Poetry Redux: Adam Rex's The Flight Before Christmas

It seems mighty appropriate today to re-link to The Flight Before Christmas, Adam Rex's contribution to 30 Poets/30 Days. Adam writes and illustrates brilliant books, I must say, and I hope this poem ends up being part of one. Here's a tease and a link for you....

The Flight Before Christmas
by Adam Rex

'Tis the flight before Christmas. Our aircraft today
is a Boeing C-25 JingleBus sleigh.
At this time I would like to say "welcome aboard"
and please ask for all luggage and toys to be stored
in the space by your feet or the overhead sack.
Use caution untying the sack when you pack
as the toys may have shifted about during flight.
Santa gets a bit…

Please click here to see the whole poem. And enjoy!

Quiet Time

I get the sense that things will be quiet here at GottaBook for the next two weeks (ish). So, while there might be sporadic posts, there may also be silence, and I figured I should mention that rather than simply disappearing.

I'm looking forward to 2010 here at the blog, as I have a few celebrations coming up, new poetry, and general merriment mixed in with a steady diet of "other."

Even if I post again, I want to take this opportunity to wish a big Happy New Year to you and all of yours, and may the rest of 2009 be full of peace, love, and the dessert of your choosing.

Search Poetry - I Enjoy Popping Bubble Wrap with My Pinky Toe

The following poem was created not just by using any search terms that led people to GottaBook this week. Nooo. Instead, each of these search terms, including the title, was followed or preceded by "poem" or "poem about" (or those in plural form). So it's a "poem searching search poem" - a found poem for the Internet age. Or something like that!

I Enjoy Popping Bubble Wrap with My Pinky Toe
compiled by
Gregory K.

Wishing for a baby
If I were a star
Apology to my family
You got a new car

Onomatopoeia
My first day at school
Donuts. Doughnuts. Breakfast
Hockey goalies cool

Monkey's party. Hat. S'mores
Bad week. Stuffy node.
Homework. Naughty Christmas
Coffee. Meatloaf ode.


This week's Poetry Friday roundup is over at Susan Taylor Brown's Susan Writes. Head on over and see all sorts of poetry and related posts... and probably nothing else nabbed from search terms!

Searching... people are searching

Today I noted 17 completely different search terms including "christmas poem" that led to my blog. My favorite was "hockey christmas poem for goalie brothers." Right on!

What I always find fascinating is the sheer number of people searching for, well, for everything online. I love getting in the flow of traffic so that folks looking for what I'm dishing out find me, but I also love the unexpected.

Admit it... you fellow bloggers look at your search terms from time to time, too. Right? Good. I thought so :-)

Of Pen Names, Perceptions... and Respect

On the surface, this has precious little to do with children's literature, I realize, but I still wanted to send you all over to Copyblogger to read the post Why James Chartrand Wears Women's Underpants.

Yes, it's a great title (hey, it's a blog about great writing so what do you expect) and I might send you that way for that alone, but the meat of the article is both fascinating and frustrating and a range of emotions in between.

You see, James Chartrand is a female using a pen name because she found better pay and more respect as a male. And as she says...

Truth be told, if just a name and perception of gender creates such different levels of respect and income for a person, it says a lot more about the world than it does about me.

It's a great post, and an interesting read in the comments, too. And it made me wonder about children's literature and whether any of these same issues exist in our field... and, if so, to what extent.

As often happens, I have no answers... only questions. And y'all?

A Poetry Re-Issue: Why I Love the Holidays In My Family

How often will Poetry Friday fall on the start of Hanukkah, on Christmas Day and on New Year's Day? That's what's happening today, then in two and three weeks. Cool. So, to keep up with "the season"...

WHY I LOVE THE HOLIDAYS IN MY FAMILY
by
Gregory K.

My dad lights the menorah.
My mom hangs Christmas lights.
And so the way I do the math,
It’s presents 20 nights!

The Poetry Friday roundup is over at Random Noodling today. Why not go check it out?

And if you want to get all my new poems (and only the poems) emailed to you for freeee as they hit the blog, enter your email address in the box below then click subscribe!

Aaahhhhhhh!

So screamed I many times today as I read Lemony Snicket's The Latke Who Couldn't Stop Screaming, a Christmas story aloud enough times that my vocal chords needed a rest.

And I started to think, what does it say about me that among the read-aloud highlights for me over the years, many are marked by the ability for me to scream loudly or say words like "underpants" loudly to the great glee of the listeners? How much is my enjoyment of the unexpected... and how much is the reaction? Can you separate the two?

