Meet Renée LaTulippe - A Wonderful Plan for Poetry Month-#30

The March Slice of Life Challenge is hosted by Stacey and Ruth at their blog,

Two Writing Teachers. - next to last time!  See you on Tuesdays!

and

It's Poetry Friday!  Get Over To Heidi's blog, My Juicy Little Universe, and jump into poetry!  Time for Poetry Month!

      Two more days and it’s time! It’s Poetry Month. I know you know this, but just wanted to say it again, and hopefully you heard the squeal in my words. The March Slice of Life challenge has been awesome and I will miss the community, and I hope many will continue blogging, right into April, perhaps writing poetry, and maybe linking to some beautiful sites that are all about poetry. My post today introduces one of those sites with a plan for poet visitors on Mondays, Fridays and an occasional Wednesday. 

       I met Renée LaTulippe and found her kidlit website, No Water River, the picture book and poetry place, when I began reading the writers who linked to the meme group, Poetry Friday. I do love poetry and this became one fabulous day during the week that I could just sink into it and read all the ideas about poetry and poems from others who love poetry too. 

       When I went to Renée’s website a few weeks ago, I found her wonderful poem Pen and Pencil—A Composed Love Story. Among certain other ‘themed’ poetry, I collect poems about writing, so this was a wonderful surprise when I found it.

                        With Renée’s permission, here is the poem:

Pencil and Pen: A Composed Love Story

Said Pen to Pencil, casually:

What do you think of you and me?

Said Pencil, in a righteous huff:

You? You’re too indelible!

I really couldn’t deal.

You put things down on paper

that then you can’t repeal!

I find that irresponsible!

Take heed of this one phrase:

You’ll never, ever win me

till you mend your inky ways.

Said Pen to Pencil, low and gruff:

And you, my dear?

Irresolute!

You clearly can’t commit.

You hem and haw, then turn around

and rub out what you writ!

You can’t be trusted, fickle one,

your word is a disgrace,

so any thoughts you had of love

you might as well erase.

Arrogant!

Ambiguous!

Imperious! You cad!

Ambivalent!

Impertinent!

Precarious! You’re mad!        

…………….

Said Pen:

I find you irresistible,

you gorgeous graphite girl.

He drew a heart around her

in an everlasting swirl.

Said Pencil:

I think you might be lovable;

I think it’s you I choose.

Then she colored in his heart

with a million subtle hues.

They’ve been together ever since,

their lives one long embrace,

and raised eight little scribbles

in their blissful, cozy case.

     And here is the video of Renée reading that same poem.  Delightful!

       Renée says her love of children’s poetry, and her belief that poetry must be heard to be fully appreciated, led her to create her video blog, No Water River. She already had a bunch of her own kids’ poems lying around, and thought, Why not record them and put them online? So she did. And that led to asking other poets to do the same. In each post, you’ll find a related intro (sometimes in rhyme), a video of the day’s poem being read by Renée or the guest poet, the text of the poem, a fun interview (which she calls “snickerviews”) with the guest poet, and extension activities for kids. The guest poets often go above and beyond, like the recent poet who read her poem about crocodiles while sitting in the midst of a crocodile pond in Africa! That’s dedication to inspiration!

         Renée wanted to do even more, so she sent out emails to dozens more poets, asking them to join her and add their voices and poems. Now it has become a goal to create a vast online video library of children’s poets reading their own work—a library that she hopes becomes a poetry resource for teachers, parents, and kids. She also plans to add links to more in-depth info about each poet and lessons or activities for each poem so that teachers have support to help use the videos in the classroom. I can imagine students choosing one of the poets and their poem as an author study during poetry month, or any other month! 

          For Poetry Month, Renée has invited ten notable poets and authors to contribute videos to the library, and we can look forward to hearing and seeing the following poets during April:

Michael Rosen (UK Children’s Laureate 2007-2009)

Laura Purdie Salas

Lee Wardlaw

Kenn Nesbitt

Amy Ludwig VanDerwater

Julie Larios

Greg Pincus

Irene Latham

Debbie Diesen

J. Patrick Lewis (current U.S. Children’s Poet Laureate)

       Please be sure to visit this site during Poetry Month on those special days of Monday, Wednesday and Friday, so you can enjoy all the beautiful words.