Welcome to

RhyPiBoMo 2015 Day 13

Janet Wong

 

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Today’s guest blogger is an attorney turned author/editor and has been successful in all arenas! She encourages authors to write poetry for the 21st century. She and author Sylvia Vardell’s collaborations through Pomelo Books has resulted in The Poetry Friday Anthology Series. These are hearty books full of glorious, spectacular poems by hundreds of talented contributing authors. The most recent release, THE POETRY FRIDAY ANTHOLOGY FOR CELEBRATIONS, is full of magic and interesting tidbits about well known and less known holiday celebrations. It is one you will want to add to your collection!

I am SO happy to introduce

Janet Wong.

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Find Your Voice in an Anthology

Find your voice, people say. Your voice, as if you have only one. The problem with most writers is that we have several voices shouting in our heads. The silly voice? The sad voice? Dr. Seuss or Sylvia Plath? Which one to choose?

For a writer who is starting a new project—any kind of writer and any kind of project—I suggest finding a voice in an anthology. Spend five minutes flipping through a thick book of poems quickly, as if you were scanning the room at a cocktail party to decide which group to join.

Any of the four books in The Poetry Friday Anthology series would be ideal for this purpose: the original book, The Poetry Friday Anthology for Middle School, The Poetry Friday Anthology for Science, or the brand-new addition, The Poetry Friday Anthology for Celebrations. Together, these books contain more than 700 poems by nearly 150 poets, including Jack Prelutsky, J. Patrick Lewis, Joyce Sidman, Margarita Engle, Naomi Shihab Nye, Pat Mora, Linda Sue Park, Nikki Grimes, Joseph Bruchac, and more. Please take a minute to visit PomeloBooks.com to learn about this series that Sylvia Vardell and I have created. If you decide to buy one of these titles, you can easily pass it along to a teacher or librarian friend who will thank you for the gift, guaranteed.

Another great anthology for this purpose—and one that I’ll use to illustrate my point—is J. Patrick Lewis’s National Geographic Book of Animal Poetry. I flipped it open just now and landed on pages 86 and 87—Jane Yolen’s “Anemone” and David McCord’s “The Starfish”—two very different poems. If you have this book, open it up and take a look. If you don’t have it, get to a library!

Yolen packs her poem with repetition, rhyme, and alliteration in a serious and sophisticated tone. This is Jacques Cousteau at your party—wow!—“a lifetime / On shifting sea-soft sands.” He is sipping cognac as he describes an anemone to a trio of admirers.

McCord, on the other hand, is the funny old “uncle” consoling the 7-year-old who has been spying on the party in her pajamas. “Would you rather be a starfish / Or an out-beyond-the-bar fish?” he whispers with Bailey’s breath. Gee, I don’t know. An “out-beyond-the-bar fish,” I guess?

I would be happy to join either Yolen or McCord, but let me see who else is in the room. . .

On page 51 of the National Geographic Book of Animal Poetry, there is a poem by A.R. Ammons (“Spruce Woods”) facing one by Lilian Moore (“Squirrel Forgets”). The Ammons poem is spare, observing, reflective; he’s the smart loner professor wedged in the corner, drinking a cup of hot water with lemon. I know I could learn a lot from you, Mr. Ammons, but . . . Lilian is tugging at my vest. “Where / where / where / did I bury / that nut,” she’s asking everyone in the room, one by one. Little Lilian’s insistent voice might end up driving me crazy, but her simple chatter is fresh, inviting, and where my mind is “at” right now. OK, Lilian, let’s sit “criss-cross applesauce” on the floor. You can ask lots of questions and, yes, we can drink Orangina. We’ll munch potato chips, too—of course! Because no matter who you decide to be today, some things never change.

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About Janet:

Janet Wong is a graduate of Yale Law School and a former lawyer who switched careers and became a children’s poet. Her dramatic career change has been featured on The Oprah Winfrey Show and other shows. She is the author of 30 books for children and teens on a wide variety of subjects and produces, with her collaborator Sylvia Vardell, The Poetry Friday Anthology series (PomeloBooks.com).

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 Pomelo Books  Buy Here

RhyPiBoMo 2015 Optional Writing Prompt: 13

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This is NOT part of the pledge. It is an option for a writing exercise for those interested. You will not publically share this as part of RhyPiBoMo but may keep a journal of your writing this month for your own review.

Today’s writing prompt is to write a list of themes that you could write poems for to submit as a collection for an anthology.

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It’s “Friday Favorites” day again!

Today is the day that I ask you to choose one of the rhyming picture books that you read this week as part of the challenge and share it with the world. Post a picture of it on social media (Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Pinterest, etc.) and a link to the authors blog, a link to a book store or a link to anywhere people can find it and buy it. This is the day we celebrate all the wonderful rhyming picture books out in the world already! These authors are our heroes and heroines. We should celebrate the hard work it took them to get to publication! We should buy these books ourselves if we can and share them with friends and family.

Now is the time to promote great rhyme!

I was thrilled that so many of you shared your favorite rhyming picture books last Friday! Thank you! See if we can post even more today!

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What if you are not on social media?

That is no problem. Just share titles with friends, family, teachers, librarians, book store owners…anyone who will listen. Word of mouth is very powerful! Go to a book store and ask for a specific title. If they don’t have it ask them to order it. You can certainly do our part without social media!

It would be great if you would also add the link to my blog so folks can see what we are doing here.

Here’s the link:

https://angiekarcher.wordpress.com/2015/04/02/rhypibomo-2015-day-2-nikki-grimes/?preview=true&preview_id=3722&preview_nonce=51465bf1a5&post_format=aside

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Rhyming Party!

What’s a Rhyming Party you ask?

It’s a party in our RhyPiBoMo Facebook group where I quiz the attendees about past blog post information and all involved

MUST…respond in rhyme!

It’s silly, fast-paced fun and one lucky partier will win

a Scholarship for my Writing in Rhyme to WOW! Class!!!

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Golden Quill Poetry Contest

The Golden Quill Poetry Contest is open for submissions.

The deadline is April 25th midnight Central Time.

And…did I mention the prizes?

1st place – A Manuscript Critique by Sudipta Bardhan-Quallen

2nd place – A Scholarship for Non-Fiction Archeology by Kristen Fulton

3rd place – A Scholarship for Pacing Picture Books to WOW! Class by Agent Jodell Sadler

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PLEASE make sure you read the contest rules and follow them exactly. Unfortunately, due to the number of poems we will receive, a poem will be disqualified if it does not follow the guidelines exactly. This is only fair to those who did follow the rules and is good practice for us as writers because editors expect those guidelines to be followed to the letter.

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Contest Rules:

First and Last name included in the body of the email at the top left

Email address included in the body of the email at the top left

Phone number – top left

Space down 5 spaces

The Theme is: Freedom

Title of poem – centered with no by line or name here

8 line limit

Must be a rhyming poem

You will be judged on clever title, rhyme scheme, rhythm, scansion, perfect rhyming words, internal rhyme, alliteration, consonance, assonance, onomatopoeia, and clever ending.

Submit poems to

Angiekarcherrpbm@gmail.com

by April 25th midnight central time

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Do you enjoy writing rhyming picture books?

Do you find rhyme challenging?

Do you want to pep up your prose with poetic techniques?

Then this is the class for you!

Writing in Rhyme to WOW! is a 4 week course,

M-F with daily lessons, writing prompts, rhyme journaling, creating tools you will use, group poetry readings, webinars and critique groups, and a one-on-one webinar critique with Angie.

Each class begins on the first Monday of the month and the weekly group webinars are on Thursdays at 8:00 p.m. Central Standard Time, (Chicago Time) or at a time that best suits the group due to time zones of those involved.

There is only 1 spot left in May!

I am beginning to sign people up for June and July!

If you register now for June or July, I will give you the $99.00 price!

Contact Angie with questions.

Sign up now before the classes are full!

Click here for more information!

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Need a critique?

Angie is now offering

rhyming picture book and poetry manuscript critiques.

She offers a One Time critique or a Twice Look critique.

See the tab above or click here for more information.

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RhyPiBoMo Gift Shop is Open!

http://www.cafepress.com/rhypibomogiftshop

Please stop by and see what’s available this year. There are notebooks, mugs, buttons and more. All proceeds will go to WE NEED DIVERSE BOOKS!

Thank you Tanja Bauerle for these gorgeous images!!!

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Official RhyPiBoMo 2015 Registration ended on April 8th.

If you are not officially registered you will not be able to participate in the Golden Quill Poetry Contest, in Rhyming Critique Groups or will not be eligible for daily prizes.

To see if you registered in time go to the Master Registration List on the drop down menu under the RhyPiBoMo Blog tab above.

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Please comment below. You MUST add your FIRST and LAST names

to be eligible for today’s prize!

Welcome to

RhyPiBoMo 2015 Day 12

Iza Trapani

 

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 Today’s guest blogger is a talented artist and author who has a very successful series of books in rhyme…Nursery Rhymes!

I will refrain from getting on my nursery rhyme soap box today but let’s suffice it to say, I am a big advocate of these simple, yet very powerful language development tools! As a former kindergarten teacher and developmental therapist, I want writers to know how truly important reading and having repetitive, rhyming text is to helping a child learn to talk and to read. Iza tells that she was given Mother Goose Nursery Rhymes as a child and these helped her learn English…very powerful indeed!

I am thrilled to have another nursery rhyme advocate

on board this rhyming train!

I gladly introduce

Iza Trapani.

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Editing and Revision

By the time we submit our manuscript to an editor, we have worked and reworked it many times. We have carefully chosen our words, took out unnecessary ones, made sure that  the story moves forward from page to page. If it’s written in rhyme, we have paid strict attention to the rhythm and meter; we’ve read it out loud many times to make sure it flows (read prose aloud too), and we’ve also had others read it, because we poets are notorious in our ability to make our uneven rhymes sound “good.”  We’ve removed forced rhymes, smoothed out awkward spots and made sure our words sing. Generally, we feel satisfied with the story, because we know we have done our best.

And yet, after all that work, an editor will still find problem areas.

When I first started writing children’s books, like many beginners, I was very attached to my words and my initial responses to editors’ comments were defensive. I got over that in a hurry. I have learned that another set of eyes and ears is essential. When I go back to my early stories that I had once considered “precious”, I want to gag and run out of the room. Time is a great editor.

But so are professionals. Without question, my manuscripts are much improved after my editor and I have reworked them together. And I adore the process! Yes, it involves “killing my darlings”- throwing out  words and lines I may love- words and lines that may be strong and lyrical, but don’t work in a particular story. Yes, it can be a struggle to find replacement lines. And yes, sometimes a close to complete revamp is needed. Nonetheless, I find the process invigorating and satisfying.

Sometimes the edits are minimal. Sometimes not. The edit on my most recent manuscript, an extension of the nursery rhyme, OLD KING COLE,  was quite a challenge. Here is the traditional verse:

Old King Cole was a merry old soul,
And a merry old soul was he.
He called for his pipe, and he called for his bowl,
And he called for his fiddlers three.

The problem was that my editor and I didn’t realize we each knew different melodies for the rhyme. The one she knew was a lively, staccato tune (and I later found out- the more popular one). The one I knew was a more melodic, minor tune.

The last line of the verse caused the most problems. In singing the verses, (which we do with all my nursery rhyme books – in addition to reading aloud) she was pronouncing fiddlers with three syllables as in the melody she knew, whereas I was pronouncing it with an arpeggiated four, as in the melody I knew.

Eventually we discovered we had different tunes in our heads, and then we agreed on using the more popular one. After that, the editing went much smoother.

Still, this was a hard rhyme to adapt. It has internal rhymes and three spots with the same rhyming sound, and it isn’t  always easy to find three words with the same sound that will work in context (especially when writing for children.) Then, of course, there was that troublesome last line.

Here are some of my edits of the second stanza:

(1st draft)
“Welcome all to the Cole Castle Ball!
Hear my fiddlers play us a tune.
We’ll frolic and dance in the grand royal hall
On this fine and festive afternoon.”

I’ve been writing rhyming books for over twenty years, but some of my first drafts are awful. Like this first one. Ugh!

(2nd draft)
“Welcome all to the Cole Castle Ball!
Come listen to my fiddlers play.
Let us romp and dance in the royal hall
On this bright and very merry day.”