I have no answers, but maybe while I'm resting the chords overnight, one of y'all will know :-)

Chicken Ten Thousand (and other "Deep Tracks")

I finally had some time this week to dive into the stacks, such as they are, at the second "branch" of the school library I've been supervising the last four plus (!!!!) years. When you stock a library from donations, you always end up with some fascinating contributions - sure, we might not have much from the last two years, but we have Pulitzer Prize winner Anne Sexton's children's book Joey and the Birthday Present (co-written with Maxine Kumin).

I ran into some other mighty fine books, too... ones I'd call "deep tracks," using the old music biz term. Like an original copy of David McKee's Elmer as well as his Tusk Tusk. That man loved his elephants! There were "celebrity" books of all ilk, from Fred Gwynne's amusing ones to Maria Shriver telling us what heaven is.

But in this go round, my absolute favorite book was 1968's Chicken Ten Thousand by Jacqueline Jackson, illustrated by Barbara Morrow. Main character Chicken Ten Thousand ends up escaping from a chicken processing facility and discovers what life can be for a free hen (including an informative conversation with a "wild" rooster).

Are there earlier books about the conditions in a massive chicken plant? Later ones? I'm guessing "no." Are there picture books about cows escaping from slaughterhouses or dairies? The most interesting thing is that I suspect the story still is just as viable now as it was then... but it still isn't like other picture books I've run into.

Do any of you all know it or know more of its history? I've not been able to find much....

I'm looking forward to getting to spend more time in that collection, as I only looked through about 1/4 of the picture books. Who knows what gems still lurk? Good times. Good times, indeed.

A Poetic Superstition

I'm mighty excited here, as my new computer is arriving today. Though I'm a geek of longstanding and have been a Mac user since 1985, I don't do enough hardcore computing or gaming tasks to merit new computers often. But... it was time.

So this afternoon or this evening, after I've set up the Mac (which will take about one minute longer than it takes to remove it from the box), I will carve out an hour or so to make sure that the first document I write on it will be a poem.

Call it a superstition or breaking in/seasoning the computer like one might do with a new baseball glove or wok... but to me it just feels right. Plus, it's an excuse to write poetry!

This week's Poetry Friday roundup is over at Wild Rose Reader. Go on over and check it out. There are a LOT of villanelles going around this week, by the way. Good stuff!

And hey... the next time you hear from me here, I hope I sound faster and newer and geekily happy, too.

Tis the season... for lists!

We're getting near the end of another year, and "best of" lists are floating around everywhere. If you're interested in children's books, you can find lists galore... and now you don't even have to search to find 'em.

Instead, head on over to Chicken Spaghetti where Susan has a master list of "best children's books" lists! She keeps updating it, too, so keep on checking.

But it's not just "best of" list time. Nope. Over at MotherReader, Pam has a fabulous post called 105 Ways to Give a Book. Even if you're not thinking of giving gifts, the post is worth a read.

Need more book ideas? Check out Abby the Librarian's Twelve Days of Giving - a "list in process" still, but chock full of good stuff.

And totally off the topic of books, why not check out Susan Taylor Brown's list of over 200 movies about the literary life. Have you seen 'em all (cuz I sure haven't!).

If I add more, this'll be a clear list post, too, so I'll stop here. Now go on off and check those lists out!

Cards and Letters - send 'em thataway

I know I've mentioned SCBWI and Lin Oliver, one of the organization's founders and still chief honchos, in these parts before. I'm a big fan of SCBWI and grateful for all the help I've gotten from it and its many members.

I'm also a "fan" of Lin herself, who's always been warn and welcoming to me, including bringing me into SCBWI when we initially met on a completely different topic.

I know many others reading hereabouts have met Lin or are part of SCBWI, so beyond passing on the news that Lin is recovering from a double bypass/valve replacement surgery, I wanted to encourage everyone to send her cards and letters via the SCBWI main office:

SCBWI, 8271 Beverly Blvd, L.A., CA 90048 (address 'em to Lin, natch)

I know I'll be writing, and I hope many of you will, too.

The "I Will Not Overeat but Will Give Thanks" Post - 2009 Edition

I have been in training for the last few weeks, expanding my stomach slowly and carefully so that there is room for me to at least sample every different pie I encounter over the next few days.

I firmly believe, by the way, that there is a separate dessert stomach that always has room. While medical science might not agree, I would point out that there is visual proof - the more you put in that dessert stomach, the bigger it appears to others.

As we come to another Thanksgiving, let me say once again how grateful I am to y'all who read GottaBook and to all who talk about children's literature and literacy all around the blogosphere and offline, too. It's an amazing community and one I am quite thankful to have found and to be a part of.

