#PoetryFriday #NPM18 - 6/30 Making Poems Plus A Giveaway!

April is  #NPM18 - National Poetry Month.

       "Poetry is just the evidence of life. If your life is burning well, poetry is just the ash."
                                                                                                                      ~Leonard Cohen
           It's Poetry Friday today, hosted by Amy Ludwig VanDerwater at her Poem Farm! Thanks, Amy! 
        As you might see in the comments, Amy and Clarion HMH have offered to send a copy of Amy's new book, With My Hands to a lucky commenter of this post! Hurrah for making things! Thanks for this, too, Amy!

         Of interest:  See the page on the bar above for the Progressive Poem's schedule of poets, hosted by Irene Latham at Live Your Poem.  It's Irene's day this poetry Friday, and mine after. Yikes! 

        And, see what many are doing for Poetry Month, by looking HERE at Jama Rattigan's post at Jama's Alphabet Soup.
          

              My goal for Poetry Month: A haiku diary that may include other forms related to haiku, like haibun, haiga. monoku or renga. I have enjoyed studying about and writing in these forms in past Aprils and alongside other's who've given a challenge in this form. And, I look forward to seeing what parts of this month I will choose to collect in a diary. My first poem speaks of why I am handwriting the poems.

April’s garden,

growing poems

on lined pages

                    Linda Baie

links:

       Poem one

       Poem two

       Poem three 

       Poem Four

       Poem Five

Here is Poem Six 

       

        I know so well the impact of what children can learn in school. I imagine you readers know a few examples, too. Last week in our mountain condo, with several purchases made for some decor changes, Imogene, the youngest granddaughter, six, had some ideas for two of the boxes. Evidently, her teacher has been showing the class how to meditate and somewhere there also came the idea of massage. Imi got right to work, creating (making) a massage and meditation station. If you wanted a massage, and could manage to fit into the box, loving hands reached through that window to give a soft massage. The circles are for sitting quietly, meditating. The other side is for those who did NOT fit the box. 

       It's quite wonderful that Amy is our host today because I also want to connect Imi's box creation to celebrate Amy's new book, With My Hands: Poems About Making Things. More than once I have wished I was teaching again. My school's philosophy was built on a few concepts: making things, experiencing the outer world (nature and the authentic that happens outside the building), and choice. I am committed to those three things even for myself and am grateful for the joy of having two young granddaughters near and visiting often. 

      Amy defines what a maker is in the first poem, "Maker": he or she "is a tinkerer, a  maker will explore./A maker creates/something new/that/never/was/before" and adds many poems about the wide varieties of making like painting, knitting, glitter pictures and creating with clay. Readers can use each page as inspiration OR read the poems and re-visit what is most loved and "make something". 
      Will you make "Leaf Pictures" where the "leaves look like stained glass" or bake "Cookies" and "resemble/clouds of flour"? The poem forms vary from rhyme to free-verse, list and shape poems. I'm sure many will run for the needles and the yarn when they read "And as my fingers/twisty-twirl/each stitch into/a knit or purl." or will beg someone to teach them! 
       Lou Fancher and Steve Johnson MAKE their delightful multi-media illustrations from Amy's words and each becomes the "project" Amy describes. Take a close look at the title and you will want to open the book to see "wood projects and quilts and paintings and glue and scissors and. . .         
       Amy, too, is a maker but of poems, and this book is her sharing of what can be!  Everyone should have a copy, old or young, in school or out. I believe Amy wants us all to MAKE something!

      

Happy Poetry, any way you can MAKE it!