Spending Poetry Friday at the Baltimore Book Festival

Writerly Friends, it's Baltimore Book Festival weekend!

Janet at Poetry for Children is hosting
this week's Poetry Friday festival of posts.

I'll be reading, writing, and speaking down at Baltimore's Inner Harbor all weekend. I'll catch up on the Poetry Friday festivities later.

The list of featured authors includes several poets and children's authors I hope to see:

Kwame Alexander
Katherine Applegate
Sandra Beasley
Celeste Doaks
Frederick O. Foote
Erin  Hagar
Meg Medina
E. Ethelbert Miller
Laura Shovan
Carole Boston Weatherford

Did you see a familiar name on there? Here's where you can find me:

Saturday, 1 PM at the CityLit Stage

Chapbook Champions: Winners of the Harriss Poetry Prize

Celebrating its fifth anniversary, the Harriss Poetry Prize is a chapbook competition open to poets nation-wide who have not published a book-length collection.  Named in honor of the patron saint of Maryland poetry and independent publishing, Clarinda Harriss, and published under the CityLit Press imprint, the prize has been judged by acclaimed poets such as Dick Allen, Marie Howe, Tom Lux, and Michael Salcman, who serves as the series editor.

Danuta E. Kosk-Kosicka (Oblige the Light) is the author of Face Half-Illuminated, a book of poems, translations, and prose. Her poems, translations, essays, and interviews have appeared in Akcent; Driftwood Press; International Poetry Review; Lalitamba; Little Patuxent Review; Loch Raven Review; Notre Dame Review; Passager; Przegl?d Polski, Nowy Dziennik; and The Baltimore Review, and elsewhere.

Rebekah Remington (Asphalt) holds a BA from Johns Hopkins University and an MFA from the University of Michigan. Her poetry has appeared in Linebreak, The Missouri Review, Ninth Letter, Bellingham Review Online, Hayden Ferry’s Review, Smartish Pace, and elsewhere. She is the recipient of two Maryland State Arts Council Individual Artist Awards in poetry.

Bruce Sager (Famous) works as a corporate officer in a systems integration firm. He has been the recipient of Maryland State Arts Council Individual Artist Awards in both fiction and poetry, a Baltimore City Arts Grant in poetry, and the 1986 Artscape Literary Arts Award in poetry, judged by William Stafford. Prior chapbooks include Nine Ninety-Five and The Pumping Station.

Laura Shovan (Mountain, Log, Salt, and Stone) is poetry editor for the literary journal Little Patuxent Review. She edited the Maryland Writers’ Association anthology Life in Me Like Grass on Fire: Love Poems. The Last Fifth Grade of Emerson Elementary, her novel-in-verse for children, will be published next year.

Sunday, 12 PM at the CityLit Stage

The Poet's Response: A Conversation on Social Justice and Poetics (Little Patuxent Review and Split This Rock)

Co-Sponsored by Little Patuxent Review and Split This Rock, the D.C.-based national network of socially engaged poets, this panel and poetry reading explores how poets respond to issues of social justice, and how activism shapes, informs, and invigorates the poet's craft. The conversation is co-moderated by Sarah Browning, executive director of Split This Rock, and Steven Leyva, editor of Little Patuxent Review.

Mahogany L. Browne is the recipient of fellowships from Cave Canem and Poet’s House, and is the current curator and host for the Friday Night series at the Nuyorican Poet’s Café in New York. Her most recent projects include Redbone: A Biomythography, #Dear Twitter: Love Letters Hashed Out Online in 140 Characters or Less, and Swag.

zakia henderson-brown currently serves as Associate Editor at The New Press and on the board of the Brooklyn Movement Center. Her poems have appeared or are forthcoming inBeloit Poetry Journal, North American Review, and Vinyl. zakia is a Cave Canem fellow and resides in her native Brooklyn.

Goldie Patrick has been a feature poet and performer at several poetry venues nationwide. Most recently named one of the top 40 under 40 by the Envest Foundation, Goldie is a self-proclaimed “hip-hop womanist,” inspired to create conversations and movements that empower and liberate the stories of Black women and girls.

