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Irene Latham + Awards + Elephants
Did you know that August 12 is World Elephant Day? Yep, and of course we have a poem for this occasion in The Poetry Friday Anthology for Celebrations written by the lovely Irene Latham. PLUS:It's also...
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IBBY in New Zealand and poetry
I'm attending the biennial Congress of the International Board on Books for Young People (IBBY) in Auckland, New Zealand. This is such a wonderful event, a great opportunity to get a global glimpse of...
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My NZ Poetry Adventure
I just spent an amazing week in New Zealand for the IBBY Congress and enjoyed sharing my poetry poster, meeting New Zealand poets, soaking up a panel dedicated to poetry, chatting with a Latvian...
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The wait is over for YOU JUST WAIT
Happy Book Birthday to You Just Wait!Today, Janet (Wong) and I are officially launching another poetry venture and we’re trying something different once again. It's entitled You Just Wait: A Poetry...
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Poet to Poet: Jeannine Atkins
It's time for another installment in my Poet to Poet series where one poet interviews another poet about her or his new book. This time, the lovely April Halprin Wayland interviews Jeannine Atkins...
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Time for WWU Poetry Camp, Poetry Makerspace, and 40 POETS all in one place!
Over a year ago, Sylvia Tag (librarian) and Nancy Johnson (professor), at Western Washington University, had the idea to host a "Poetry Camp" and invited Janet (Wong) and me to come and speak. Of...
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WWU Poetry Camp
Last weekend I had the time of my life steeped in poetry with 150 other people who love it as much as I do. On October 1, Western Washington University’s PoetryCHaT center was the proud host of “Poetry...
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Teen Read Week
It's Teen Read Week this week and a fun time to showcase poetry for young adults. October has been the month for celebrating Teen Read Week since 1988, a time to “encourage teens to be regular readers...
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ARE YOU AN ECHO? Behind the Scenes
An Interview with Are You an Echo? Author David Jacobson and Translator Sally Itoby Janet WongI am half-Chinese and half-Korean, but my father’s closest friends were Japanese Americans, Nisei. I loved...
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Vote for poetry!
Yep, Election Day is around the corner and it's time to VOTE! Did you know that Election Day is set for the Tuesday immediately following the first Monday in November? It can be as early as Nov. 2 or...
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Celebrating Native American Heritage Month with Poetry
November is national Native American Heritage Month and a good time to seek out, share, and celebrate poetry by and Native American writers. In fact, check out the recent Presidential Proclamation that...
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November BOOK LINKS: Jeannine Atkins and STEM
Have you seen the November issue of ALA's BOOK LINKS magazine? It's always such a helpful resource for teachers, librarians, and parents and this issue has a STEM focus. I was lucky enough to do an...
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Poetry Quotes +
I am a sucker for great quotes about the power of poetry! In fact, I have compiled tons of them and am always looking for more. I've made a whole slideshow of quotes that I often use before a...
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NCTE 2016
I'm sure you've read posts by many others who attended the recent NCTE conference (National Council of Teachers of English) in Atlanta. It's always a great event, but this year's conference had an...
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Celebrating libraries and Dewey Decimal Day in December
December is full of holidays, but I'll bet you didn't know Dewey Decimal Day was one of them! Yes, December 10 is Dewey Decimal Day, the birthday of Melvil Dewey (1851-1931), the inventor of the Dewey...
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Cybils Poetry Shortlist 2016
Happy new year, everyone! Time to celebrate the best of the poetry published in 2016. I'll be looking for announcements of all the awards and posting information about any poetry books that are...
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Sneak Peek list for 2017
It's time again to post my annual "sneak peek" list of all the poetry for young people that will be published in the coming year. This includes poetry collections, anthologies and novels in verse. In...
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BOOK LINKS: Pushing Boundaries with Diverse Poetry
Once again I'm so happy that ALA's Book Links magazine continues to highlight poetry and poets in their pages on a regular basis. For January, I corralled 11 poets about their forthcoming poetry books...
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HERE WE GO: Teaching poetry skills
I have recently been tooting the horn about my latest book with Janet Wong, Here We Go: A Poetry Friday Power Book. This is the second book in the Poetry Friday Power Book series. Book 1 in the series,...
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Poetry Award-a-rama
All of a sudden, I've seen a pile up of poetry awards announcements and it's time to pause and celebrate each one of them. It's always nice to see poets and poetry books get recognition. I hope these...
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