Monday, March 23, 2009

Announcing 30 Poets/30 Days!


I'm incredibly excited to announce the first annual 30 Poets/30 Days, a celebration of children's poetry taking place here at GottaBook during National Poetry Month.


(You can CLICK HERE to see all the 2009 poems and poets.)

(There is also a 2010 edition of 30 Poets/30 Days!)

(There is also now a 2011 edition of 30 Poets/30 Days!)

Every day in April, I'll be posting a previously unpublished poem by a different poet. Here's the alphabetical list of who's participating:

Arnold Adoff, Jaime Adoff, Rebecca Kai Dotlich, Douglas Florian, Betsy Franco, Kristine O'Connell George, Charles Ghigna, Nikki Giovanni, Joan Bransfield Graham, Nikki Grimes, Avis Harley, Mary Ann Hoberman, Lee Bennett Hopkins, X. J. Kennedy, Bruce Lansky, Julie Larios, J. Patrick Lewis, Pat Mora, Kenn Nesbitt, Linda Sue Park, Ann Whitford Paul, Gregory K. Pincus, Jack Prelutsky, Adam Rex, Jon Scieszka, Joyce Sidman, Marilyn Singer, April Halprin Wayland, Janet Wong, and Jane Yolen.

We'll launch on Tuesday, April 1, with former Children's Poet Laureate Jack Prelutsky's new “A Little Poem For Poetry Month.” We’ll end April 30th with “Books & Me” by Pat Mora to help celebrate El día de los niños/El día de los libros (Children's Day/Book Day). And every day in between will bring something new. You can follow along here and via 30poets30days on Twitter.

There will be a lot of other poetry related fun going on in the Kidlitosphere during April, including...

- at the Miss Rumphius Effect, Tricia has a great series called Poetry Makers featuring interviews with 36 (!!!) poets.
- at Poetry For Children, Sylvia Vardell will be reviewing a new children's poetry book every day.
- at the Pencil Talk blog, Anastasia Suen will be collecting school poems written by children throughout April... and posting one each day.
- and of course there's Poetry Friday every week... plus much, much more, so look for updates here at the blog throughout the month.

I want to thank all the poets for their generosity and enthusiasm, and I particularly want to single out J. Patrick Lewis and Kenn Nesbitt for going above and beyond the call in helping me put this event together. Also, special thanks to my brother Jon and all the folks who've given me ideas and support along the way. If there has been any frustration in organizing this event at all, it's only that there are so many other wonderfully talented people writing poetry for kids and it was hard not to invite them all. But that's why I plan to make this an annual celebration.

I'm really looking forward to April. I hope you'll all come join the fun!

(Again, the poetry has begun! If you click here, it will take you to the top of the blog where the day's poem will most likely be the first post you see. If it's not, just scroll down a little and it'll be there. After today, if you keep scrolling down, you'll see the whole month's worth of poems to date. Enjoy!)

36 comments:

Greg Pincus said...

If you happened to count along, you'd know there are only 28 poets in the list at the time of my posting. I expect the other two names to be revealed soon.

Also, I should note that another way follow the month is to subscribe to the GottaBook RSS feed (reader or email options both available at the link).

And I really do hope to see you all here....

Anonymous said...

At Reading Is Fundamental we are VERY excited about this 30 Poets/30 Days endeavor; thank you, Greg!

Tricia said...

Woohoo! I added a blurb to my post about the "other" events happening, including yours. I'm going to do a reminder on March 31st.

Is it April yet?!

Franki said...

This looks great! Can't wait for the fun to begin!

Anonymous said...

Yo,
bro!
Happy
To help you
Work on this great idea.
Question: does "/" count in a Fib?

In other words, does "30 Poets / 30 days" count as seven syllables or 8?

Please advise.

Great job organizing the project. I'm psyched!

jon

Cheryl said...

This looks great! Thanks for organizing it. I posted about it on my blog.

Julie said...

Can't wait to read my fellow poets' poems! Thanks for putting this all together - I've put a post up about it over at The Drift Record

Andrea -- Just One More Book!! Podcast said...

Congratulations, Greg! Looking forward to following.

ps. I hope there will be some poems about water, btw, since I keep reading your graphic as "ThirSty Poets, ThirSty days"

Anonymous said...

