Douglas Florian (kinda, sorta)

Things have been running so smoothly here in the inaugural year of 30 Poets/30 Days, and yet today, in the words of a rather famous poet, things have gone aglay! Due to scheduling and communications gaffes, I do not have a new Douglas Florian poem to share with you as I type this. But fear not! It will come anon. And right now? Welllllllll... there still must be poetry!

I'm a huge, huge, huge Douglas Florian fan and have been for a long time. And, in fact, years ago, he was nice enough to answer questions of mine sent to him from out of the blue, so I, of course, became an even bigger fan! But his work always tickles my funny bone, and his ability to find new ways to talk about things like bugs, planets and dinosaurs continues to amaze. Plus he actually led me to write one of my early attempts at a children's poem, something I'm sure he does not know. But I was reading his collection Bing Bang Boing and ran into...

Styropoem
by
Douglas Florian

I think I've never
Seen a poem
To praise a piece
of Styrofoam.
I've waited years -
I'm waiting still.
I guess I never
Ever
Will.

I was inspired. So I sat down and wrote the following:

Ode to a Piece of Styrofoam
(For Douglas Florian)
by
Gregory K.

Styrofoam's good -
There is no debate.
And Styrofoam won't
Disintegrate!


Now, I never thought I'd have a chance to actually ANSWER Douglas Florian, nor do I hold this up as a shining example of my work... but sometimes fate gives you an opportunity you just have to take. So, ha! We'll see if he rewrites his poem any time soon. By the way, Douglas Florian was the first ever guest-poet on GottaBook, way back in April, 2006, and I know he'll be here again soon. So stick around, as they say, and you'll get more Douglas Florian even if timing wise, it might not fit perfectly into 30 Poets/30 Days.

Yesterday we had April Halprin Wayland's How to Read a Poem Aloud. Tomorrow, to help celebrate Dia and bring National Poetry Month to a close, Books & Me by Pat Mora!