I'll likely be quiet here for a few days, as there's family everywhere these days. I wish all of you a happy Thanksgiving... and see you soon!

Linkage

Although I didn't get anything poetry related up on Friday... many others did. You can find this week's Poetry Friday roundup over at Julie Larios' Drift Record. Good stuff! Check it out.

Also, though I no longer remember where I first saw this (Twitter, I believe, but from whom escapes me now. Apologies!), I got a real kick out of last week's Abstract City blog post, Bio-Diversity. I think you'll enjoy it too... hence the link! Funny leaves. 'Nuff said.

Reading on your Smartphone

I'm just curious how many, if any, of y'all do any sort of reading on your smartphone (iPhone, Blackberry, Droid, Palm, whatever).

There was an interesting article in the New York Times the other day about this very thing... yet I don't know people who are reading like this. Then again, I'm a writer, so I don't get out much.

Anyone reading on their phone? Liking it? Hating it? I'm curious!

Blog Blast, Winter Version

The Winter Blog Blast Tour started today. What's that mean? Well, head over to see the full schedule at Chasing Ray, but in brief, today it meant that you'd find interviews with Courtney Sheinmel, Derke Landy, Mary E. Pearson, Megan Whalen Turner, Frances Hardinge, and Jim Ottaviani.

Go bop around and see these. C'mon now... here's the "tease" for Frances Haringe at Fuse Number 8: "Expect kidnaps, betrayal, chocolate, moonlit chases, traps within traps, consequences, fire from above, death-defying chimney incidents and an extremely important radish."

Sweet!

There are six more great interviews/features each day this week. Check 'em out, join in the convo, and have a Blast.

The Lament of Thursday the 12th (a poem) and the Poetry Friday Roundup!

The Poetry Friday roundup is here today! Amazingly enough (to me), this is my first time hosting despite participating for... well... a long time. If you leave a link to your Poetry Friday post in the comments, I'll add you to the roundup below.

First, however, I want to start with my own contribution to the festivities, an original poem from the point of view of... a day!


The Lament of Thursday the 12th
by
Gregory K.

It just isn’t fair.
I want fans. I want fame!
Yet no one reacts when I call out my name.
Folks always look past me.
That’s so wrong. I exist!
I feel like a baby who’s never been kissed.
Now each time I’m here
My whole day’s full of sorrow,
Because of one fact: I’m today, not tomorrow.


And now, with no further ado, let's see what else is going on on this wonderful Poetry Friday:

Over at A Year of Reading, Mary Lee is up with a rictameter and two book reviews. Yes, I said a rictameter.

Melissa at windspirit_girl shares a visual poem called Grace I: Through. This is the first in a series, so be sure to check back there for more.

At The Write Sisters, Diane has posted two cinquains (or is the plural cinquain?) AND shares the rules of the form, including some variations.

Head over to Kurious Kitty's Kurio Kabinet to find Lewis Carroll's advice to an aspiring poet in Poeta Fit, Non Nascitur

The tireless and talented Elaine gives us multiple fun this week: original double dactyls (about characters from children's books and fairytales) at Wild Rose Reader; light verse by Arthur Guiterman at Blue Rose Girls; three new posts at Political Verses - Driving Drunk: A Short Poem about Mary Strey, A Dead Rabbit Toss Competition Poem, and Making the Grade.

At Across the Page, Janet has a review of Elizabeth Spires The Mouse of Amherst. It's a children's introduction to Emily Dickinson... or for adults who've missed her, I say!

Julie Larios posts an original rictameter over at the Drift Record. She also expresses desire for a pictured hat... and who can blame her?

Swine Flu with Asthma is the name of the original rictameter posted by Andromeda Jazmon on a wrung sponge. And it's about her son who, yay, has now beaten the flu.

Is this a new form - the definito? Check out Heidi Mordhorst's poems at My Juicy Little Universe.

Laura Salas treats us thrice: Bear Attack (an original) and Shoal of Sharks (by Richard O'Connell) and the prompt/roundup for 15 Words or Less Poetry, held weekly at her blog.

Liz Garton Scanlon features Susan Taylor Brown's Hugging the Rock over at Liz in Ink. (Oooh, if Susan were to feature Liz on her blog, that'd be soooo cool and circular!)

Diane Mayr features Amy Lowell's On Carpaccio's Picture (and the picture that inspired the verse) at the fabulously-named Random Noodling.

At The Miss Rumphius Effect, Tricia posts a raft of rictameters (she was the inspiration for them all!) as well as Malachi Black's Sifting in the Afternoon.

Kelly Fineman treats us to an excerpt of T.S. Eliot's Love Song of Alfred J. Prufrock at her Writing and Ruminating blog.