Replacing  frolic with romp and taking out grand was an improvement, but not there yet. The stresses are in the wrong places.

(3rd draft)
“Welcome all to the annual Ball,”
Said the king to the guests within
“We’ll romp and we’ll dance in the royal hall.
Let the fun and music now begin.”

I improved the meter in the 3rd line. I also realized that I should have a dialogue tag: Said the king to the guests within. We didn’t like annual Ball, and the fourth line is awkward.

(4th draft)
“Welcome all to the King Cole Ball,”
Said the king to the guests within.
“We’ll romp and we’ll dance in the royal hall.
Let the tunes and merriment begin.”

My editor came up with King Cole Ball which I initially resisted. It was a bit of a tongue-twister and lacked a  syllable but it flowed better than Cole Castle Ball and was an improvement over annual Ball. Now, I really like it. It’s playful. Up to this point, I was still stretching  fiddlers into 4 syllables. This fourth line using merriment was better than in the 3rd draft, but still problematic for my editor- which is why I kept changing that line. Finally, I decided to pronounce fiddlers with two syllables- as it should have been from the beginning! I had resisted it because of the print of the tune in my head. Here’s the final draft:

“Welcome all to the King Cole Ball,”
Said the king to the guests within.
“We’ll romp and we’ll dance in the royal hall.
Let the tunes and the fun begin.”

With Let the tunes and the fun begin I established that fiddlers is pronounced with two syllables and it matches the traditional line to a tee. Thinking of fiddlers as as three or four syllables just created havoc in each of the fourth lines. The syllables were right but the lines didn’t flow. Fid-di-lers rolls off the tongue nicely, but other words are not so cooperative, and the lines ended up awkward.

The crux of the matter, rather than counting every syllable, is to maintain the proper pulse and to choose words that make the lines flow- both in reading and singing. And if you’re editing a song, make sure you and your editor know the same melody!

Here is another example of reducing syllables while maintaining the proper pulse from my book, Row, Row Row Your Boat.  Here’s the traditional verse:

Row, row row your boat
Gently down the stream.
Merrily, merrily, merrily, merrily,
Life is but a dream

The 3rd line has 12 syllables. I reduced mine to 8 and it works nicely:

Row row row your boat
Row with all your might
Rocking, bashing, water splashing
Better hold on tight!

I also took the liberty of using gerunds rather than adverbs- to add action: I only had four short lines in which to describe the scenes so I had to optimize them. Here are a few more examples of that shortened 3rd line:

raining, hailing, wind is wailing
beavers damming, logging, jamming
sunshine glowing, off and rowing

The constraints of rhyme are always challenging. It’s a lot of work. But it’s also rewarding to make those edits and end up with a polished manuscript. Remember- there’s always a way to say it differently. Happy revising!

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About Iza:

When Iza Trapani immigrated to America from Poland when she was seven years old, her relatives gave her a Mother Goose collection. Little did she know, as she was learning English through the rhymes, that someday she would be retelling them in picture books. Iza is the author and illustrator of a best- selling series of nursery rhyme extensions, in which she starts with the traditional verse then adds additional stanzas to create a story. Among her titles are The Itsy  Bitsy Spider (which was featured on PBS Storytime), Row Row Row Your Boat, Froggie Went A-Courtin’, The Bear Went Over the Mountain and many more. Her books have received the IRA/CBC Children’s Choice Awards, Bank Street Best Books of the Year,  ABA Pick of the Lists and the Oppenheim Toy Portolio Gold Book Awards. Most importantly, her books are widely used in schools and libraries to help children learn to read. Iza’s 24th book, Old King Cole,  will be released on August 4th, 2015 and she has two more titles in the works for 2016 and 2017 publication.

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      Buy Here                   Buy Here

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Iza’s Website

Iza’s Blog

Like me on Facebook

Follow me on twitter

RhyPiBoMo 2015 Optional Writing Prompt: 12

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This is NOT part of the pledge. It is an option for a writing exercise for those interested. You will not publically share this as part of RhyPiBoMo but may keep a journal of your writing this month for your own review.

Today’s writing prompt is to write your own version of your favorite nursery rhyme.

For example:

Hickory Dickory Dock

the cat ran up the clock.

He chased the mouse

around the house.

Hickory Dickory Dock.

Hickory Dickory Duck

the cat was out of luck.

The mouse, you see

was gone by three.

Hickory Dickory Duck.

© 2015 Angie Karcher

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Rhyming Party!

What’s a Rhyming Party you ask?

It’s a party in our RhyPiBoMo Facebook group where I quiz the attendees about past blog post information and all involved

MUST…respond in rhyme!

It’s silly, fast-paced fun and one lucky partier will win

a Scholarship for my Writing in Rhyme to WOW! Class!!!

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Golden Quill Poetry Contest

The Golden Quill Poetry Contest is open for submissions.

The deadline is April 25th midnight Central Time.

And…did I mention the prizes?

1st place – A Manuscript Critique by Sudipta Bardhan-Quallen

2nd place – A Scholarship for Non-Fiction Archeology by Kristen Fulton

3rd place – A Scholarship for Pacing Picture Books to WOW! Class by Agent Jodell Sadler

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PLEASE make sure you read the contest rules and follow them exactly. Unfortunately, due to the number of poems we will receive, a poem will be disqualified if it does not follow the guidelines exactly. This is only fair to those who did follow the rules and is good practice for us as writers because editors expect those guidelines to be followed to the letter.

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Contest Rules:

First and Last name included in the body of the email at the top left

Email address included in the body of the email at the top left

Phone number – top left

Space down 5 spaces

The Theme is: Freedom

Title of poem – centered with no by line or name here

8 line limit

Must be a rhyming poem

You will be judged on clever title, rhyme scheme, rhythm, scansion, perfect rhyming words, internal rhyme, alliteration, consonance, assonance, onomatopoeia, and clever ending.

Submit poems to

Angiekarcherrpbm@gmail.com

by April 25th midnight central time

Do you enjoy writing rhyming picture books?

Do you find rhyme challenging?

Do you want to pep up your prose with poetic techniques?

Then this is the class for you!

Writing in Rhyme to WOW! is a 4 week course,

M-F with daily lessons, writing prompts, rhyme journaling, creating tools you will use, group poetry readings, webinars and critique groups, and a one-on-one webinar critique with Angie.

Each class begins on the first Monday of the month and the weekly group webinars are on Thursdays at 8:00 p.m. Central Standard Time, (Chicago Time) or at a time that best suits the group due to time zones of those involved.

There is only 1 spot left in May!

I am beginning to sign people up for June and July!

If you register now for June or July, I will give you the $99.00 price!

Contact Angie with questions.

Sign up now before the classes are full!

Click here for more information!

Need a critique?

Angie is now offering

rhyming picture book and poetry manuscript critiques.

She offers a One Time critique or a Twice Look critique.

See the tab above or click here for more information.

*A

Official RhyPiBoMo 2015 Registration ended on April 8th.

If you are not officially registered you will not be able to participate in the Golden Quill Poetry Contest, in Rhyming Critique Groups or will not be eligible for daily prizes.

To see if you registered in time go to the Master Registration List on the drop down menu under the RhyPiBoMo Blog tab above.

*

Please comment below. You MUST add your FIRST and LAST names

to be eligible for today’s prize!

Welcome to

RhyPiBoMo 2015 Day 11

Pat Zietlow Miller

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Today’s guest blogger is a writer that is on fire! Not unlike the Hunger Games heroine…trust me, when you get to the bottom of this post and see all the books she has coming out in 2015, 2016 and 2017 you will want to be Pat Miller! I love her picture book SOPHIE’S SQUASH and can’t wait to own the rest. There is something so magical about these heartwarming themes that her books have that make you want to go back and read them again and again. She has obviously figured out the magic potion to writing for kids and I am happy to have her sprinkle some of that

magic on all of us today!

I am pleased

to introduce

Pat Zietlow Miller

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Now is the Time for Humorous Rhyme

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I’m in awe of well-done rhyming picture books. When the rhyme and plot and emotional arc are spot on, they are a work of art. In fact, when I read books like ALL THE WORLD, HURRY DOWN TO DERRY FAIR, BLUE ON BLUE and ONCE UPON A MEMORY, I hold them near to my heart.

Books like this were among the ones that inspired me to try my own hand at rhyming. I remember thinking, “Well, if it doesn’t work, I don’t have to show it to anyone.” And then, I spent months tapping the beat and counting syllables and reading my work out loud, trying to make things just as smooth and perfect as possible.

I know I didn’t achieve perfection, but I did sell two rhyming picture books – WHEREVER YOU GO (coming April 21 from Little, Brown) and SHARING THE BREAD: AN OLD-FASHIONED THANKSGIVING STORY (coming Aug. 25 from Schwartz & Wade).

But one thing I have not yet attempted, much less mastered, is the art of a humorous rhyming picture book. Because if you can write awesome, heart-holding rhyme and also be funny, you are golden. Absolutely golden.

So let’s look at an author who glitters brightly, Jill Esbaum.
Jill has written several funny rhyming picture books – ESTELLE TAKES A BATH and TOM’S TWEET come to mind. I strongly suggest you read them at the first available opportunity. But today, we’re going to talk about I AM COW, HEAR ME MOO, which was published in 2014 by Dial Books.
It’s the story of a cow named Nadine who brags that she’s not scared of anything. When her friends call her bluff, Nadine finds herself in the woods at night. And she’s surprised to find it’s fascinating. Not scary at all, until she gets overconfident, loses her friends, thinks something is chasing her and runs straight off a cliff.

Here’s what makes this book a rhyming success story:

Plot

If your rhyming book is telling a story (as opposed to being a lyrical poem) it needs to have a plot just as strong as non-rhyming books. That means an initial incident, rising action, climax, falling action and denouement. Jill’s book delivers.

Nadine and her friends explore the scary woods, get lost in a cave, discover bones, race through the woods, run right off a cliff and land in a pond before finally stumbling home.
A good way to see if your story has a plot is to write it out in prose. Yes, that takes extra time, but it’s worth it. Read your prose version and see if there’s enough action and intrigue to sustain a reader. If there isn’t, you have work to do.

Another tip is to write a one-sentence summary of each of your stanzas. Then read your summary sentences in order. Do a lot of them sound the same? Are they very vague and general? If so, you need to amp up your plot. Also, read your one-sentence summaries to see if your plot happens in the right order. It’s easy to get your stanzas out of order.

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Word choice

There’s a lot of cow humor in Jill’s rhyme. Nadine is so scared her milk curdles. Her friends tell her to “Moooove it!” and when Nadine is finally home safely she “fell on her brisket and kissed the barn floor.” Make no mistake, working in the humor into the story’s meter and rhyme scheme is no small feat.

Jill also slyly pokes fun at Nadine’s overconfidence:
“Not lightning?” asked Starla. “Loud noises? A rat?”
“I’m not scared,” Nadine boasted, “of any of that.”
“The woods?” asked Annette. “Cause that place scares me stiff.”
“Not me,” bragged Nadine with a proud little sniff.

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Of course, we come to find out Nadine may not have been completely truthful.
The other awesome thing about Jill’s word choice is how well her verse flow. It reads very conversationally. The rhyme is so good, you almost forget it rhymes. You never have to read it a certain way to make it sound right.

I know Jill, and sometimes, I can hear her voice when I read her words. Here are two of my favorite stanzas that show inspired word choices that still read seamlessly and are spot-on with the meter.

Like a rocket, she shot over brambles and bumps,
galumphed over deadfalls and rotted-out stumps.
She thundered through thickets, deep gullies, tight squeezes,
and ragweed that triggered spectacular sneezes.

And …

She took her sweet time checking out every nook.
This cranny? That corner? Nadine had to look.
Her tour of the cave-den was almost complete …
when a small pile of bones made her heart skip a beat.
“Ta-da!” Nadine sang. “Here I am, girls. Let’s go.”
Were her friends waiting there where she’d left them?
Um, no.

Now, writing like this is not something you can crank out without a lot of work.
Les Paul, a songwriter who helped pioneer the solid-body electric guitar, once said, “You can’t go to the store and buy a good ear and rhythm.” This is true. Some people have more of natural gift for how words sound than others. And Jill is certainly part of that group.