Laura Shovan is poetry editor for Little Patuxent Review and editor of two poetry anthologies. Her chapbook, Mountain, Log, Salt and Stone, won the inaugural Harriss Poetry Prize. The Last Fifth Grade of Emerson Elementary, her novel-in-verse for children, will be published in 2016.

If you're going to BBF, look for the SCBWI table! 

This is the first year that our local region will be represented at the festival.

Check out our local authors on Friday, 4 pm at the Inner Harbor Stage.

So You Want to Write a Children’s Book

Introduced by: Joyce Garczynski, Research and Instruction Librarian, Towson University

Members of the MD/DE/WV region of the Society of Children's Book Writers and Illustrators share their paths to publication in a panel discussion.

Panelists: Timothy Young, Ann McCallum, Laura Gehl and Rebecca Evans.

I'm excited to meet Laura Gehl, who has been featured here at Author Amok.

I can't leave without sharing a poem.

E. Ethelbert Miller's website has a wonderful selection of his poems. "Circus Animal" is a powerful short poem. I think this is a great one for eliciting a powerful discussion with your high school students. You'll find the poem here. 

At the Baltimore Book Festival with Middle Grade Author Elissa Brent Weissman

Fellow authors, how would we survive without our writerly friends? From helpful manuscript feedback, to hand holding when a rejection arrives, to bringing you octopus cupcakes on your birthday, we all rely on our author buddies.

Octopus cupcakes created by my writer
friend Barb Dell and her daughter.

That's why I love literary events. They are a chance to hang out with the writing community. At festivals like CityLit in Baltimore, or a local SCBWI conference, I love putting mom stuff aside for a few hours and focusing on WRITING with friends who share my love of all things word. Expanding my literary circle with new friends is pretty awesome too. Especially when it's people like novelist James McBride, who I had a lovely chat with at this weekend's Baltimore Book Festival.

One of my newest literary buddies is middle grade novelist Elissa Brent Weissman.

I think I picked her up (using that favorite pick-up line of writers everywhere, "So, what do you write?") in an elevator last April when we were both speaking at CityLit Festival. We agreed to stay in touch. Finally, over the summer, Elissa and I met for coffee. She has four books out. Right now, I'm reading Nerd Camp, which is so much fun.

Elissa is visiting Author Amok today with a post about the Baltimore Book Festival. The three-day festival was this past weekend.

One of the highlights for me is always the Children's Bookstore Stage. I've taken my children to see favorite authors Tom Angleberger, Libba Bray, and Michael Buckley in past years. But what's it like to be *on* the stage at a big book festival? Elissa reveals all...

On stage at the Baltimore Book Festival.
Elissa Brent Weissman is on the right.

One of my favorite things about writing for children is getting to interact with young readers. If you’ve been to a reading or talk by an author of adult books, with mostly grownups in the audience, you’re probably familiar with the awkward silence that ensues when it comes time for questions from the audience. (I, too, am an adult whose brain gets wiped clean when it comes time to ask questions of authors, even my favorite ones!) But asking a roomful of kids if they have questions makes almost every hand shoot up, and every question is better than the last.

Kids have a natural curiosity but also a naiveté about etiquette-required boundaries, which makes for some shocking, yet refreshingly honest, questions. I’ve been asked how much money I make, how much money I have, and even if I get driven around in a limousine. If adults were to ask me these things, I’d have no trouble being honest in my responses: I don’t make much money, but I have enough to keep writing books anyway, and apart from my senior prom, I drive myself in a station wagon. But with kids, I hesitate. I love that they think of authors as celebrities—not because I want to think of myself as a celebrity (though I’ll admit I once got a rockstar-worthy welcome when I entered a classroom, and it was quite the rush!) but because authors, on the whole, are better role models than a lot of the high-earning, high-spending, limousine-driven celebrities out there. I don’t want to give kids false expectations, but I do want them to consider writing books to be a glamorous and desirable profession.

The authors' limo to the Baltimore Book
Festival must have gotten lost in the woods of Patapsco Valley State Park.

That’s why I was so excited to get an email from a young reader recently with a fantastic question. “Do authors get to hang out with other authors?” she asked. “Published authors, I mean?” I was able to answer with a resounding, enthusiastic, and completely honest YES! In fact, I told her, in addition to interacting with young readers, hanging out with other authors is my other favorite thing about writing for children.

