Love Letters to Poetry | Advocating for Poetry All Year Long
Carl Lennertz, Executive Director of The Children’s Book Council (CBC), recently asked me to write a short piece to celebrate a brand-new award, the Eloise Greenfield Children’s Poetry Advocate of the Year Prize, an award created by CBC and HarperCollins with the support of Steve and Monica Greenfield (children of Eloise Greenfield).
Love Letters to Poetry | Reflection on SINGING WITH ELEPHANTS
This first page by @margaritapoet is beautiful. It tells us immediately what poetry means to the main character. It evokes a sense of time and place, a magical summer with a famous poet and a family of musical elephants. Through whimsical verse, the first page has hooked us in! Who can put this book down after the first page?
Love Letters to Poetry | Art & Abolition
When I first heard about prison abolition, I had a fairly common, knee-jerk reaction: “No prisons? What about all the rapists? What about all the pedophiles?” Black feminist icon Angela Davis has been a hero of mine for decades but even her leadership role within the movement didn’t immediately convince me of its legitimacy. It has taken several years and more reading of Davis and other abolitionists for me to understand what a prison-free society could look like in the United States.
Love Letters to Poetry | “Who Needs Poetry?”
Carole Boston Weatherford shares her poem “Who Needs Poetry?”
Love Letters to Poetry | Personal Anthologies
In poetry school, one of my professors asked us to make personal poetry anthologies. He carried his with him when he traveled. That way, he said, he always had something good to read.
Love Letters to Poetry | “Where Am I From?”
My title comes from growing up being asked “Where are you from?” If I answered Lancaster, Pennsylvania. Most people would continue with, “Where are you really from?”
That question made me think about where I’m from. It is a question immigrants are often asked over and over again. Even those who are born here.
Love Letters to Poetry | Couplets from The Tirukkural
Hello everyone! Happy National Poetry Month! Today, I'm sharing with you a few lines from the Tirukkural, also known as Kural. It is an ancient Tamil language poetic text that is more than 2000 years old. The Kural was composed by Tiruvalluvar. It's consists of 1330 short couplets which are called Kurals.
Love Letters to Poetry | “The Little Mermaid”
In May 2023, Disney will release the live-action version of its 1989 animated movie, The Little Mermaid. When the decision was announced four years ago that Black actress and singer Halle Bailey would play the iconic role of Ariel, many on social media erupted in celebration but others spewed racist comments and claimed “mermaids can’t be Black.”
Love Letters to Poetry | Tameka Fryer Brown on Poetry and Picture Books
We celebrate National Poetry Month with Tameka Fryer Brown who shares her thoughts on poetry and picture books with DiverseVerse member, Valerie Bolling.
Love Letters to Poetry | Poetry of the Senses: From LAND OF THE CRANES
The poem I selected from my verse novel, Land of the Cranes, is a poem that takes place in the moment when the main character, Betita, and her pregnant mother enter a family immigration detention prison also called "la hielera" or "the ice box".