But anyone can get better by reading good rhyme, understanding why it works and then working to make their own as good as possible. So read on, write on and then … rhyme on.

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About Pat:
Pat Zietlow Miller is the author of SOPHIE’S SQUASH (which does not rhyme) and WHEREVER YOU GO (which does). She’s won the Golden Kite Award and received the Ezra Jack Keats New Writer Honor and the Charlotte Zolotow Honor. Pat has eight books under contact, two of which rhyme. You can learn more about her at http://www.patzietlowmiller.com.

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Look at ALL these books!

SOPHIE’S SQUASH from Schwartz & Wade, available now

WHEREVER YOU GO coming from Little, Brown, April 21, 2015

SHARING THE BREAD coming from Schwartz & Wade, August 2015

SOPHIE’S SEEDS, coming from Schwartz & Wade fall 2016

THE QUICKEST KID IN CLARKSVILLE coming from Chronicle in 2016

MY BROTHER, THE DUCK, coming from Chronicle in 2017

WIDE-AWAKE BEAR coming from HarperCollins in 2017

BE KIND, coming from Roaring Book in 2017

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          BUY HERE                   BUY HERE                      BUY HERE

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Twitter: @PatZMiller

Website

Golden Kite speech

RhyPiBoMo 2015 Optional Writing Prompt: 11

*
This is NOT part of the pledge. It is an option for a writing exercise for those interested. You will not publically share this as part of RhyPiBoMo but may keep a journal of your writing this month for your own review.

Today’s writing prompt is to write a humorous rhyming poem.

*For example:

Words Out-Going

The web that was spun by the spider so free,
was hung in a corner, not from sea to sea.

The mouse that ran through my house, oh, so quick,
he didn’t have buttons on top that you click.

The home that I knew was where I slept at night,
not the page that comes up with icons at right.

A snail and the mail were two separate things.
Now it’s something the mail lady brings.

When I was printing-on-line while at school,
my handwriting followed every rule.

The keyboard played music I practiced each day,
and surfing was done on a wave with a spray.

“Yahoo” I yelled, sledding down slopes so slick.
A virus was what made me puke and feel sick.

Software and boots were pjs and shoes.
A port was for docking the boat on a cruise.

Mosquitoes left mega bytes on both of my legs.
The menu I liked was with bacon and eggs.

Troubleshooting meant you had really bad aim,
and cd’s were letters which after B came.

The desktop I knew was piled high with my stuff,
and files were for filing a nail that was rough.

The Sunday drive we took every week,
was the chat that we had; we did actually speak!

I don’t know when everything got so confused.
The language I knew is forever abused.

These words will never have meanings the same.
I suspect that this thing with the screen is to blame.

© 2015 Angie Karcher

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Golden Quill Poetry Contest

The Golden Quill Poetry Contest will accept entries STARTING April 13th and the deadline is April 25th midnight Central Time.

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PLEASE make sure you read the contest rules and follow them exactly. Unfortunately, due to the number of poems we will receive, a poem will be disqualified if it does not follow the guidelines exactly. This is only fair to those who did follow the rules and is good practice for us as writers because editors expect those guidelines to be followed to the letter.

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Contest Rules:

First and Last name included in the body of the email at the top left

Email address included in the body of the email at the top left

Phone number – top left

Space down 5 spaces

The Theme is: Freedom

Title of poem – centered with no by line or name here

8 line limit

Must be a rhyming poem

You will be judged on clever title, rhyme scheme, rhythm, scansion, perfect rhyming words, internal rhyme, alliteration, consonance, assonance, onomatopoeia, and clever ending.

Submit poems to

Angiekarcherrpbm@gmail.com

by April 25th midnight central time

Do you enjoy writing rhyming picture books?

Do you find rhyme challenging?

Do you want to pep up your prose with poetic techniques?

Then this is the class for you!

Writing in Rhyme to WOW! is a 4 week course,

M-F with daily lessons, writing prompts, rhyme journaling, creating tools you will use, group poetry readings, webinars and critique groups, and a one-on-one webinar critique with Angie.

Each class begins on the first Monday of the month and the weekly group webinars are on Thursdays at 8:00 p.m. Central Standard Time, (Chicago Time) or at a time that best suits the group due to time zones of those involved.

There are only 2 spots left in May!

I am beginning to sign people up for June and July!

Contact Angie with questions.

Sign up now before the classes are full!

Click here for more information!

Need a critique?

Angie is now offering

rhyming picture book and poetry manuscript critiques.

She offers a One Time critique or a Twice Look critique.

See the tab above or click here for more information.

*A

Official RhyPiBoMo 2015 Registration ended on April 8th.

If you are not officially registered you will not be able to participate in the Golden Quill Poetry Contest, in Rhyming Critique Groups or will not be eligible for daily prizes.

To see if you registered in time go to the Master Registration List on the drop down menu under the RhyPiBoMo Blog tab above.

*

Please comment below. You MUST add your FIRST and LAST names

to be eligible for today’s prize!

Welcome to

RhyPiBoMo 2015 Day 10

Kristen Remenar

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Today’s guest blogger is a librarian, a national speaker on literacy, an author and is married to a well-known and very talented illustrator. She has all her literary bases covered! I have been virtual friends with her for a long time and hopefully someday soon we will connect in person as we only live one state apart. I am so excited about her debut rhyming picture book, GROUNDHOG’S DILEMMA, coming out in December.

It is my pleasure to introduce

Kristen Remenar.

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Alliteration Adds Allure!

by Kristen Remenar

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Why do we say “Roses are red, violets are blue, sugar is sweet and so are you?” Apples are red. Honey is sweet, and so is candy, but substituting these words into the poem, even though the syllables fit, doesn’t work as well. The alliteration of “roses are red” and “sugar is sweet” adds something interesting to the rhyme. The rule “always avoid alliteration” does not apply to poetry for children. Playful alliteration and repetition of certain sounds can add another level of delight to a rhyming book. Study these masters to see how it’s done:

from Go, Go, Grapes! A Fruit Chant by April Pulley Sayre:

“Pineapple. Pomegranate.
Take your pick.
Yell for yumminess:
Kiwis – quick!”

from Chicken Soup with Rice: A Book of Months by Maurice Sendak:

“In January
it’s so nice
while slipping
on the sliding ice
to sip hot chicken soup
with rice.
Sipping once
sipping twice
sipping chicken soup
with rice.”

from The Piggy in the Puddle by Charlotte Pomerantz:

“See the piggy,
See the puddle,
See the muddy little puddle.
See the piggy in the middle
Of the muddy little puddle.
See her dawdle, see her diddle
In the muddy, muddy middle.
See her waddle, plump and little,
In the very merry middle.”

from Bubble Trouble by Margaret Mahy:

“Little Mabel blew a bubble, and it cause a lot of trouble…
Such a lot of bubble trouble in a bibble-bobble way.
For it broke away from Mabel as it bobbed across the table,
where it bobbled over Baby, and it wafted him away.”

from Bubble Gum, Bubble Gum by Lisa Wheeler:
“Bubble gum,
bubble gum,
Chewy-gooey bubble gum,
Icky-sticky bubble gum
Melting in the road.
Along comes a toad…
A fine, fat toad,
A fine, fat, wild
-SPLAT!-
wart-backed toad.”

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About: Kristen

Kristen Remenar is a children’s librarian, author, teacher, and a national speaker on literacy for the Bureau of Education & Research. Her first picture book, GROUNDHOG’S DILEMMA, will be published by Charlesbridge in December 2015, and is illustrated by Matt Faulkner, award-winning author/illustrator and dearly loved husband of Kristen Remenar. The FaulkneRemenars live in Michigan.

Kristen’s Website

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Pre-Order it here!

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RhyPiBoMo 2015 Optional Writing Prompt: 10

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This is NOT part of the pledge. It is an option for a writing exercise for those interested. You will not publically share this as part of RhyPiBoMo but may keep a journal of your writing this month for your own review.

*

Today’s writing prompt is to write a mushy, rhyming, love poem with as much alliteration as you can muster!

Alliteration is a poetic technique in which a number of words, having the same first consonant sound and occur close together. Be silly with it and give an exaggerated effort to make this more fun!

For example:

When I sit and softly swoon

I gaze up gawking, like a goon.

I sing “sweet nothings” passion tune

to my gleaming Mr. Marigold Moon…he’ll blossom here real soon!

© 2015 Angie Karcher

Silly fun but you get the idea!

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Maya Angelou Webinar Poetry Contest

(Only for those who attended the webinar last Saturday night.)

Those who attended the Maya Angelou celebration webinar last week were invite to submit a poem about civil rights today. Jackie Wellington generously offered to donate a copy of Maya Angelou’s POETRY FOR YOUNG PEOPLE

After much deliberation our esteemed judges Pam Courtney, Natalie Davis Miller and Charles Waters determined

the winner is…

Dawn Young

Congratulations Dawn!

Here is Dawn’s poem and two others written for the contest

by Ann Magee and Bev Langill.

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If everyone just understood…

By Dawn Young

It blows my mind, it bothers me

when I see things I often see.

Ruthless people acting cruel,

forsaking our most golden rule.

Sprouting hate with roots in race,

blooming doom that buds disgrace.

Ignorance, so cold and callous

molding blind and mindless malice.

Have a heart. Before you start

to slice and dice and tear apart

someone with a different view,

Think…How’d you like that done to you?

If everyone just understood,

how that feels then no one would

do these things I often see,

these things that really bother me.

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Revolution of LOVE Needed

by Bev Langill

War, intolerance, hate,

Boko Haram, Al Shabaab, Feguson, Indiana ,

Killing, raping, beheading, bombing

Forcing their religion, their beliefs

On people different from them,

Whether by religion, colour or sexual orientation.

Yet, no one is better than anyone else

No one has the right to push their own agenda.

Love thy neighbour as themselves

What a radical belief

As powerful now as 2000 years ago

A message repeated in all major religions

Love over hate.

A revolution is needed

Not of war, but of LOVE

Not of killing, but of embracing

Creating a world where all thrive and are loved and accepted.

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NAMES AND NUMBERS

a civil rights poem

By Ann Magee

Did Michael Brown know 100 years before his Mama gave him his name,

Judge Ferguson placed blame on Mr. Plessy for his blackness?

We knew.

Did Michael Brown know 58 years later, another black man named Brown stood tall,

anchored to the ground like an ancient apple tree so his daughter could gather

the fruit of knowledge?

We knew.

Did Michael Brown know 60 years later he would graduate high school,

and 8 days later he’d be shot 12 times at 12 o’clock noon,

90 seconds after he encountered police in Ferguson, Missouri?

We didn’t know either.

But we should have.

How many train cars, water fountains, chairs at the café counter,

blocks walked to school, seats on the bus, and steps marched in protest

do we need to count?

How many times will we let history repeat itself?

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Thank you

to all our judges for your time and support of RhyPiBoMo 2015!

Thanks also to all who came to the webinar to celebrate a great woman and to those who sent in poems for the contest. It was an impromptu opportunity and had a short turnover time but I appreciate your thoughtful words. Maybe, you can use your poem in a way that will do good in the world…Maya would like that!

*

Golden Quill Poetry Contest

The Golden Quill Poetry Contest will accept entries STARTING April 13th and the deadline is April 25th midnight Central Time.

*

PLEASE make sure you read the contest rules and follow them exactly. Unfortunately, due to the number of poems we will receive, a poem will be disqualified if it does not follow the guidelines exactly. This is only fair to those who did follow the rules and is good practice for us as writers because editors expect those guidelines to be followed to the letter.

*

Contest Rules:

First and Last name included in the body of the email at the top left

Email address included in the body of the email at the top left

Phone number – top left

Space down 5 spaces

The Theme is: Freedom

Title of poem – centered with no by line or name here

8 line limit

Must be a rhyming poem

You will be judged on clever title, rhyme scheme, rhythm, scansion, perfect rhyming words, internal rhyme, alliteration, consonance, assonance, onomatopoeia, and clever ending.

Submit poems to

Angiekarcherrpbm@gmail.com

by April 25th midnight central time

*

Official RhyPiBoMo 2015 Registration ended on April 8th.