Elissa's first book was a
light look at school politics.

I’m writing this less than 24 hours since I presented on a panel at the Baltimore Book Festival, and I’m still riding high on how much fun it was. I love doing book festivals because the atmosphere is so vibrant. Yesterday, with its perfect weather and all-star lineup, was especially vibrant. There were people everywhere, eating and talking and carrying books. Authors and booksellers and readers were roaming and chatting and hanging out. The Children’s Bookstore tent, where I presented, was packed with kids, parents, and children’s book lovers. (It was nothing, however, compared to the night before, when over 300 people crammed in to see Tomie DaPaola!)

As an author, panel presentations are especially great because having multiple authors increases the odds of a bigger audience. My panel was called “Savvy Girls: 5 Middle Grade Novelists and their Savvy Female Heroines.” I discussed my newest book, The Short Seller—about a twelve-year-old girl who becomes a stock-trading whiz—alongside Elisabeth Dahl (Genie Wishes), Erica Perl (Aces Wild), Shawn K. Stout (Penelope Crumb), and Tracey West (a.k.a. Coco Simon, author of The Cupcake Diaries). 

Elissa's fourth middle grade novel came out this year.

Our panel was moderated by librarian extraordinaire Paula Willey. She was ready with a fun guess-the-quote contest for the kids in the audience (with prizes we’d all brought!), plus some “embarrassing questions” for us, which came as a surprise, but we were all game to answer. (Side note: It’s strange talking on stage at the festival. Even though you have a mic and can see that the audience seems to be listening, the speakers are beyond the stage, so it’s hard to hear yourself over the crowd outside the tent.)

After presenting, we made our way to the tables to sign books and chat one-on-one with the audience. One of the highlights for me was the arrival of a big group of people wearing matching Ins- π-red (“inspired” with the symbol for pi!) shirts and carrying copies of my book Nerd Camp. They were members of a mother-son book club who’d read Nerd Camp, and after I signed all their copies, we had a great discussion about that book.

It’s still hard for me to believe that I’m one of the people on stage; at heart, I’m one of the star-struck fans, giddy with excitement at seeing such talented people in the flesh. And to think that I get to spend time with them, goof around and talk shop, it’s… unbelievable. I’ve done a number of events with three of the “savvy girls” on my panel, so seeing them again was like seeing old friends. I’d never met Tracey West before, but she was lovely and engaging. 

I went to dinner Friday night with some other presenting authors and illustrators—imagine the opportunity to hang out with Natalie Standiford, draw cats with Kevin O’Malley, and chat with Adam Rex! After my panel, I ate a cookie and drank champagne in the beautiful author hospitality mansion (no joke—it’s in an old Mt. Vernon mansion) with good friend Elisabeth Dahl and new friend Jonathan Auxier. In other words, I spent the weekend floating on a cloud.

Writing books is a solitary, even lonely, pursuit. Sharing them at events like this—outside, on a sunny fall day, surrounded by readers and writers—makes all of the time you spend staring at a blank screen or a rejection letter worth it.

So, YES!, I told the young aspiring writer who emailed me. We may not make a ton of money, and we may not have a ton of money, but authors DO get to hang out with other authors, and it’s the most exhilarating, enjoyable, inspiring experience. Better, hands down, than a ride in any limousine.

Elissa (center) goofing with her writerly friends at BBF.

Elissa Brent Weissman is the author of multiple novels for middle grade readers. Nerd Camp won the 2011 Cybils Award for middle grade fiction and was a best summer novel for kids in The Washington Post. (Look for Nerd Camp 2.0 summer 2014!)  Her most recent book, The Short Seller, was a must-read in Girls' Life magazine and was featured on NPR's "Here and Now." Learn more at www.ebweissman.com.

UPDATE -- A NERDY GIVEAWAY!

Those Ins-π-red t-shirts inspired the nerd in me. In honor of Elissa's guest post, I am giving away a hand-knitted Pi Bookmark. Leave a comment by 12 AM on Friday, October 5. I will post the winner on Poetry Friday. Good luck and may the Pi be with you.

UPDATE #1 -- An even NERDIER GIVEAWAY!!

Our guest blogger, Elissa, is sweetening the giveaway pot with a nerdy gift of her own. A comment on this post might win you...(wait for it)... a NERD CAMP t-shirt of your very own.