Sounds terrific! Looking forward to it. Good job!

Jules at 7-Imp said...

Are you ready to ROCK? I am.

Anonymous said...

The logo came out great - I think you're going to get lots of traffic for this, Greg. Saw it referenced in the blogosphere already!

Kelly Polark said...

Wow! Looking forward to this!

Marge Loch-Wouters said...

Great idea and I look forward to all the poems and poets sharing the good stuff!

Anonymous said...

Now THAT's a party! What a fabulous idea, Greg!

Mary Lee said...

I'll be here every day in April, Greg! Thanks for all your time and work -- this will be a TREASURE!!!

Anonymous said...

You're the perfect man to pull this all off, and would expect nothing less than the greatness that you've always exhibited!

Shine on!

Brenda

Andromeda Jazmon said...

This is going to be GREAT!! I can't wait. I'm following you on Twitter and I will bookmark this on Diigo to share with teachers.

I am also writing and posting a haiku a day in April as I have done in the past. I'll link to you and Trisha and whatall else I can find in the next week. Rock on!!

Andromeda Jazmon said...

Is there a facebook group for Nat. Poetry Month that you've connected with?

Terry Doherty said...

This is going to be so cool. I posted about it yesterday and will do a reminder next week. I'm with Mother Reader ... the rest of us should just pack it in for the month.

a brilliant blog said...

sounds like a great event. I wish you well and wish I could be there!

Jay Asher said...

Every day in April will begin with a trip to GottaBook! Quite an amazing thing you put together, Greg.

Elizabeth said...

I'm new to your blog through LCS -- my two boys started there this year. We just love the school and I'm thrilled to see what you're doing! Thank you so much... I look forward to reading more (I, too, have a blog where I post some poetry, some parenting and a little disability awareness).

Noelle Swan Gilbert said...

what a wonderful idea! thank you greg!
noelle

Melinda R. Cordell said...

For poet # 29, how about Ron Koertge?

Greg Pincus said...

First off, thanks all for the comments. And if you count now, you'll see that there are 29 poets on the list. The invites have been out, and I'm looking forward to getting the 30th name up.

As for Ron Koertge, I must say how much I love his work (and, if you look at my very first post on Fibs, you'll see how he was part of that). I look forward to doing future 30 Poets events with many more of the amazing poets who write YA (Sonya Sones! Ellen Hopkins! Thalia Chaltas!). Of course, lots of this year's list writes for YA, too (and not just poetry), as well as adults.... Anyway, I appreciate the suggestions, even though I know the invite list for this year already.

Anonymous said...

What about young poets ?????
This looks great!
http://marinelareka.com/

traci said...

Greg, LOVE the site, love the idea, love the FIBS (when I have a minute I'm going to play with a few!). I have passed this on. I wanted to link it to my FB site but didn't see a link button. I can certainly post it, though. By the by, have you ever read "Haiku U"? Very funny book. Similar to your Oddaptations. (e.g. "The Canterbury Tales" -- Pilgrimmes on spryng braecke / roadde trippe! Whoe fartted? Yiuw didde. / Noe, naught meae. Yaes, yiuw." or "Oedipus Rex." --
Chorus: Poor bastard.
Oedipus: This is awful.
Blind seer: Told you so.)

Fun stuff.

susan said...

Okay, so this was worth the hype. lol Thanks for hosting this.

David LaRochelle said...

What a stellar lineup, Greg! I'm looking forward to feasting on poetry all next month!

David LaRochelle

Rita said...

30th!

(As in, 30th comment on your 30/30 post!) ;)

Stacey said...

We're going to host a "One-Week Long Poetry Challenge" again. Interested?

Jessica said...

Thanks for putting on this wonderful event. It must have been a great deal of work to set everything up and I really appreciate what you're doing to spread poetry to children.

And thanks for stopping by my site!

Shutta Crum said...

Great idea, Gregory! Makes we want to get my rear in gear and actually write a poem a day for the month. Looking forward to reading these. And I'll will create a link from my site to help spread the word.

Shutta Crum

Edith said...

Woo hoo! This is great fun, Greg!

Anonymous said...

Wow, so much fun. I wish I knew sooner, I would have loved to participate.
I look forward to this.

Maribeth

United World Poets said...

Great poetry site. There's no other better way to write.