If you are not officially registered you will not be able to participate in the Golden Quill Poetry Contest, in Rhyming Critique Groups or will not be eligible for daily prizes.

To see if you registered in time go to the Master Registration List on the drop down menu under the RhyPiBoMo Blog tab above.

*

Please comment below. You MUST add your FIRST and LAST names

to be eligible for today’s prize!

RhyPiBoMo 2015 Day 9

Patricia Hruby Powell

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Today’s guest blogger is a storyteller, author and former dancer herself. Her latest picture book, JOSEPHINE, is about the famed African-American dancer and entertainer Josephine Baker. It is a factual retelling, written in a rhythmic style that emphasizes how important it is to use poetic techniques in your writing! JOSEPHINE recently won a bouquet of awards including the Coretta Scott King Book Award for Illustrator, Honor, Robert F. Sibert Informational Book Award, Honor Boston Globe–Horn Book Award, Nonfiction Honor, Parent’s Choice Award. Wall Street Journal’s 10 Best Children’s Books of the Year List, and the Bologna Ragazzi Nonfiction Honor 2014. WOW! I am happy to say that Josephine is one of the books I purchased at the WE NEED DIVERSE BOOKS bookfair.

I am proud to introduce the snazzy and jazzy

Patricia Hruby Powell.

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Rhythm – Are You Naturally Musical?

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If you sing, play an instrument or dance, it’s probably in your blood, bones, muscles. You might take advantage of that in your writing. I chose to write Josephine: The Dazzling Life of Josephine Baker because Josephine was a dancer. So am I. (My previous three picture books are not told in verse and are not about dancers). I felt that Josephine’s story screamed out to be told in a razzmatazz rhythm.

I open the book with a description of the dance she helped make famous in Paris—a dance from the southern United States from the early part of the twentieth century.

****JOSEPHINE danced a sizzling flapper dance—
****the Charleston.

****Knees SQUEEZE, now FLY
****heels flap and chop
****arms scissor and splay
****eyes swivel and pop.

****Josephine, all RAZZMATAZZ,
****erupted into the Roaring Twenties—
****a VOLCANO.

****America wasn’t ready for Josephine, the colored superstar.

****PARIS WAS.

That’s one of the few descriptions of her actual dancing in the hundred-page picture book, but I try to keep the rhythm going throughout. I know about beats, feet, and meter but I wrote Josephine intuitively. At times, while writing it, I’d stand up and dance or listen to early jazz from the teens and 20s.

Music is sound. Whereas there isn’t a rhyme scheme in Josephine, there are rhyming words and sound play. Chop and pop rhyme; Fly and splay slant rhyme. The alliteration of razzmatazz, erupted, Roaring help comprise the sound—the rhythm.

We’re always told to read aloud what you write. Reading aloud is essential for rhythm-making.

In the following passage I inserted feelings I have about dancing.

****She flung her arms,
****she flung her legs.
****Like she flung her heart and her soul.
****’Cause DANCIN’ makes you HAPPY when
****nothin’ else will.

OK, well that’s a little more dance description. All that flinging! Repetition of certain words help create a dancing rhythm. From watching footage of Josephine, I’m sure she felt ecstatic dancing.

In the next passage I borrow the rhythm of “down the Mississippi down to New Orleans”—It must be lyrics from a blues tune, not sure what, but it’s something in my blood, and sings in my body. So we start with this bluesy riff and then, in part by using no stanza breaks, the anger drives the words to accelerate. However the repeated where phrases (where hostile white faces…where white folk…where whites…where signs…) give it a ka-chunk ka-chunk rhythm like a train flying over the seams of the tracks.

****The Dixie Steppers took the train
****down the MISSISSIPPI down to NEW ORLEANS,
****dancing, singing, and partying,
****all the way
****through the land of the Ku Klux Klan,
****where hostile white faces hid under white hoods,
****where white folk threatened colored folk,
****where whites lived apart,
****segregated from colored,
****where signs for one latrine read WHITE ladies
****and for another COLORED women,
****where a white person wouldn’t sell you a cup of coffee.
****Because you were
****NEGRO.

The passage slows and halts on the injustice of: Because you were Negro.

The shout out words (those in caps) are words my editor and I chose in the designing process. Stressing those words enhances the rhythm.

I hope you read Josephine: The Dazzling Life of Josephine Baker. It’s a 4000-word example of using the rhythm (and sounds) of dance. It is my attempt to “write” a dance.

Rhythm isn’t just for razzmatazz subjects. Let me introduce another of my manuscripts so I can include a variety of intuitive rhythmic techniques that I’ve used. It may give you thoughts about how you use rhythm, perhaps without even realizing you do it.

Written for young adults, Loving vs. Virginia (Chronicle 2016) is the courtship and love story of the interracial couple Richard Loving (white) and Mildred Jeter Loving (black). The newlyweds are arrested in their bed in rural Virginia in 1958 and they live in exile or in hiding until the U.S. Supreme Court rules in the landmark case of the book’s title in 1967. They are a humble couple who want only to live their simple country life and raise a family together.

(I had thought I’d use the opening, but it turns out that’s a breech of copyright, so here is an outtake).

The text is quiet. This passage begins with Richard, a manual laborer, speaking. He had arranged to pick Mildred up from high school in his car to drive her the 15 miles home, for the first time.

****Central Point, Caroline County, Virginia
****Fall 1956
****Richard

****By the time I tore up to the school,
****announcer said it was four.

****Millie was sitting on the front steps.
****She got up slow, came down the walk.

****I leaned across the seat and opened the door for her.
****I said, Sorry, Bean.
****They call her String Bean, which I don’t.
****That’s what snapped into my head—
****Bean.

****She got in, didn’t say a thing.

****I said, The boss stopped in, couldn’t stop him talking.

****After a long drawn out pause she shrugged, said,
****I guess there’s nothing you can do about that.

****I’m real sorry. Won’t happen again.

****I took a glance over at her.
****You angry at me?
****She looked to me like a deer—
****a soft-eyed doe.

****She said,
****I don’t rightly know. Yeah. No.
****Maybe I was worried.
****I know you didn’t do it on purpose—
****to be mean.

****She rolled down the window all the way,
****let the breeze
****blow through the car.

*****Mildred

****Not easy to be angry
****with him—
****smiling all crooked
****way he does.

****He’s got as many smiles
****as he’s got laughs.

****Back on the school steps
****I was thinking
****I’d like everyone to see me
****drive off with
****this handsome boy.

****So maybe that was foolish.
****Maybe I was disappointed
****I didn’t get seen.
****With him.

****I don’t say a thing.
****Trying to sort out what I feel.
****Just sitting there
****in his car,
****staring straight ahead.

****Back on the step
****thought I might
****be stuck there.
****I was scared.
****Maybe angry.
****Why would he do that?
****If he’s mean
****I don’t wanna
****like him.
****That’s what
****I was thinking.

****I was mighty relieved
****when he showed up.

****Once he starts driving
****I let the wind
****ruffle through my hair—
****blow any bad feelings
****out of my head.

****He looks at me, says,
****You look pretty, Bean.

****I’m done being
****angry.
****I look back at him
****and the two of us
****laugh—

****like we both know we just had a
****fight—our first fight.
****And now it’s over.

This is a documentary novel or creative nonfiction so, as in Josephine, I did a load of research. I interviewed Jeter family members and friends of the Lovings in Caroline County, Virginia. Unfortunately, both Mildred and Richard are deceased, but there is a great deal of film footage of them taken by Hope Ryden in the early 60s. They’re both soft spoken. I try to replicate their southern lilt through the rhythm of speech patterns—just the gentlest hint of country speech helps to build the soft rhythm. That sets the tone of the book.

Richard’s lines are longer than Mildred’s. And he has more stanza breaks. He is less educated than Mildred and his grammar reflects that and sets up his own rhythm.

And finally, I’ll give an example from Struttin’ With Some Barbecue, which does not yet have a publication date only a promise of publication. This is the biography of Lil Hardin Armstrong, Louis Armstrong’s wife, and a jazz pianist in the early days of jazz.

Again, I use outtakes to avoid copyright infringement.

****1898 – 1900

****Yessir, Lillian Hardin
****was proud to be who she was.
****Her mama made sure of that.
****Grandma made double sure.

****Grandma was a slave
****—a bought-and-sold slave
****till the Civil War ended—
****and she was freed—
****freed to earn wages—
****freed, to raise up her daughter
****Dempsey.
****Raised her up proud.
****Dempsey became Lillian’s mama,
****worked as a cook
****for a white family
****to give Lillian chances
****she’d never had.
****Lil’s daddy was long gone.

Whereas Josephine is a dance, Struttin’ is an early jazz tune. It is sprinkled with scat song syllables that were really fun to invent. They’re all about rhythm and sound. And out of context they might be awkward to read, but in the flow of the piece, when you’re inside the rhythm they roll off the tongue. Lil is living a little too wildly on Beale Street, Memphis Tennessee—a little too wild for Mama’s tastes. Lil had just bought the sheet music for “St. Louis Blues.”

****That was the last straw
****for Mama.
****Lil and Mama packed their bags and rode
****The City of New Orleans
****up to Chicago.
****choo-choo cha-WA
****da cha-cha CHOOO.

Another is:

****STEPpa dee DOO

Another is:

****Zop a wha DO

We all use rhythm in our speaking, whether we’re aware of it or not. Since written words are meant to be read, they, too have a rhythm. Increasing awareness of the rhythm of your speech and other people’s speech will improve your writing.

I’ll finish with the first couple lines of a story written by a man during WWII when food was rationed. He wondered what if words were rationed. He tells Little Red Riding Hood with perfectly good English words, but not the regular ones. You can read the story and make it understandable if you find the melody—the rhythm. Have fun.

****Wants pawn term dare worsted ladle gull hoe lift wetter murder inner ladle cordage honor itch offer lodge dock florist. Disc ladle gull orphan worry ladle cluck wetter putty ladle rat hut, end fur disc raisin pimple caulder ladle rat rotten hut.

You can buy it here!

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About Patricia:

Patricia Hruby Powell danced throughout the Americas and Europe with her dance company, One Plus One, before becoming a writer of children’s books. She has marveled at the spirit, courage, and beauty of Josephine Baker for a long time, and while visiting schools as a storyteller/ author and working as a librarian, she realized what a great role model Josephine could be to young people. Josephine has garnered various Honors including the Sibert, Coretta Scott King for illustration, Boston Globe Horn Book for Nonfiction, Bologna Ragazzi; and Parent’s Choice Gold for Poetry. Her other picture books are Blossom Tales, Zinnia, and Frog Brings Rain. Loving vs Virginia (Chronicle) for young adults is forthcoming in 2016. You can visit Patricia online at talesforallages.com.

Website: http://talesforallages.com/books/

RhyPiBoMo 2015 Optional Writing Prompt: 9

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This is NOT part of the pledge. It is an option for a writing exercise for those interested. You will not publically share this as part of RhyPiBoMo but may keep a journal of your writing this month for your own review.

Today’s writing prompt is to write a poem that dances off the page. Use a distinct rhythm, rhyme, repetitive words and phrases to create a lively dance, in words.

For example:

Tapping of the Tale

 

A tip of the toe tap, taps in the show.

Do you feel the sting-y ping

as the language start to swing.

It peeks out and then back in

swaying side-to-side again.

Dropping down, then leaping past,

spinning, twirling, moving fast.

Til’ the words begin to flow

anticipations slowly grow.

Until the tapping taps …no …more.

Upon the

************tap,

******************tap

**********************dancing

****************************** . . . . . . . floor.

THE END, Ovations finally clapped.

The joy of writing, finely tapped.

