Friday, January 15, 2016

cybils poetry finalists II

  https://pixabay.com/en/fruits-vegetables-artichoke-banana-155616/

Oops!  My series highlighting the 7 finalists for the 2015 Cybils Poetry Award is...not allowed!  As a new judge, I didn't realize that I shouldn't post anything at all.  So I've now removed the two offending posts, and we must all wait until the official winner announcement on February 14 to read reviews and critiques by me and the other judges.

However, one of the finalists put me in mind of some foodily nonsense I experimented with years ago....so I share them with you now, with thoughts of the growing seasons ahead!

  The Produce Cinquains



Kiwi:
alien green
inside, alien fuzz
outside—fruit that will never look
dewy.

Raisin:
shrinking darkly,
the grape adds its juices
to the cloud of vapor on the ho-
rizon.
Oranges:
thick skins heavy
with Florida sunshine,
so round that they resist being
arranged.


Mango:
no matter how
you slice it, the flesh around
its deceptively large stone gets
mangled.
Wax bean:
the name alone
is unappetizing—
not to mention how it looks fake,
lacks green.


Peaches:
all of August’s
sweet heat accumulates
until the fruit dips within our
reaches.
Carrot:
how can a thing
that grows in the dark be
as bright as the feathers of a
parrot?

Cabbage:
once a month
I buy one, thinking coleslaw;
three weeks later it goes in the
garbage.


~Heidi Mordhorst

all rights reserved


The Poetry Friday Roundup is with Keri today at Keri Recommends--go get a bite of poetry produce!

Friday, January 8, 2016

cybils poetry finalists I


Oops!  My series highlighting the 7 finalists for the 2015 Cybils Poetry Award is...not allowed!  As a new judge, I didn't realize that I shouldn't post anything at all.  So I've now removed the two offending posts, and we must all wait until the official winner announcement on February 14 to read reviews and critiques by me and the other judges.

However...the chilly nature of one of the finalists put me in mind of an own poem from Pumpkin Butterfly:  Poems from the Other Side of Nature.  I shared it with my students this week after a very interesting discussion about Epiphany in the Christian story and the question "What year was Jesus born?"


Epiphany Forest


On January 6th, when the presents
and carols and cookies are over,
there’s one last thing to do. 
Just as the Wise Men finally arrive
we undecorate, unlight, strip away the gold star.

On the morning of the 7th,
at the bare gray schoolyard
one by one our dying, drying trees,
still in their stands, are planted
among the cold poles of the equipment.

And on the 8th, when the
first snow finally arrives
we fly out onto the playground
faster than the flakes are falling
to marvel at our frosted Epiphany Forest.

©Heidi Mordhorst
                             

Please join Tabatha for some more of the muscle and grace of great poetry--she's got the Roundup at The Opposite of Indifference today.

Friday, January 1, 2016

permission to judge!


It's true--I'm a judgy person.  It can hardly be helped when it's a strong quarter of your personality.  This trait can be problematic in everyday life, but I'm diving into 2016 with a new project that positively requires me to be judgy! This year I am serving as a Round 2 Judge for the Cybils Poetry Awards--if you're not familiar with the Cybils, read all about them here.  The process is quite formal, and after a longer period of Round 1 review performed by panelists, I and my fellow Round 2 judges (Linda Baie, Rosemary Marotta, Diane Mayr and Laura Shovan with leadership from Jone MacCulloch) have about 6 weeks to choose a winner from the seven finalists....and here they are!


Product Details

HOUSE ARREST 
by K. A. Holt (Chronicle)

Product Details 
THE NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC BOOK OF NATURE POETRY
edited by J. Patrick Lewis (National Geographic Children’s Books)
 Product Details

FLUTTER AND HUM/ALETEO Y ZUMBIDO
by Julie Paschkis (Henry Holt)
Product Details

PAPER HEARTS
 by Meg Wiviott (Margaret K. McElderry Books)
Product Details

THE POPCORN ASTRONAUTS AND OTHER BITEABLE RHYMES
by Barbara Ruddel, illustrated by Joan Rankin ((Margaret K. McElderry Books)

Product Details 
FULL CICADA MOON 
by Marilyn Hilton (Dial Books)
Product Details
WINTER BEES AND OTHER POEMS OF THE COLD
 by Joyce Sidman, illustrated by Rick Allen (HMH Books for Young Readers) 
Congratulations to all the authors and their publishers! Here is my starting point: I own one of these books already; I know quite a bit about two more, and nothing at all about the other four. Oh what fun it is to look forward to deep reading (for which I have less time than I ought to these days. How is it that parenting teens is so much more time-consuming than parenting toddlers?)

The Poetry Roundup for the first day of the new year is with Mary Lee (and Franki, celebrating TEN years of blogging) at A Year of Reading. All the best to everyone is what we all--I hope we ALL--fervently wish for the world...simple kindness and deep respect.  Poetry is always a part of that.

Bonus video: President Obama tells Kid President how kids and adults can work together to change the world. It's a couple of years old now, but it applies just as well today.