At Read Write Believe, Sara Lewis Homes offers up an antidote to "no" with Kaylin Haught's God Says Yes to Me.

Linda has a review of Wendy Mass' Heaven Looks a Lot Like the Mall up atWrite Time.

The Shelf Elf gives us Carl Sandburg's Choose (a poem I had actually just re-run into this week, too).

At Teaching Authors, April Halprin Wayland has an original poem and lesson ideas about Food and Fiction. Yum!

Jama Rattigan's alphabet soup lets us savor Ching Yeung Russell's Tofu Quilt. Again... yum!

Author Amok celebrates the re-issue of Paint Me a Poem by Justine Ransom. It's a fabulous book, y'all.

Mother Reader thinks she's pushing the limits of Poetry Friday with her post today. I disagree. You be the judge!

Jone's got a book review and an original rictameter for us this week for a fun double play.

Martha Calderaro explores the new Poetry Speaks site - a combination social network and poetry market place from Sourcebooks and friends.

Charles Ghigna (aka Father Goose) notes "Style isn't how you write. It's how you do not write like anyone else." in his post On Writing: A Mini-Lecture. Poets... heck, all writers... head on over for a good read.

At There is no such thing as a God-forsaken town, Ruth shares Walter de la Mare's November. How fitting!

Lisa in Little Rock share's poet Dave Johnson's Cheating. Not a poem for kids, perhaps, but fine poetry indeed.

Sylvia Vardell features Lee Bennett Hopkins at Poetry For Children. Actually, it's not just Lee, but her discovery of the process and materials that led to one of his anthologies being published. It's a great read.

At bookstogether, Anamaria also, yet differently, posts about Paint Me a Poem: Poems Inspired by Masterpieces of Art. See... I'm not the only one who loves this book.

An original poem, I'm not this girl, is the Poetry Friday treat from Miss Erin

How about some barbeque poetry? Julie Reinhardt, author and BBQ-er, offers up a tasty 'Q poem called Eck. I Don't Inject. at She-Smoke.

I'll keep updating as more comments come in. Feel free to leave your link below!

And if, by chance, you want to get all my new poems (and only the poems) emailed to you for freeee as they hit the blog, enter your email address in the box below then click subscribe.

Pssst. Poetry Friday's here tomorrow....

I'm going to be hosting Poetry Friday tomorrow (Friday, November 13th). I'm putting this post up now for all you East Coasters who won't be awake at midnight my time when I put up the actual roundup post.

Feel free to leave me your link and info in the comments below. I'll add you to whatever roundup post I do. I may, or may not, delete this post afterwards, so don't be TOO brilliant in the comments!

All about Lula's Brew, Elizabeth O. Dulemba's picture book iPhone app

When author/illustrator Elizabeth O. Dulemba announced she had a picture book iPhone app called Lula's Brew for sale (you can find it on iTunes or by searching the App Store for "Lula"), I was excited. I love seeing authors and illustrators (and publishers, too, by the way) experimenting with technology and distribution methods.

In fact, I was so excited that I asked Elizabeth a bunch of questions, which she kindly answered. You can see the full interview over at The Happy Accident. You can also see my comment on that post in which I talk about kids' reaction to the app (it's good!) and some of the iPhone economics.

I really hope you'll go read the interview and chime in (here or there) about both the changes and the possibilities in the business of children's literature.

Come See Me in January in Santa Barbara!

Maybe you can't come to Asilomar in February... but what about Santa Barbara in January?

January 8-10th, I'll be part of the faculty for the SCBWI Ventura/Santa Barbara region's 2010 retreat - Thriving in a Changing Inudstry: Cyber-Promotion Tools for Published Authors & Illustrators.

I'll be presenting along with Lisa Yee, Anastasia Suen, and Harold Underdown in a weekend put together by Alexis O'Neill. I've attended this retreat before, and it was stellar (and fun, to boot).

There are only 28 spots available at the retreat, and registration's now open. Hope to see some of you there!

Maintenance!

For no particular reason, I started playing with my blog template and the like today. I removed 22 "draft" posts, including one from early 2006. I remember starting a couple of these posts, but a few were total mysteries. Upon reading them, I see why they all remained drafts!

I once again confronted the lonnnnnng list of poems over on the right of the blog. For now, as before, they're chronological, but I keep thinking there must be a better way to organize them. I do use labels (for most - some are still unlabeled, I fear), but don't really see a better way to categorize them since the bulk are not linked to other poems by topic or form.

As always, I'm open to hearing ideas on ways I could make that list more helpful, useful, or... well... better! I don't see patterns in the stats and such that give me much help, but maybe one of y'all will know....