© 2015 Angie Karcher

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Congratulations to Week 2 Prize Winners

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Mon Copy of THE SUPERHERO EMPLOYMENT AGENCY Donated by Marilyn Singer
Winner – Maria Oka

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Tuesday Copy of WRITING PICTURE BOOKS Donated by Ann Whitford Paul
Winner – Lori Mozdzierz

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Wed Copy of MY LOVE FOR YOU IS THE SUN Donated by Julie Hedlund
Winner – Ellen Izenson

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Thurs Copy of A TROOP IS A GROUP OF MONKEYS Donated by Julie Hedlund Winner – Kathy Mazurowski

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Fri Copy of THE FAT-CATS AT SEA Donated by J. Patrick Lewis
Winner – Lynn Alpert

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Winners, PLEASE message me your address on Facebook

or email it to Angiekarcherrpbm@gmail.com

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Instead of a Friday Favorites winner, this week we had a Rhyming Party winner. I held an impromptu Rhyming Party on Saturday night for all who were near. I quizzed the participants about the blog posts from the past two weeks and the first one to have the correct answer in rhyme won. At the end of the party, I added all the names to a program that randomly chose

the lucky winner – Darlene Ivy

Darlene won The Poetry Friday Anthology of Celebrations donated by Sylvia Vardell and Janet Wong.

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Thanks to all who played and trust me when I say it is worth the read as the feed from the party is still up on the Facebook page. Hilarious, crazy fun!

 Congratulations to the week 2 winners!

Thank you to our generous prize donors!

 

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Maya Angelou Webinar Poetry Contest

(Only for those who attended the webinar last Saturday night.)

The winner for the webinar poetry contest has not been determined yet but I will announce the winner As soon as possible.

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Golden Quill Poetry Contest

The Golden Quill Poetry Contest will accept entries STARTING April 13th and the deadline is April 25th midnight Central Time.

*

Contest Rules:

First and Last name included in the body of the email at the top left

Email address included in the body of the email at the top left

Phone number – top left

Space down 5 spaces

The Theme is: Freedom

Title of poem – centered with no by line or name here

8 line limit

Must be a rhyming poem

You will be judged on clever title, rhyme scheme, rhythm, scansion, perfect rhyming words, internal rhyme, alliteration, consonance, assonance, onomatopoeia, and clever ending.

Submit poems to

Angiekarcherrpbm@gmail.com

by April 25th midnight central time

*

*

Official RhyPiBoMo 2015 Registration ended on April 8th.

If you are not officially registered you will not be able to participate in the Golden Quill Poetry Contest, in Rhyming Critique Groups or will not be eligible for daily prizes.

To see if you registered in time go to the Master Registration List on the drop down menu under the RhyPiBoMo Blog tab above.

*

Please comment below. You MUST add your FIRST and LAST names

to be eligible for today’s prize!

Welcome to

RhyPiBoMo 2015 Day 8

J. Patrick Lewis

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How do I introduce today’s guest blogger without using the words GENIUS and BRILLIANT and EXTREMELY TALENTED? I don’t! So I am honored and pleased beyond measure to introduce today’s guest blogger as a poet and author who’s writing is GENIUS, his word choices are BRILLIANT and he is EXTREMELY TALENTED!

I am so happy to welcome

J. Patrick Lewis!

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Thoughts on Verse Forms

A decade ago, Donald Hall argued in a famous essay that too many poets are “afflicted with a modesty of ambition.” He meant that too often they are satisfied with writing good poems but not great ones. The point, Hall said, is that poets should wake up each day telling themselves that today—and every day!—they will write great poetry. Will they fail? Almost certainly. But when was that ever the point? Failure, as so many agree,
is the only road to success.

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I would suggest that Hall’s claim is equally true for children’s poets,
but in a somewhat different way. Today, many children’s poets and most poetasters gravitate to one of two verse forms: common measure
(a quatrain alternating tetrameter and trimeter lines, rhyming abcb).

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Or its cousin, the ballad stanza, used prominently in narrative verse. The rhyme schemes can vary of course: aabb, abba, or abab (the hymnal stanza).

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Such forms have a long and storied career, and we would be sorely bereft without them. “Barbara Allen,” “John Henry,” Poe’s “Annabel Lee,” to name but a few, are rightly part of the ballad canon. Emily Dickinson wrote many of her gorgeous lyrics in variations of common measure, all the while aspiring—and succeeding—to write in fields of other grasshoppers.

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If you aim to be a strictly comic poet, common measure may serve you well. I’m not suggesting that children’s poets forego common measure altogether. I use it all the time. But why be shackled to one verse form that too often leads to puerile, uninspired, instantly forgettable rhyming?

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It is also the least demanding verse form available to the poet.

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Elsewhere, I have tried to suggest to teachers that they reject one verse form unworthy of the name. The diamante, a favorite in the classroom, encourages students to accumulate adjectives. As Voltaire said, “The adjective is the enemy of the noun.” Mark Twain put it more succinctly, “If you catch an adjective, kill it.” That goes too far, I think, but adjectives are fat; verbs are muscles. Finding the right verbs—strong, active, personified verbs—requires the mind of a detective and the eye of a jeweler. Hence, time and persistence are the handmaidens of writing good poetry. You can write a diamante in a minute and a half, which tells you all you need to know about its quality. And ticking off lists of adjectives is merely fool’s play.

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The acrostic, another beloved classroom staple, can be a useful and marginally interesting form, unless it involves nothing more than a list of single word adjectives following the vertical acrostic word (usually the student’s name). Assigning such work to young writers is an empty exercise. Poets are challenged all the time. Why shouldn’t students—practicing poets—be challenged with more demanding forms?

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I would be remiss if I did not mention the captivating French villanelle. But be warned: Writing one is no picnic. That’s exactly why I challenge poets to try it. Elizabeth Bishop’s “One Art,” among the language’s most accomplished villanelles, took her 15 years to finish. Rounding out my choices for the best three examples in the English language are Dylan Thomas’s “Do Not Go Gentle Into That Good Night,” and Theodore Roethke’s “The Waking.”

*
Of fascinating verse forms there is no end, and each one deserves at least a paragraph of its own. Countries all over the world have invented forms that are extremely rich, and not because they are complex but because they are ingenious, interesting, and fun. Yes, they demand more sweat and tears from the poet, but the payoff for readers is palpable. For those unfamiliar with Robin Skelton’s The Shape of Our Singing: A Comprehensive Guide to Verse Forms and Metres from Around the World, Spokane: Eastern

*
Washington University Press, 2002, I can’t recommend a more reliable vade mecum. Have you ever tried writing a deibide baise fri toin (Irish), ionic a minore (ancient Greek and Latin), rhupunt or englyn (Welsh), or any of hundreds of other forms from the 43 countries Skelton surveys? If not, let him show you around, and if young writers tell you they want to become poets, put The Shape of Our Singing in their backpacks. Another treasure available in paperback and not to be missed is Lewis Putnam Turco’s The Book of Forms: A Handbook of Poetics, University Press of New England, revised and expanded edition, 2012.

*
I’m happy to tip my hat to Tricia Stohr-Hunt at Miss Rumphius Effect, a delightful and instructive blog for introducing a variety of forms and subtly prodding readers to submit their own samples. No doubt there are other similarly minded websites with which I am unfamiliar. I apologize.

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Individual poets who have written engagingly on the subject include Willard Espy, Avis Harley, Paul B. Janeczko, X.J. and Dorothy Kennedy, Myra Cohn Livingston, Marilyn Singer, Helen Frost, Joan Bransfield Graham, among others.

*

I’ve included a “Resources” guide to many verse forms in my Book of Animal Poetry, ed. by J. Patrick Lewis, National Geographic, 2012, p. 172.

*
So settle into a smorgasbord of verse forms. If you are using only one
or two, you are denying your palate the delicious variety laid out on the palette of poetry.

*

*

About J. Patrick Lewis:

After a wild and rugged youth as a bronco rider, lobster fisherman, opera singer, confidential police informant, Economics professor, and Russian spy—he has been to Moscow thirteen times (shhh!)—J. Patrick Lewis is now in the Federal Witness Protection Program in XXXXX, Ohio with XXXXX, his wife, and two vicious K-9 guard toy poodles. Please do not ask to see his secret tattoos.

He has continued his wanton ways in the world of children’s poetry, having published 95 picture/poetry books to date with National Geographic, Creative Editions, Knopf, Atheneum, Wordsong/Boyds Mills Press, Dial, Chronicle, Candlewick, Harcourt, Little, Brown, Scholastic, Holiday House, Sleeping Bear Press, DKInk, and others.
He was recently given the 2010-2011 NCTE Excellence in Children’s Poetry Award, and was the Poetry Foundation’s third U.S. Children’s Poet Laureate (2011-2013).

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WOW! Look at all those glorious books!

His 2015 Books:

—Bigfoot Is Missing: Poems from the Cryptozoo (w/Kenn
Nesbitt), CHRONICLE, March 2015 (MinaLima, ill.)
—The Wren and the Sparrow, KAR-BEN PUBLISHING, March
2015 (Yevgenia Nayberg, ill.)
—The Stolen Smile, CREATIVE EDITIONS (2004), reissued 2015.
—Just Joking: Animal Riddles, NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC,
March 2015 (photos)
—Book of Nature Poetry (anthology, 200 poems & photos—
NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC, Fall 2015)
—Thirteen Ways of Squinting at a Poet (adult poems),
LAUGHING FIRE PRESS, Summer 2015

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His 2016 Books:

—Kooky Crumbs: Poems of Dizzy Days, KANE MILLER, January 1,
2016 (Mary Uhles, ill.)
—Make the Earth Your Companion, CREATIVE EDITIONS, Spring
2016 (Elena And Anna Balbusso, ills.)

—The Navajo Code Talkers, CREATIVE EDITIONS, Fall 2016 (Gary
Kelley, ill.)

RhyPiBoMo 2015 Optional Writing Prompt:8

*
This is NOT part of the pledge. It is an option for a writing exercise for those interested. You will not publically share this as part of RhyPiBoMo but may keep a journal of your writing this month for your own review.

Today’s writing prompt is to write a Villanelle. This may be the biggest challenge of the month!

To explain this form in more detail I am including a few resources:

http://www.poets.org/poetsorg/text/poetic-form-villanelle

http://www.baymoon.com/~ariadne/form/villanelle.htm

*

*

It’s “Friday Favorites” day again!

Today is the day that I ask you to choose one of the rhyming picture books that you read this week as part of the challenge and share it with the world. Post a picture of it on social media (Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Pinterest, etc.) and a link to the authors blog, a link to a book store or a link to anywhere people can find it and buy it. This is the day we celebrate all the wonderful rhyming picture books out in the world already! These authors are our heroes and heroines. We should celebrate the hard work it took them to get to publication! We should buy these books ourselves if we can and share them with friends and family.

Now is the time to promote great rhyme!

I was thrilled that so many of you shared your favorite rhyming picture books last Friday! Thank you! See if we can post even more today!

 

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What if you are not on social media?

That is no problem. Just share titles with friends, family, teachers, librarians, book store owners…anyone who will listen. Word of mouth is very powerful! Go to a book store and ask for a specific title. If they don’t have it ask them to order it. You can certainly do our part without social media!

It would be great if you would also add the link to my blog so folks can see what we are doing here.

Here’s the link:

https://angiekarcher.wordpress.com/2015/04/02/rhypibomo-2015-day-2-nikki-grimes/?preview=true&preview_id=3722&preview_nonce=51465bf1a5&post_format=aside

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The RhyPiBoMo 2015 Barnes and Noble BookFair is tomorrow! (Saturday, April 11th)

I have been asked to give a talk at my local Barnes and Noble in Evansville, Indiana on Maya Angelou during Educator’s Week. I combined my talk to include tidbits about Maya’s life and poetry with diversity in children’s books. What a wonderful opportunity to discuss poetry and diversity all in one talk! Thus, Barnes and Noble agreed to offer a BookFair all day on April 11th and 20% of all the sales that day will go to WE NEED DIVERSE BOOKS for all who use this coupon. It is good for sales in store and on-line so PLEASE support this worthy non-profit and buy lots and lots of books! Pass out coupons to friends and family too! Let’s support poetry and diversity in children’s books!

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Golden Quill Poetry Contest

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The Golden Quill Poetry Contest will accept entries STARTING April 13th and the deadline is April 25th midnight Central Time.

For further details please visit the Golden Quill Poetry Contest tab above.

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RhyPiBoMo Gift Shop is Open!

http://www.cafepress.com/rhypibomogiftshop

Please stop by and see what’s available this year. There are notebooks, mugs, buttons and more. All proceeds will go to WE NEED DIVERSE BOOKS!

Thank you Tanja Bauerle for these gorgeous images!!!

