playing poetry catch

...or Poetry for All, part two!  I'm home again home again jiggety jig from Boyds Mills, well-fed and with a mind buzzing and exhausted from all the great poetry action.  I'd like to finish my effort to orient some of my fellow conferees in the Kidlitosphere, where I but dabble compared to some of you regular Poetry Friday participants.

We all go to Sylvia Vardell, one of the great children's poetry promoters, for the lowdown (or more like the highup) on what's happening here and abroad and for talk about new voices.  Her blog is Poetry for Children and she has many publications for practitioners and aficionados alike, besides being one-half of the Dynamic Duo Sylvia Vardell and Janet Wong, who have ventured fearlessly into e-book publishing in support of poetry for children.  You can always find something inspiring at Amy Ludwig Vanderwater's blogs, the Poem Farm and Sharing Our Notebooks.

Among the participants at the workshop, quite a few of us have useful and interesting blogs or websites where we'll be able to continue to connect.  In the work-and-play spirit of Poetry for All, I share this poem brought to us by new-to-me poet Marjorie Maddox, who served as guest faculty.  We were definitely not left uncoached.

Catch

Two boys uncoached are tossing a poem together,
Overhand, underhand, backhand, sleight of hand, everyhand,
Teasing with attitudes, latitudes, interludes, altitudes,
High, make him fly off the ground for it, low, make him stoop,
Make him scoop it up, make him as-almost-as possible miss it,
Fast, let him sting from it, now, now fool him slowly,
Anything, everything tricky, risky, nonchalant,
Anything under the sun to outwit the prosy,
Over the tree and the long sweet cadence down,
Over his head, make him scramble to pick up the meaning,
And now, like a posy, a pretty one plump in his hands.

Robert Francis

Here are links to all the folks--some already listed in the previous post--at our workshop this week whose  "online presence" is easy to get to.  Pardon if I have missed someone!

Cory Corrado doesn't have her own site or blog, but David Harrison has highlighted her work on his blog, Connecting the Dots.

Julie Hedlund blogs regularly and has some reflections on the welcome (wet) silence we all experienced in Boyds Mills at this post. ...simple, concrete and lovely.

I don't find a blog or website for Bill Johnson, but please enjoy this nice profile of him in a Pennsylvania magazine's round-up of local children's authors!  He gave me one of the nicest gifts of the week--a copy of Rebecca Kai Dotlich's Bella and Bean.  Thanks, Bill.

I enjoyed several conversations with Buffy (I just typed "Buggy"!) Silverman about her science writing in many forms; here's her website and I look forward to reading her poetry collection-in-progress!

Hannah Ruth Wilde uses facebook to connect and can also be found at JacketFlap. 

Cindi Kennaley is available in several different flavors--find your way to a great photo of her with the Spinellis and an atmospheric Boyds Mills poem here!

Jeanne Poland's blog is rich and regular and I'm shocked to realize I've never visited in the whole year I've known her!  Jeanne also has lots of beautiful, interesting things to look at at her Quicksilver Studios site, too.

Rebecca Shoniker's site is full of the same energy she brought to Boyds Mills--enjoy!

I'm sure we'll all help each other find the online places that will support and inspire our writing lives.  Today Katya is rounding up the Poetry Friday posts at Write. Sketch. Repeat.  Hope to see you there!