Thanks, Elissa!

To whet your appetite, here is a totally adorable kid's review of NERD CAMP.

Poetry Friday: Lucille Clifton, Children's Author

Tomorrow is 100,000 Poets for Change day, all across the world! Check out the international poster gallery here.

In Baltimore, the date just happens to coincide -- lucky for us -- with the annual Baltimore Book Festival. What better way to honor Poets for Change than with a tribute to Lucille Clifton, who died in 2010.  Her work is a powerful voice for women, for children, for people of color, and for the urban experience. Thanks to CityLit Project, Little Patuxent Review and my co-host, poet Virginia Crawford, for making this tribute discussion and reading possible.

Our event poster, designed by LPR design editor Deb Dulin.

A few weeks ago, I posted about Clifton's new Collected Poems, 1965-2010. I predict it will be an award-winner.

Although she is known as a major American poet, Clifton also authored over a dozen books for children. Her daughter, Alexia Clifton, will be participating in tomorrow's tribute. I asked Alexia about her mother's books for kids.

Hi Laura! 

Hi, Alexia!

 

1. Your mother was a prolific children’s author, yet she is better known for her poetry than for her children’s books. Why do you think that is? Which is your favorite of your mother’s books for children and why?

 

I think that with poetry, Mommy was able to tap into our need for shared human experiences, or "human-ness" as she would say, in a way that other forms of writing simply can't.  I also believe that as I aged, I paid more attention to her poetry than I did the children's books.  As children, my siblings and I were very aware of the books for children and of Mom coming up to schools or doing readings at various libraries.  My favorite is "Some of The Days of Everett Anderson" because it was the first one I remember reading on my own and I just loved the way it flowed. 

Find it on Amazon.

2. The Boy Who Didn’t Believe in Spring was a favorite at our house when our kids were young. I especially appreciate the portrayal of a boy who has a chip on his shoulder, but who is also very much a young boy. I love the book’s surprise ending, how King Shabazz finds spring. Why was it important to your mother to write about urban kids like King Shabazz?

It was always important to Mommy that her children see their reflections in books. She wanted people in urban cities to be able to point to books and tell their children, "see, he's/she's like you!".  We spent a lot of time reading or at libraries as children and always had references that we could identify with.

This book has a great surprise ending.

3. I’m looking at the dialogue, where King says to his friend Tony Polito, “’Everybody talkin bout Spring comin, and Spring just round the corner. I’m going to go round there and see what do I see.’” I noticed that “talkin,” “bout” and “comin” would typically have an apostrophe to show the dropped letter.

As a poet, I see the choice not to add punctuation here as a political statement. This is how King Shabazz speaks. He’s not shortening the word “about” intentionally, to sound cool or street. This is how the word “about” sounds in his neighborhood, among his friends. There’s real dignity and respect for the child as a full person in that small choice. Can you talk about that?

Thanks, she would appreciate your comments about that. One of the things that Mommy always talked about was being realistic. She said that children, in particular, can spot something that is inauthentic and that she wouldn't dishonor them in that way.  She had six children and so was constantly surrounded by conversations and insights from and about kids.  She was also wise enough to know that all children don't speak that way and to respect that as well.  Very often she said, "my commitment is to the story or the poem, not to the storyteller."  She was one heck of a role model.

 

4. From what experiences did your mother draw her characters, such as King Shabazz and Everett Anderson? I imagine that these characters, especially Everett Anderson who stars in a more than a half dozen picture books, became like real people.

This book covers one year of Everett Anderson's life, a poem for each month.

I can remember Mommy saying that when the first Everett Anderson book was published, my brother (her youngest son) was 6 like Everett.  I'm sure that was significant for her though the character isn't based on either of my brothers.

She was always a great observer of life and of people and I think that the characters she wrote about are combinations of lots of types that she was familiar with.  In fact, as kids, we would find ourselves looking at other people and saying, "he reminds me of Everett Anderson" or if their were very relatable characters in children's books, asking, "did Mommy write this?" Pretty funny.