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*

Rhyming Critique Groups

If you are interested in joining a rhyming critique group go to the RhyPiBoMo Facebook group and add your name to the post concerning critique groups. Dawn Young will organize the groups and contact you once your group is formed and ready to go. We will need one person in each group to volunteer to be the Admin for the group so please state that you are interested in your comment on Facebook.

Thank you Dawn for organizing and running these groups!

We have several groups still going strong from last year!

We will not organize critique groups outside of Facebook this year. If you are interested in forming a critique group outside of Facebook, please comment about that in your reply to this post and add your name and email address so anyone else interested can contact you directly.

*

*

PLEASE REMEMBER!!!

Add both your FIRST and LAST names to your daily comment! This is what enables you to be eligible for a prize that day. Many people are forgetting!! I request this because the reply section doesn’t give me your name unless it’s a part of your email address. And even then sometimes it’s very hard for me to figure out the exact name.

How I choose daily winners…Late each Saturday night, I will go back to Monday’s comments and count how many there are. I then type that number into a randomizer program that choose a number for me. I count from the first post down to that number and that is the daily winner. If that post doesn’t have a first and last name listed it will not win. I will then go to the next post that has a first and last name listed. I will do this for each day of the week and announce the winners on the following Monday.

Please DO NOT go back now and add another comment now as I need each person to only comment one time to keep things fair. Thanks!

Good Luck and ADD YOR FIRST and LAST NAME to your comment!!!! = )

*

(*

Official RhyPiBoMo 2015 Registration ended on April 8th.

If you are not officially registered you may not participate in the Golden Quill Poetry Contest, in Rhyming Critique Groups or will not be eligible for daily prizes.

To see if you are registered go to the Master Registration List on the drop down menu under the RhyPiBoMo Blog tab above.

*

Please comment below. You MUST add your FIRST and LAST names

to be eligible for today’s prize!

Welcome to

RhyPiBoMo 2015 Day 7

Samuel Kent

*

I was introduced to today’s blogger last year when participating in Ed DeCaria’s Think Kid Think March Madness Poetry Tournament. His poem, Ampersand was the winning poem and it was SO spectacular I had to share it with you here today!

*

*ampersand was the word Sam had to use in his poem.
A Letter on Behalf of Ampersand 2014
by Samuel Kent

Dearest teachers & assistants,
Please adhere to this insistence.

It’s our mission to petition –
for its overdue admission:

alphabetical addition
of the letter Ampersand.

Though it neatly nestles nicely
‘twixt the “Y & Z” precisely,

and has a certain function
as a substitute conjunction,

we confess with calm compunction,
it’s abused as merely “and”.

We believe we have a duty
to this hieroglyphic beauty.

Let its usage be expanded:
written right- or leftward-handed,

“a – n – d” is ampersanded!
That’s our solemn, sole demand.

Think of effort we’d be saving
giving sentences a shaving,

making phrases much less “and”-y
& a lot more ampersandy

adding simple, shortened candy
to the words we write by hand.

With accelerated fleetness
we’d complete with nimble neatness

every note or memorandum —
spelling wouldn’t seem as random —

with the ampersand in tandem
at our everyday command.

With respect, we share our letter
for this character that’s better.

Signed sincerely by
Am&a,
***Br&on,
******&rew,
*********Alless&ra,
************R&al,
***************C&ace,
******************& Mir&a
on behalf of Ampersand.

And with that piece of BRILLIANT word art shared, I am thrilled to introduce

Samuel Kent!

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*

Quality Poetry is Stressful: Meter and Metric Feet

 

Often when poets first begin to craft poems, their primary focus is rhyme. Sometimes, this comes at the expense of adhering to a pattern of stressed and unstressed syllables in their lines.

So what’s the big deal? You got the messy business of rhymes in your poem perfectly. Why be bound to rules of meter and metrical feet? And what does that mean anyway?

Arguments of metered and meter-less writing styles aside, employing rhythmic patterns usually makes a poem easier to read. If you use a meter pattern, the reader isn’t surprised by speedbumps of words that just don’t feel right, or lines that don’t flow because stresses and inflections are out of order. Metrical feet and meters make poems feel more like natural speech.

Let’s talk first about metrical feet. Feet are really about the pattern of the stressed and unstressed syllables in your poems. There are several common feet patterns that that meter-loving poets will employ. Here are just a few of the most common:

The Iamb (short-long)
Iambs are segments of lines of poems where the inflections alternate between unstressed (short) and stressed (long) syllables, starting with an unstressed syllable.

Let’s TRAvel INto SPACE, my FRIEND

and TO the SHIning MOON.

But WHILE you BOARD a ROcket SHIP

to SPEED you ON aLONG your TRIP

with BANG and BOOM and ZOOM and ZIP,

I’ll TRAvel BY ballOON.

The Trochee (long-short)

If your stresses are in the other order, alternating with stressed (long) and unstressed (short) syllables but starting with a stressed syllable, you’re using a trochee foot:

DEBbie’s DAFfy About DAIsies, AND for MARiGOLDS she’s CRAZED.

SHE’S gone KOOky FOR chrySANtheMUMS. BeGONias HAVE her DAZED.

SHE’S plain MAD for PREtty FLOWers: EVery PETal, STEM, and SEED,

BUT deTESTS the DANdeLIons… THOSE are JUST a NASty WEED.

*

Some feet, like the amphibrach, the anapest, and the dactyl have three beats per foot.

The Amphibrach (short-long-short)

An amphibrach is a three syllable pattern starting with unstressed syllable, then a stressed syllable, then another unstressed syllable before repeating

WiNOna aWOKE from her DREAMing with DREAD

to FIND she had TOO many DUCKS in her BED.

Well, EVEn one DUCK in the BED was abSURD,

but HALF of her BLANKets were COVered with BIRD.

*

The Anapest (short-short-long)

Lead with two unstressed syllables and then a long syllable when repeating, and you’re using an anapest foot:

There’s an O-cean of BOOKS around ME

stretching OUT for as FAR as I SEE.

It’s as DEEP and as WIDE as can BE.

I am LOST in an Ocean of BOOKS.

The Dactyl (long-short-short)

I misses YOUR kisses ALL over MY face

I’M dying, NO lying, WITHout your EMbrace

YOUR presence IS pleasance I ache to BE near

I only FEEL lonely UNless you ARE here.

*

Notice that sometimes the stresses are implied. A short or unstressed syllable can be skipped at the end of lines and sticking to the foot pattern is still there. The reader fills in the space with a rest.

Of course there are feet that employ four syllables per foot as well. These are called Paeons. Most paeons are primarily unstressed syllables with a stressed syllable one out of every four beats.

The Quartus Paeon (short-short-short-long):

On every STARry summer NIGHT

when old man MOON is shining BRIGHT

and all the FROGS in granddad’s POND begin to SING,

While cricket CHORus chirps and CHEEPS

A thousand BUGgy voices BEEP

But listen CLOSEly, you’ll hear BILL the Froggy KING

*
That’s metrical feet, but what is meter? Meter is simply the number of repeated metrical feet per line. Meter can really make for a solid rhythm when combined with consistent use of metrical feet.

If your lines consist of four iambs, you’re employing iambic TETRAMETER:

We HAVE a CLUB for EATing WORMS. (four feet here)

We LOVE the WAY they WRITHE and SQUIRM, (one, two, three, four)

and ON the WEEKends WHEN we MEET, (yep, four)

we ALways BRING some WORMS to EAT. (four feet in this line too)

If you’ve studied Shakespeare, you’re probably familiar with his preferred meter, Iambic PENTAMETER, which are lines consisting of five (penta) Iambs per line (meter).

We’re HUNgry FOR a PLACE we’ve NEVer SEEN: (feet per line)

The LAND of SWEETS and FINE GourMET CuisINE. (another five feet)

We WANT to CLIMB the MOUNTains MADE of CHEESE (five feet again)

and SWIM in ONE of SIX spaGHETti SEAS. (see the pattern?)

*

And so if your poem’s lines used three iambs per line, you’d be employing Iambic TRIMETER:

*

My DOG is SO unIQUE.

He TAUGHT himSELF to SPEAK,

but ALL he SEEMS to SAY

is, “HEY! come ON, let’s PLAY!”

And you can do this with all forms of feet. Anapestic Tetrameter would be lines composed of four anapests. Amphibrachic Trimeter would have lines consisting of three amphibrachs.

Complicated naming conventions of feet and meter aside, what’s the point? The point is using feet and meter consistently to improve the quality of poems. A reader might be unpleasantly surprised to read your poem written in iambic feet to suddenly come across something written in trochee. This might also be true if every line in a poem contained five iambs only to stumble on a line that contained seven. The patterns established in the first lines of the poem are an implied contract that this is the pace and rhythm of what follows. The key, again, is consistency toward quality, and meter and feet are powerful tools to help you accomplish this.

*

About Samuel:

Samuel Kent has been writing childrens poetry for nearly 25 years. He is the 2014 champion in the Think, Kid, Think! March Madness poetry competition and has been honored as the 2014 Poet Laureate of Helena, Alabama. His poetry posts for his weekday “Lunchbox Doodles” project can be found at http://i.droo.it.

RhyPiBoMo 2015 Optional Writing Prompt:7

*
This is NOT part of the pledge. It is an option for a writing exercise for those interested. You will not publically share this as part of RhyPiBoMo but may keep a journal of your writing this month for your own review.

Today’s writing prompt is to write a poem “Shakespeare Style” in Iambic Pentameter. Remember, that’s five (penta) Iambs per line (meter).

(da-DUM/da-DUM/da-DUM/da-DUM/da-DUM)

*

*

*

*

The RhyPiBoMo 2015 Barnes and Noble BookFair is this Saturday, April 11th!

I have been asked to give a talk at my local Barnes and Noble in Evansville, Indiana on Maya Angelou during Educator’s Week. I combined my talk to include tidbits about Maya’s life and poetry with diversity in children’s books. What a wonderful opportunity to discuss poetry and diversity all in one talk! Thus, Barnes and Noble agreed to offer a BookFair all day on April 11th and 20% of all the sales that day will go to WE NEED DIVERSE BOOKS for all who use this coupon. It is good for sales in store and on-line so PLEASE support this worthy non-profit and buy lots and lots of books! Pass out coupons to friends and family too! Let’s support poetry and diversity in children’s books!

*

Rhyming Critique Groups

 

If you are interested in joining a rhyming critique group go to the RhyPiBoMo Facebook group and add your name to the post concerning critique groups. Dawn Young will organize the groups and contact you once your group is formed and ready to go. We will need one person in each group to volunteer to be the Admin for the group so please state that you are interested in your comment on Facebook.

Thank you Dawn for organizing and running these groups!

We have several groups still going strong from last year!

We will not organize critique groups outside of Facebook this year. If you are interested in forming a critique group outside of Facebook, please comment about that in your reply to this post and add your name and email address so anyone else interested can contact you directly.

*

*

RhyPiBoMo Gift Shop is Open!

http://www.cafepress.com/rhypibomogiftshop

Please stop by and see what’s available this year. There are notebooks, mugs, buttons and more. All proceeds will go to WE NEED DIVERSE BOOKS!

Thank you Tanja Bauerle for these gorgeous images!!!

*

*

PLEASE REMEMBER!!!

Add both your FIRST and LAST names to your daily comment! This is what enables you to be eligible for a prize that day. Many people are forgetting!! I request this because the reply section doesn’t give me your name unless it’s a part of your email address. And even then sometimes it’s very hard for me to figure out the exact name.

How I choose daily winners…Late each Saturday night, I will go back to Monday’s comments and count how many there are. I then type that number into a randomizer program that choose a number for me. I count from the first post down to that number and that is the daily winner. If that post doesn’t have a first and last name listed it will not win. I will then go to the next post that has a first and last name listed. I will do this for each day of the week and announce the winners on the following Monday.

Please DO NOT go back now and add another comment now as I need each person to only comment one time to keep things fair. Thanks!

Good Luck and ADD YOR FIRST and LAST NAME to your comment!!!! = )

*

*

*Official Registration ends at Midnight April 8th,Wednesday night central time for 2015.

If you are not officially registered you may not enter the Golden Quill Poetry Contest, participate in Rhyming Critique Groups or will not be eligible for daily prizes.

Please continue to read and enjoy the daily posts!

