POETRY FRIDAY ROUNDUP

Happy Almost New Year 2011!

It's bitter cold, two degrees last time I checked, in Colorado tonight. Usually the boys and I, along with a few random friends, head downtown for fireworks at 9, then come home and drink sparkling cider while we watch the ball drop in Times Square. It's too cold to venture out tonight, (especially with high school guys who are too "cool" to wear anything heavier than a hoodie), so we are going to have a quiet night at home. A perfect night for compiling the Poetry Friday Roundup.

First, join me in a great big ol' Poetry Friday Welcome to Pentimento, who is making her first Poetry Friday post with Paul Hostovsky's "Be Mine." So glad you joined us today-- please come back again soon.

Lots of poets sharing their original work today…

• Jeannine Atkins, author of CYBILS POETRY nominee, BORROWED NAMES: POEMS ABOUT LAURA INGALLS WILDER, MADAM C.J. WALKER, MARIE CURIE, AND THEIR DAUGHTERS, shares a little of her poetic process. A fascinating metaphor…
• Draw your chair up to the fire at the Poem Farm, and enjoy Amy's last original poem about poetry for 2010. She says there will be a new theme in 2011, I can't wait to see what that will be. Amy also shares a special poetry calendar project by fourth grade teacher Theresa Anello from the Gates Chili Central School district.
• Charles Ghigna is rolling in metaphors this week. At Bald-Ego blog he posts an absolutely perfect metaphor, "The Poem as Priest." And then a more light-hearted, and very clever play on words in "What's a Meadow For?" at the Father Goose Blog.
• At A Year of Reading, Mary Lee gives us, "Blink," an important reminder about the passage of time, as well as one of her beautiful photography mosaics.
• Elaine Magliaro shares three original poems this week. Two, "A Poem For New Year's Day" and an acrostic are at Blue Rose Reader. The third, "Early Snow," took me back to my own childhood experiences, "swooshing through a whipped cream world." Such gorgeous images, Elaine!
• Blythe Woolston, whose novel, THE FREAK OBSERVER, has been nominated for a 2011 William C. Morris award, brings "Lost Worlds: The Emigrants," a haunting memorial from a shipwreck.
• Sally (Castle in the Sea) shares two original cold morning poems (which could have also been included in the New Year's section but I wanted to be sure that Sally got credit for writing poems!)
• Theresa introduces us to an original genre, "The Refrigerator Poem."

Also many individual poems…

• Melissa at Here in the Bonny Glen gives us two oldies but goodies, "Tell All the Truth" by Emily Dickenson and "Wild Rose" by Wendel Berry. I hink my favorite part of her post is the photograph of a beautiful tow-headed girlie sound asleep on her reading daddy's chest.
• Folks at Dori's house are ending 2010 with colds, so Ogden Nash's "Common Cold" is perfect. Hope everyone returns to good health quickly, Dori.
• One of the things I love about Poetry Friday is that I regularly find poets that are new to me. Felt that way today when I read "Carols" by Anne Porter at Karen Edmisten's blog. I want to go find more poems by Anne Porter.
• Tara got to hear Sharon Olds read "The Race" live on Christmas Day. This poem made me cry.
• Heidi Mordhorst thinks that perhaps she is the only person who hadn't heard of Howard Moss, poetry editor of The New Yorker magazine, for 40 years. Don't worry, Heidi, you aren't, I never heard of him either. She describes Moss' "The Persistence of Song," as a "precurso" to Marilyn Singer's reversos.
• From The Drift Record, Julie Larios brings a gorgeous photograph and one last moon poem, "Moonrise," by Hilda Doolittle, and also a quatrain wish for the New Year.
• Tabatha Yeatts shares, "The Sage" by Silvi Alcivar. Listen to the last line, "his years are all the air he will ever need" and then head over to read the rest of the poem and look at the beautiful line drawing that accompanies it.
• The last poem in so far anyway, was a love poem, contributed by Kort and it's well, it's just really lovely.

A couple of book reviews…

• Karen Terlecky brings us DARK EMPEROR OF THE NIGHT. Karen and her blogging partner, Bill, have been doing a series on possible Newbery contenders. When I read the review of this book, which Karen describes as "nonfiction, picture book, and poetry," I emailed and asked her if we could include it in today's Poetry Friday. If you are interested in children's literature, stay awhile and read about some of the other Newbery possibilities.
• Charlotte reviews, THE ZOG, a picture book in verse. Zog is an accident prone dragon who must continually be rescued by Princess Pearl.

And some special New Year's Eve poetry…

• Diane Mayr says, "Akemishite Omedetou Gozaimasu," which is roughly equivalent to "Happy New Year" in Japanese. This is the second year Diane has participated in a nengajyou, a New Year's card exchange, with other haiku poets. Today, at Random Noodling, she shares a haiku card with a picture of her grand-bunny (2010 was the Year of the Rabbit). At Kurious Kitty's Kurio Kabinet, Diana gifts us with a New Year's poem, "The Wish," by Eleanor Farjeon; and at Kurious K's Kwotes, she shares a Farjeon quote.
• At The Write Sisters, Barbara, another early morning post-er, shares some poetic predictions by Mother Shipton. It's amazing how accurate this fifteenth century prophetess managed to be!
• At Miss Rumphius Effect, Tricia shares William Blake's "Auguries of Innocence." You might recognize the first stanza, "To see a world in a grain of sand…" but listen to this, "Joy and woe are woven fine/ a clothing for the soul divine/Under every grief and pine, runs a joy with silken twine…"
• Several blogging friends ringing in the New Year with bell poems. Jone (also known as the fearless leader of the CYBILS nonfiction picture book team, of which I am also a member) gave us Alfred Lord Tennyson's "Ring Out Wild Bells." Laura Shovan shares written and oral renditions of Edgar Allen Poe's, "The Bells."
• Hannah gives us still another end of the year classic, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow's "Day is Done."
• I'll end with Ruth's beautiful reflection on Apollonaire's, "Mirabeau Bridge. Ruth, as those of you who visit Poetry Friday often may already know, is an eighth grade teacher in Haiti. "I love Apollinaire's reminder that, though the days don't come back, joy comes back again after sorrow. I learned that this year, among many other lessons. And the joy that came back was greater than the joy I had before, because joy tinged with sorrow is an awareness of what life is, how beautiful it is and how fleeting. 2011, I fear you, and yet I reach out to you, too, knowing that God will be with me."

Wishing you a healthy, joyous, and blessed New Year!