 

5. In her poetry and her books for kids, your mother was a master at the small, but telling detail. I’m thinking of the poem “November” from Everett Anderson’s Year, which is a Thanksgiving prayer. It includes the lines, “thank you for Mama and turkey and fun,/ thank you for Daddy wherever he is.” How would you describe your mother’s ability to say so much in a so few words?

We are as awed by Mommy's ability to do that as everyone else!  I do not remember a time when she couldn't. I've been told that I have a little bit of that gift as well but don't bet on it :-)  

Mommy was a very complex person in a lot of ways and I think that there was a lot of thought that went into her perceived simplicity.  She was a combination of so many things and witness to so many pivotal periods of history and I believe that must have informed who she was.  Authentic and genuine connection was very important to her; and as it turns out, important to us all.

Thanks for stopping by, Alexia. I look forward to tomorrow's event and we're all thrilled that you can participate.

Alexia Clifton

Alexia “Lexi” Clifton is the owner of No Sweat Fitness, Inc. a personal training and fitness studio located in Baltimore. With over twenty years of experience and four national certifications, she enjoys volunteering with First Lady Michelle Obama’s “Let's Move” initiative and “Marathon Kids,” organizations that are dedicated to fighting childhood obesity.

She is her parents’ fourth daughter and youngest child, and has inherited her mother love of reading and her father’s love of physical fitness. She enjoys spending time with her friends and family and is humbled and proud to be a part of her mother's extraordinary legacy. Alexia currently resides in Columbia, Maryland.

Enjoy your Poetry Friday, everyone. For more poetry and more multicultural books, head over to Paper Tigers, our host this week.

Poetry Friday: Clifton's Collected Poems

I was sitting yesterday in a bookstore cafe with poet Ginny Crawford, several books of Lucille Clifton's poetry filling our small table. Then I went hunting for Clifton's newly released Collected Poems, which just about collapsed our table. It is a book as mighty, inside and out, as Clifton was in life.

Celebrating the recent publication of
Clifton's mammoth Collected Poems.

Ginny and I are planning an event for this month's Baltimore Book Festival (9/28-30) -- a tribute to Clifton's work both as a poet and as an active, generous member of the literary community. She lived here, in Columbia, Maryland, and taught at St. Mary's College in the southern part of the state.

Me, CityLit Project's Gregg Wilhelm, and
Ginny Crawford at the 2011 Baltimore Book Festival.

Officially:

A panel of local poets and authors who knew and worked with Lucille Clifton discuss her poetry and legacy. Featuring: poet Linda Joy Burke, Little Patuxent Review contributing editor Susan Thornton Hobby, Edgar Silex and Lucille's daughter, Alexia Clifton. Moderated by poet Virginia Crawford and LPR editor Laura Shovan. The panel will include readings of Clifton’s poems from the newly released The Collected Poems of Lucille Clifton 1965-2010. Attendees may be invited to write on-the-spot poems in response to Clifton’s work. This program is presented as part of the 100,000 Poets for Change annual global event. 

Saturday, September 29, 12-1:30 PM in the CityLit Tent.

Clifton died in 2010 and our local community misses her a great deal, so there is a lot of positive energy around this event.

Ginny and I will be inviting attendees to write poems using first lines of Clifton's work as a prompt, something I invite you to try at home.

Going through the Collected Works, there were so many evocative first lines to use that we had to stop at forty. As Ginny and I scanned the poems, we stopped and read, shared favorite pieces and surprises -- again, more poems than you can imagine.

For those of you who teach older children, middle and high school, I am suggesting Clifton's poem, "Miss Rosie" as a model piece.

Many teens like to write about social issues because they are newly awake to the larger world. In judging teen poetry contests, I've read my share of poems about the homeless. What's usually missing, and what Clifton does so well, is the specificity that takes a problem and invites the reader to see an individual person.

miss rosie
by Lucille Clifton
when I watch you wrapped up like garbage sitting, surrounded by the smell of too old potato peels or when I watch you in your old man's shoes with the little toe cut out sitting, waiting for your mind like next week's grocery I say when I watch you you wet brown bag of a woman

Read the rest at Poets.org.

Like me, Ginny is a poet-in-the-schools for the Maryland State Arts Council. We came across a Clifton poem with this title, "We Do Not Know Very Much About Lucille's Inner Life."

Wow. What a great prompt for middle and high schoolers, "Insert your own name and go with it."