To see if you are registered go to the Master Registration List on the drop down menu under the RhyPiBoMo Blog tab above.

*

*

Please comment below. You MUST add your FIRST and LAST names

to be eligible for today’s prize!

Welcome to

RhyPiBoMo 2015 Day 6

Julie Hedlund

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*

Today’s guest blogger is a very busy lady who I had the pleasure of meeting last summer at the L.A. SCBWI Conference. It was her 12 x 12 gathering I was heading to attend when some tricky stairs had another plan entirely. I am happy she is here to share her thoughts on figurative language.

Welcome Julie Hedlund!

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*

As I sat down to write this post about using figurative language in rhyming picture books, I came across this handy image from writeworld.org. When we think of figurative language, the first examples that come to mind are simile and metaphor, but those are just two of the tools in a whole shed full of others.

Rhyming picture books (and indeed all poetry) are such fertile ground for figurative language. Mix in the fact that anything can happen in a children’s book and you’ve got a recipe for making writing fun.

Let’s begin with the most familiar…

SIMILE AND METAPHOR

Similes and metaphors are often used to show strong, complicated emotions—such as love—that are difficult to express.

For example, the book I LOVE YOU AS MUCH by Lauri Krauss Melmud uses similes throughout.

Said the mother horse to her child, I love you as much as a warm summer breeze.
Said the mother bear to her child, I love you as much as the forest has trees.

I make use of metaphors in my own book, MY LOVE FOR YOU IS THE SUN.

My love for you is the sun.
Rising in your tender heart,
It shines on you when we’re apart.

My use of metaphor vs. simile was deliberate. Even the youngest child knows the sun is a constant, powerful force, gives us warmth, and comes up every day. By saying my love IS the sun, the reader gets a sense of its power.

Each verse of MY LOVE FOR YOU IS THE SUN also contains PERSONIFICATION. I’m giving human qualities to inanimate objects.

My love for you is a star.
Sparkling gemstone in the sky,
It keeps you under watchful eye.

Similes and metaphors aren’t only the domain of loving, quiet books, however. Debbie Diesen uses simile in the refrain of THE POUT-POUT FISH IN THE BIG-BIG DARK:

I’m fast as a sailfish,
I’m strong as a shark,
I’m smart as a dolphin …
But I’m scared of the dark.

Deb Lund makes use of simile, metaphor, AND invented words in ALL ABOARD THE DINOTRAIN:

The engine coughs and dinochugs.
The train moves like a line of slugs.
“We haven’t traveled very far.
Let’s dinopush each railroad car.”

IDIOM, CLICHÉ and SYMBOL

One of the lovely tricks of verse is that idioms and clichés can be made fresh when they’re used to interrupt expectations and/or add humor. Corey Rosen Schwartz does this with great mastery in THE THREE NINJA PIGS:

For months, she’d persisted in earnest
Until she had paid all her dues.
How happy she felt
When she earned her last belt.
“I’ll make that wolf shake in his shoes.”

In another verse…

The wolf looked quite shaken,
But hollered, “Yo, Bacon.
I’m not at all scared of your tricks.”

In this case, Bacon becomes a hilarious symbol for the pig, and also plays on the fact that pigs symbolize food to the wolf.

HYPERBOLE

Phrases that exaggerate to make a point can also be used to great effect in rhyming books. Sudipta Bardhan-Quallen uses this technique in HAMPIRE.

As Duck raced Red to Pony’s stall,
They heard the Hampire screaming.
“I’m starved, of course—
I’d eat a horse!”
His pointy fangs were gleaming.

What makes this verse even funnier (and creepier too) is that there is an actual horse in the story, so it’s a double play on words with a dash of mystery. Is this a figure of speech, or does he really want to eat the horse?

It’s true that rhyming well requires a great deal of work—proper use of meter and scansion, not falling into the traps of easy rhyme and inverted sentence structures, etc.

Figurative language gives you the chance to take a break from the mechanics and step inside a sandbox to construct castles from words. Allow yourself to play with your words and language, and your writing will be the richer.

*

*

About Julie:

Julie is a monthly contributor on author/illustrator Katie Davis’ Brain Burps About Books children’s literature podcast, a PAL member of SCBWI, and a contributing editor on the subject of 21st Century Publishing for Children’s Book Insider.

Julie Hedlund is an award-winning children’s book author, founder of the 12 x 12 Picture Book Writing Challenge, blogger, and a regular speaker at SCBWI and other industry events.

Her picture book, A TROOP IS A GROUP OF MONKEYS, Little Bahalia Publishing, 2013, first published as an interactive storybook app, was the recipient of the 2014 Independent Book Publisher’s Association Benjamin Franklin Digital Gold Award. Her storybook app, A SHIVER OF SHARKS, Little Bahalia Publishing, 2013, was a 2014 Digital Book Award winner. Her next book, MY LOVE FOR YOU IS THE SUN, released in September 2014 from Little Bahalia.

Buy it Here

 

Buy it Here

Book Trailer

 

RhyPiBoMo 2015 Optional Writing Prompt:6

*
This is NOT part of the pledge. It is an option for a writing exercise for those interested. You will not publically share this as part of RhyPiBoMo but may keep a journal of your writing this month for your own review.

Today’s writing prompt is to write a poem using at least 2 of the figurative language choices above.*

*

*Rh

Rhyming Critique Groups

If you are interested in joining a rhyming critique group go to the RhyPiBoMo Facebook group and add your name to the post concerning critique groups. Dawn Young will organize the groups and contact you once your group is formed and ready to go. We will need one person in each group to volunteer to be the Admin for the group so please state that you are interested in your comment on Facebook.

Thank you Dawn for organizing and running these groups!

We have several groups still going strong from last year!

We will not organize critique groups outside of Facebook this year. If you are interested in forming a critique group outside of Facebook, please comment about that in your reply to this post and add your name and email address so anyone else interested can contact you directly.

 

*

The RhyPiBoMo 2015 Barnes and Noble BookFair is this Saturday, April 11th!

I have been asked to give a talk at my local Barnes and Noble in Evansville, Indiana on Maya Angelou during Educator’s Week. I combined my talk to include tidbits about Maya’s life and poetry with diversity in children’s books. What a wonderful opportunity to discuss poetry and diversity all in one talk! Thus, Barnes and Noble agreed to offer a BookFair all day on April 11th and 20% of all the sales that day will go to WE NEED DIVERSE BOOKS for all who use this coupon. It is good for sales in store and on-line so PLEASE support this worthy non-profit and buy lots and lots of books! Pass out coupons to friends and family too! Let’s support poetry and diversity in children’s books!

*

*

 

PLEASE REMEMBER!!!

Add both your FIRST and LAST names to your daily comment! This is what enables you to be eligible for a prize that day. Many people are forgetting!! I request this because the reply section doesn’t give me your name unless it’s a part of your email address. And even then sometimes it’s very hard for me to figure out the exact name.

How I choose daily winners…Late each Saturday night, I will go back to Monday’s comments and count how many there are. I then type that number into a randomizer program that choose a number for me. I count from the first post down to that number and that is the daily winner. If that post doesn’t have a first and last name listed it will not win. I will then go to the next post that has a first and last name listed. I will do this for each day of the week and announce the winners on the following Monday.

Please DO NOT go back now and add another comment now as I need each person to only comment one time to keep things fair. Thanks!

Good Luck and ADD YOR FIRST and LAST NAME to your comment!!!! = )

*

*

Official RhyPiBoMo 2015 Registration ends TODAY, April 8th, Midnight Central Time

so register now!

*

If you are not officially registered you will not be able to participate in the Golden Quill Poetry Contest, in Rhyming Critique Groups or will not be eligible for daily prizes.

*

To see if you are registered go to the Master Registration List on the drop down menu under the RhyPiBoMo Blog tab above.

*

Registration Link:

https://angiekarcher.wordpress.com/rhypibomo-2015-registration/

*

Please comment below. You MUST add your FIRST and LAST names

to be eligible for today’s prize!

<h2style=”text-align: center;”>Welcome to

RhyPiBoMo 2015 Day 5

Ann Whitford Paul

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Today’s guest blogger is a picture book writing heroine of mine! For those who participated in RhyPiBoMo last year, you may recall how many times I referred to her wonderful book WRITING PICTURE BOOKS. It is book that I read every few months just to re-absorb it’s contents. If you haven’t read it…you must! I am so excited to have her as one of the guest bloggers this year so with a big smile, I introduce

Ann Whitford Paul.

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Years ago I was working on a concept, picture book manuscript about all the things feet do—hop, skip, jump, leap, etc. The rhymes worked, but the story felt flat until . . . someone in my writing group suggested I have the child talk to her feet.

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I tried it and the manuscript came alive, not only for me, but for my editor. The resulting book HELLO TOES! HELLO FEET! received fantastic reviews and sold well.

Unfortunately, as happens in this business DKInk, the publisher, went out of business, and my book went out-of-print.

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Still I had learned my lesson. When a poem (or a prose piece) isn’t working, try telling it in a different voice.
The most commonly used voice is the narrative voice when an outside narrator tells the story, as in this poem:

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DUCK

Down falls the rain.
The droplets all drain
off Duck’s feathery coat.

It’s continues to pour
an inch, even more
on Duck’s rubbery feet.

If it floods for a year.
Duck has nothing to fear.
She’s her very own boat.

Not bad, but let’s experiment telling it in the lyrical, first-person voice where the narrator is a participant.

I watch Duck in the rain.
The small droplets all drain
off her feathery coat.
They soak into my skin.

I wear boots when it pours
an inch, even more.
Duck does just fine
with her rubbery feet.

If it rained for a year
Duck has nothing to fear
I’d need an ark,
but Duck’s her own boat.

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This lyrical voice expands the original concept. The child’s comparison of herself to the duck adds an element of wonder and even some envy.

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There are three more dramatic voices we can try. Let’s start with the mask voice where the poet puts herself inside an animal or object that can’t talk. Here I imagine how Duck might feel.

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Let it cloud! Let it rain!
The small droplets all drain
off my feathery coat.

Let it shower or pour
an inch, even more
on my rubbery feet.

Let it flood for a year!
I have nothing to fear.
I’m my very own boat.

I love the self-confident voice here and see Duck’s personality evolving.
Then there’s the apostrophe voice which I used in my book HELLO TOES! HELLO FEET! where I talk to an animal or object that can’t talk back, in this case Duck.

Do you like being you?
Whenever it rains
the small droplets all drain
off your water-resistant
feathery coat.

Tell me, how do you feel
when it showers or pours.
Is an inch, even more,
no bother at all
to your rubbery feet?

And if a flood came,
lasting a year
would you have any fear
or just paddle along,
being your very own boat?

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The last dramatic voice is a conversation where two people, or in this case one of them a talking duck, converse. Notice there are no attributions. Characters are differentiated by changes in the font.

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Duck, come out of the rain.
It’s no bother to me.
The droplets all drain
Of my water-resistant feathery coat.

Look now! See it pour.
And you have no boots.
It’s an inch, even more.
No problem at all with my rubbery feet.

What if it floods for a year?
You cannot stay out.
I have nothing to fear.
I’ll stay afloat.
I’m my very own boat.

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Experimenting with different voices can enlarge your vision of your poem or prose. It opens up your imagination and leads you to fun and unexpected places. Even if you decide your original voice is the right one, you’ll find your writing expanded. Editors aren’t looking for what’s been done before. They want unique. Give it to them.

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Remember that book I mentioned at the start—HELLO TOES! HELLO FEET! I’m happy to announce, thanks to on-demand printing, it is reissued.

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You can order it here.

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About Ann:
I became inspired to write after years of bedtime reading to my four children. My publications include many award winning prose and rhymed, fiction and non-fiction, picture books, plus a collection of poetry and three early readers. Some of my recent titles include Tortuga in Trouble, Word Builder and If Animals Kissed Good Night. I’ve also published what has become a definitive craft book for adults titled WRITING PICTURE BOOKS: A Hands-on Guide from Story Creation to Publication. For over ten years, I taught picture book writing through UCLA Extension and now give independent classes and workshops. When not writing or teaching, you will probably find me reading, quilting, knitting or cooking. I love watching spiders spin their webs, snails paint their trails and cats play with yarn.

