Going On A Jabber-Walk!

            Poetry Friday is with Laura Purdie Salas today at her blog, Writing The World for Kids! She's sharing more about her new book out, Meet My Family, which I reviewed a few weeks ago and had the joy of also winning a copy. Laura signed it for my granddaughters and they are thrilled! Be sure to visit to learn about her book (if you haven't already seen it). It's great!  

         Until last year, Juan Felipe Herrera was our country's poet laureate. You can find a brief biography of him here. The last year I taught, I remember being so excited about a new book for older students that was published: Laughing Out Loud, I Fly: Poems In English and Spanish. It was a wonderful addition to my poetry collection about growing up in a very different environment from most of my own students.

         Recently, thanks to Candlewick Press, I received an advanced copy of Herrera's most recent book, this time for varied ages, perhaps kids especially, but I love it, too, all about writing poetry, in this crazy and mixed-up world of ours. Oh, how I wish I was still teaching. It's a "crazy and mixed-up" poetry how-to from him, guaranteed to make everyone smile and take off! Starting with a quote from Lewis Carroll's Jabberwocky itself:

 "And, as in uffish thought he stood,

The Jabberwock, with eyes of flame,

Came whiffling through the tulgey wood,

And burbled as it came!"

                                             Herrera hurries into the pages with "The Incredible Chapter Uno", and introducing us readers to "Jabberwalking in a Fast, Fast World!"

       Herrera asks the reader (writer) often to rush into things without much thought, with some play on words like "blue-cheesy", not "cheesy". He writes that "You do not have to know where you are going! Or what you are saying" Art from Herrera's words, by him, too, is fun, clever, and (my word) doodles of extraordinary detail. With the words, it's exhilarating to know one can take off with a notebook and pen or pencil and catch a poem, or a sketch of what one sees or what one thinks. 



          There are some longer text pages, Jabber notebook entries, with shared parts of Herrera's life, growing up, moving, working the farms. There are some other unexpected bits like he is often looking for his dog, using old words in different ways, like sharing a "puffy secret" or writing a "leaping poem". I know what fun I had with this book, reading, jotting down a few words, then taking off myself on my own Jabberwalk!  There is much more I'm not sharing. Spanish words are sprinkled throughout and for us English speakers, a new idea to use other language words in writing. 

          Here is the beginning of one poem written as a 'jabber' poem by Herrera: 

"To Be A Jabber Walker" 

                --to be a Jabber Walker 

it takes

many walks alone--unnoticed

on a sidewalk you have never walked

or with friends

that come and go

         (sorry, the rest is only available in the book)

            And here is one page from my journal. I drove to a block I had never walked before, FYI, but found no friends there, except trees. Hope you can get a copy of the book and enjoy it as much as I have, and with students too if you can!

Poem-Burble-On-The-Run

So many trees as I walk

or drive in my city - old

                                         old,

                                             arms reach up, across, touch

                                     each other

                                            now waiting, waiting

                                     some buds there, still, in March

                                     April must come first

                                            Then a burst, green-brushed

                                     limbs, but watered down, hints,

                                     clues for spring

                                            the spruce, fur, pines keep

                                     green in memory so we won't

                                     forget

                                            I found one tall, tall evergreen

                                     today, arms by its side --

                                        jabber words - resting

                                                                   dejected

                                                                   sleeping

                                                                   relaxed

                                                                   old, balding

                                                 keeping its own counsel

                                                                                 Linda Baie, burbled 3/18