did with my cousins about 35 years ago).
Whatever it is, I hope you'll let them make a mess, make some noise and THINK BIG!!!
Well, it's been awhile since my beloved Poetry Sisters and I have banded together to make merry. Life, as you know, interferes. But as we chatted during National Poetry Month, we thought of an easy way to rectify that: haiku!
We worked together on a renku — a string of haiku and 2-lined stanzas — linked seasonally and semantically. Andromeda debuted it on her blog this morning and I'm going to share it here, too:
The Poetry Sisters' Daisy Chain
fall leaf in April wearing last season's fashions– shunned by the green crowd lps
On Friday, I left home at 5:00 a.m., drove to Houston,
did a full day's school visit and drove home again.
It was not the most haiku-ish day, if you know what I mean.
Which is why my piece for that day is about … coffee.
Haiku 27
4/27/2012
First sip burns bitter
and still I take another.
Black sky grows milky.
And then it was the weekend.
I just love weekends.
And spring break.
And summer break.
I would rather have my kids knocking around here a bit than rushing off every morning like the world's a'fire.
Haiku 28
4/28/2012
A bare foot dangles,
feather duvets swell, settle.
Who says it's morning?
Haiku 29
4/29/2012
girl with basketball
dad with good time on his hands
unbeatable team
And today?
Today is Monday, in case you hadn't heard….
Haiku 30
4/30/2012
like swimming cross-wise
each stroke long, effortful
until I give in
Oh, blow me down. We have had a true braided-string of crazy at our house this past week. Some biggish hurdles, some little Murphy's Law-type stuff. But all put together in one big pile, sheesh, it was enough to make me a little dizzy.
So, one casualty has been my blogged haikus. Partly because we were down a computer (that was one of the Murphy's Law-type issues) and partly because I just could not make the time to make it happen.
BUT. The good news??? I still wrote a haiku each and every day in the notebook next to my bed and I'm going to post them all now. And I have high, high hopes that this next week will go as planned, one haiku at a time.
Haiku 18 4/18/2012
Conjugating verbs Thinning out the garden plot What goes next to what?
Haiku 19 4/19/2012
Running in the dark Each step is an act of faith The trail trips me up
Haiku 20 4/20/2012
12-day old baby downy head against my neck fixes everything
Haiku 21 4/21/2012
Is this a cliche: "a tulip like a girl's skirt" even if it's true?
Haiku 22 4/22/2012
Most things are better in a boat, on the water Spider thinks so, too
Haiku 23 4/23/2012
Cat in the garden The wind shakes the old oak clean Cat in the catkins
Haiku 24 4/24/2012
Wind chimes, crisp blue sky — Is there a wrong side of bed? The squirrel still complains.