RhyPiBoMo 2015 Optional Writing Prompt:5

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This is NOT part of the pledge. It is an option for a writing exercise for those interested. You will not publically share this as part of RhyPiBoMo but may keep a journal of your writing this month for your own review.

Today’s writing prompt is to choose a poem you have already written and go back and re-write it using several of the different voices Ann demonstrated above.

See Ann’s examples above.

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The RhyPiBoMo 2015 Barnes and Noble BookFair is this Saturday, April 11th!

I have been asked to give a talk at my local Barnes and Noble in Evansville, Indiana on Maya Angelou during Educator’s Week. I combined my talk to include tidbits about Maya’s life and poetry with diversity in children’s books. What a wonderful opportunity to discuss poetry and diversity all in one talk! Thus, Barnes and Noble agreed to offer a BookFair all day on April 11th and 20% of all the sales that day will go to WE NEED DIVERSE BOOKS for all who use this coupon. It is good for sales in store and on-line so PLEASE support this worthy non-profit and buy lots and lots of books! Pass out coupons to friends and family too! Let’s support poetry and diversity in children’s books!

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Golden Quill Poetry Contest

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The Golden Quill Poetry Contest will accept entries STARTING April 13th and the deadline is April 25th midnight Central Time.

For further details please visit the Golden Quill Poetry Contest tab above.

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Once registration ends on Wednesday, we will share information

concerning rhyming critique groups.

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PLEASE REMEMBER!!!

Add both your FIRST and LAST names to your daily comment! This is what enables you to be eligible for a prize that day. Many people are forgetting!! I request this because the reply section doesn’t give me your name unless it’s a part of your email address. And even then sometimes it’s very hard for me to figure out the exact name.

How I choose daily winners…Late each Saturday night, I will go back to Monday’s comments and count how many there are. I then type that number into a randomizer program that choose a number for me. I count from the first post down to that number and that is the daily winner. If that post doesn’t have a first and last name listed it will not win. I will then go to the next post that has a first and last name listed. I will do this for each day of the week and announce the winners on the following Monday.

Please DO NOT go back now and add another comment now as I need each person to only comment one time to keep things fair. Thanks!

Good Luck and ADD YOUR FIRST and LAST NAME to your comment!!!! = )

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Official RhyPiBoMo 2015 Registration ends on April 8th, Midnight Central Time

so register now!

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If you are not officially registered you will not be able to participate in the Golden Quill Poetry Contest, in Rhyming Critique Groups or will not be eligible for daily prizes.

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To see if you are registered go to the Master Registration List on the drop down menu under the RhyPiBoMo Blog tab above.

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Registration Link:

https://angiekarcher.wordpress.com/rhypibomo-2015-registration/

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Please comment below. You MUST add your FIRST and LAST names

to be eligible for today’s prize!

   Welcome to

RhyPiBoMo 2015 Day4

Marilyn Singer

    

Photo by Laurie Gaboardi/The Litchfield County Times.

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 As I was creating my wish list of bloggers for this year one name sat right at the top.  She is an author and an outstanding poet who has written over 100 books and has even created her own form of poetry. This writing community is always so supportive of new writers and I am thankful for all the wonderful authors and poets who agree to participate in RhyPiBoMo!

It is my honor to introduce,

Marilyn Singer

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* Photo by Laurie Gaboardi/The Litchfield County Times.

 

TO RHYME OR NOT TO RHYME

by Marilyn Singer

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One evening at dinner, a group of friends and I were trying to define poetry.   We were not attempting to define GOOD poetry—just what is a poem at all.   We all agreed on one thing:  if it rhymes, then it’s a poem.  It may be a totally lousy one, but it’s a poem.

We also agreed that a poem doesn’t HAVE to rhyme.   But then we got onto shaky ground re: free verse. I don’t think we reached any consensus.  I recounted a story that took place when I was in first grade or so and I’d recently started writing poetry, all of which rhymed.  My teacher suggested that I try my hand at free verse.  So I did—and I ended up writing a prose paragraph about roller skating.  It was not a poem by any stretch of the imagination, and I’m certain that, had they read it, my dinner companions would have agreed.

So we know when something is a paragraph, right, and not a poem, right?  But what if you take the same words and break them up into short lines?  What if you remove the punctuation?   And if you throw in a metaphor or two, what then?  Come to think of it, what if you throw in a metaphor or two into what is clearly a paragraph?  Is it still prose?  These are the questions that keep me up at night.  Well, not really.  But they do enliven dinner parties (depending on your guests).

Here’s the thing:  when it comes to children’s poetry, most people don’t think about paragraphs or free verse at all.  They think about rhyme.  So, I thought it might be fun to put together a list of “Myths about Rhyme” and tackle these thornier questions about what is a poem some other time (preferably way in the future).

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MYTHS ABOUT RHYME

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1.  Rhyme is easy to write.

2.  All kids’ poetry must rhyme.

3.  Rhyme is only for children. (See “Spring and Fall to a Young Child” by Gerard Manley Hopkins)

4.  Publishers like rhyme. (They don’t unless it’s good)

5.  Publishers hate rhyme. (They don’t unless it’s bad)

6.  Nonsense words make for successful rhyming poems or picture books.   Unless you’re Lewis Carroll or Dr. Seuss, not likely.

7.  Rhyme will make an old idea fresh.  No way, José.

8.  The only good rhyme is an end rhyme.

9.  Rhyme is only for light verse.  (See another Hopkins–Lee Bennett)

10.  Only certain subjects are fit for poetry, period.  And rhyme is only fit for certain subjects.

11.  Great poets always write great poems.  (See the Emily Dickinson piece below)

12.  Rhyme is passé.

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So when should you choose to use rhyme?  That’s a hard question to answer, but I’d say when you hear it in your head, when the poem insists upon it, when it makes sense in music and meaning.  When is rhyme something you shouldn’t choose?  Well, the myths above should give you some clues and tell you when rhyme is something to lose.

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SPRING AND FALL TO A YOUNG CHILD

Gerard Manley Hopkins

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Márgarét, are you gríeving

Over Goldengrove unleaving?

Leáves, líke the things of man, you

With your fresh thoughts care for, can you?

Ah!  ás the heart grows older

It will come to such sights colder

By and by, nor spare a sigh

Though worlds of wanwood leafmeal lie;

And yet you wíll weep and know why.

Now no matter, child, the name:

Sórrow’s spríngs áre the same.

Nor mouth had, no nor mind, expressed

What heart heard of, ghost guessed:

It ís the blight man was born for,

It is Margaret you mourn for.

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From Been to Yesterdays (Wordsong/Boyds Mills)©1995 by Lee Bennett Hopkins:

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“WE

have to

move again

tonight.

Mama’s money’s spent.

I don’t have

enough to make

our monthly rent.

The check

that Daddy said

he’d send

was never sent.”

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Again

I look

at empty boxes

and I know

what they

are for.

They’re

made

to store

some things

you live

your whole life

for–

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a teddy bear,

books,

old door keys,

silent

lasting

memories.

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Stowed in cardboard

corners,

memories rest

quietly

in paper chests

there–

when you need them most

to move you on–

there–

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when we must take

flight

in the middle

of a wrinkled,

corrugated night.

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In the “Oy, Vey” category:  IF I CAN STOP ONE HEART FROM BREAKING

Emily Dickinson

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If I can stop one heart from breaking,

I shall not live in vain

If I can ease one life the aching,

Or cool one pain,

Or help one fainting robin

Unto his nest again,

I shall not live in vain.

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About Marilyn:

Winner of the 2015 NCTE Award for Excellence in Poetry, Marilyn Singer is the author of over one hundred books, many of which are poetry collections, including Mirror Mirror (Dutton), for which she created the “reverso” form.  Her latest poetry books are: Rutherford B., Who Was He?: Poems about Our Presidents (Disney-Hyperion); Follow Follow:  A Book of Reversos (Dial); A Strange Place to Call Home (Chronicle); and The Superheroes Employment Agency (Clarion).  Her third book of reversos, Echo Echo, will be published next year by Dial.

http://www.amazon.com/Superheroes-Employment-Agency-Marilyn-Singer/dp/0547435592/ref=sr_1_sc_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1427527662&sr=8-1-spell&keywords=The+Super+Heros+Employment+Agency

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 Thank you so much Marilyn!

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RhyPiBoMo 2015 Optional Writing Prompt:4

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This is NOT part of the pledge. It is an option for a writing exercise for those interested. You will not publically share this as part of RhyPiBoMo but may keep a journal of your writing this month for your own review.

Today’s writing prompt is to write a rhyming poem about a somber subject. Use rhyme as the ending lines as well as internally.

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For example:

 Wearing a smile while feeling so sad,

Refusing, not choosing to cry.

Leaving while grieving a moment in time,

Beguiling, still smiling, but why?

Feelings are hidden,  forbidden to show.

Strength, divine armor to shine. (shine rhymes with divine and sign)

And just when you feel the real heart of the beast,

Weary teardrops fall down as a sign.

 © 2015 Angie Karcher

 

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Congratulations to

Week 1 Prize Winners

Mon      Kirsti Call  Won a copy of BEAR’S LOOSE TOOTH Donated by Dawn Young

Tues     Maria Bostian  Won a copy of SUPERWORM Donated by Dawn Young

Wed      Melanie Ellsworth Won a copy of TEENY TINY TRUCKS Donated by Tim McCanna

Thurs   Lori Laniewski  Won a copy of an Autographed Book Donated by Nikki Grimes

Fri         Darshana Khiani  Won a copy of WORD BUILDER Donated by Ann Whitford Paul

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“Friday Favorites” Winner – Elaine Hillson  Won a Rhyming Manuscript Critique Donated by Angie Karcher (after April – 500 words or less) Elaine, please contact me in May. Congrats!

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 Congratulations to the week 1 winners!

Thank you to our generous prize donors!

Winners, PLEASE message me your address on Facebook

or email it to Angiekarcherrpbm@gmail.com

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Golden Quill Poetry Contest

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The Golden Quill Poetry Contest will accept entries STARTING April 13th and the deadline is April 25th midnight Central Time.

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Contest Rules:

First and Last name included in the body of the email at the top left

Email address included in the body of the email at the top left

Phone number – top left

Space down 5 spaces

The Theme is: Freedom

Title of poem – centered with no by line or name here

8 line limit

Must be a rhyming poem

You will be judged on clever title, rhyme scheme, rhythm, scansion, perfect rhyming words, internal rhyme, alliteration, consonance, assonance, onomatopoeia, and clever ending.

Poems due to Angiekarcherrpbm@gmail by April 25th midnight central time

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Format example:

First and Last Name

Email

Phone Number

Poem Title

Line 1

2

3

4

5

6

7

8

*Any poem that strays from this format will be disqualified.

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PLEASE REMEMBER!!!

Add both your FIRST and LAST names to your daily comment! This is what enables you to be eligible for a prize that day. Many people are forgetting!! I request this because the reply section doesn’t give me your name unless it’s a part of your email address. And even then sometimes it’s very hard for me to figure out the exact name.

How I choose daily winners…Late each Saturday night, I will go back to Monday’s comments and count how many there are. I then type that number into a randomizer program that choose a number for me. I count from the first post down to that number and that is the daily winner. If that post doesn’t have a first and last name listed it will not win. I will then go to the next post that has a first and last name listed. I will do this for each day of the week and announce the winners on the following Monday.

Please DO NOT go back now and add another comment now as I need each person to only comment one time to keep things fair. Thanks!

Good Luck and ADD YOR FIRST and LAST NAME to your comment!!!! = )

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More information coming soon concerning

Rhyming Critique Groups and

the Barnes and Noble BookFair

Stay tuned!

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Official RhyPiBoMo 2015 Registration ends this Wednesday, April 8th, Midnight Central Time

so register now!

*

If you are not officially registered you will not be able to participate in the Golden Quill Poetry Contest, in Rhyming Critique Groups or will not be eligible for daily prizes.

*

To see if you are registered go to the Master Registration List on the drop down menu under the RhyPiBoMo Blog tab above.

*

Registration Link:

https://angiekarcher.wordpress.com/rhypibomo-2015-registration/

*

Please comment below. You MUST add your FIRST and LAST names

to be eligible for today’s prize!