Be brave if you do this prompt with your students. This is a BIG invitation to speak the truth. That's what Lucille Clifton was all about. She spoke the truth through her poetry. She spoke difficult things in a way that invited everyone to listen and to be brave themselves.

Stop by Katya's place at Write. Sketch. Repeat. for more Poetry Friday posts.

Living Poems at 2011 Baltimore Book Festival

Yesterday was our big 100 Thousand Poets for Change event.

Gregg Wilhelm of CityLit Project was awesomeness itself, hosting our Living Poetry Flash Mob at the CityLit Stage.

Me, Gregg Wilhelm of CityLit Project, and my co-conspirator, poet Virginia Crawford.

Ginny and I designed this family literacy activity for the 100 Thousand Poets for Change event happening worldwide on Saturday, 9/24/11. You can visit the 100 TPC website to watch video and see photos of events in Afghanistan, Egypt, Australia, Washington, DC, etc.

I tried to convince Baltimore's Best Hon to be in a living poem. She had too many adjectives to fit in one line of verse.

Here are my favorite Living Poems from Saturday.

Courage waving toward time

Face the path beyond fear

I become fire and kiss everyone out of time

May you inspire poetry

The path beyond fear feels change become courage

And my favorite poem, because it captures the 100 TPC spirit:

Everyone human become a revolutionary innocence

We donated the "gently used" tee-shirts to a local charter school, where a fifth grade teacher wants to try Living Poetry in her classroom. I'm happy to report 100 TPC founder Michael Rothenberg got a big kick out of the Living Poem photos.

Tomorrow, I'll post about the "Poets for Social Justice Panel," sponsored by Little Patuxent Review. What a valuable discussion about Social Justice issues in the U.S! LPR will have video of the conversation available online later this week.

Reminder -- LPR is accepting submissions for our Social Justice issue through November 1.

UPDATE: One of the surprises about this project -- revision! One poet would begin a poem, but others in the crowd would switch out or add a word. Fascinating to see revision in living process, not on the page, but with people.

Poetry Friday Flash Mob Instructions

It's a very happy Poetry Friday this week. The Baltimore Book Festival begins this evening!

The Children's Bookstore always has great authors in their tent. I'm excited to hear Libba Bray (will get Going Bovine signed for the teen) tonight. My 'tween is coming with me to  hear Tom Angleberger, and have her copy of Origami Yoda signed tomorrow.

Of course, there are many poetry events going on throughout the weekend.

I am most excited about hosting the Living Poetry Flash Mob (tomorrow at 12.)

Think Magnetic Poetry, but with people in tee-shirts. We wanted to do something to promote family literacy for the global 100 Thousand Poets for Change event. Saturday will see 650 events, 450 cities, in 95 countries putting on poetry events. You can read my interview with organizer Michael Rothenberg here.

Poet Virginia Crawford and I are "moderating," which may turn out to be controlling the chaos. We figure, even if it's a disaster, it will be fun.

If you'd like to try a Living Poetry Flash Mob in your classroom, here's how:

Materials:

• one plain tee shirt per child (white or light colors -- old tees turned inside out would work)
• fabric markers
• a favorite poem (for elementary schoolers, something like Shel Silverstein's "Adventures of a Frisbee" would work, we are using Lucille Clifton's "Blessing the Boats" at BBF)

Procedure:

1. Give each student 1-2 words

Beforehand, you will need to either type up your poem in a BIG font and cut each word out or hand-write the individual words on index cards.

2. Get crafty

Have each student write his or her word/s on the front (second word on back, if you're doing two words each) of the tee shirt. Bling is okay. Decorations are great, as long as others can read the word.

3. Take turns

Choose two or three students, or two sets of partners, to be the poets. These students will organize their classmates into a short poem. Take a photo of the living poem or write it on the board. Then choose another set of poets.

4. Another option

You could also have the poets create phrases, rather than a complete poem, then ask the whole class to organize the phrases into a poem.

This should be fun for your visual learners, as well as your body-kinesthetic kids. If you try it, let me know how the poetry lesson goes.

I hope you make it to a 100 TPC event near you. Meanwhile, enjoy more poetry posts with Anastasia Suen at Picture Book of the Day.