F is for FELT & Laura Purdie Salas!

FELT

Photo by Amy LV

Happy Poetry Friday, and welcome to Day #6 of my April Dictionary Hike! This month, I am walking, letter-by-letter, through the dictionary, (closed-eyed) pointing to a letter each day, and writing from it.  You can read poems A-E by checking the sidebar, and you can read Lisa's accompanying haiku at her blog, Lisa's Poem of the Week.  It has been a daily surprise to see where my finger and mind land!

Students - Today's poem is a free verse poem.  When I pointed to FELT, I immediately thought of the felt map of Nevada that I sewed in third grade.  It really was made from lime green felt with yarns of yellow, blue, and red.  I don't remember if I thought about a child from Nevada as I sewed, but I like to think that I did.  It's a great thing to write story poems; you can give them endings that you love.  Working on this poem took me back to a year and a half ago when I wrote about another state project - Wyoming.

Today I am not really here!  Well, I'm here...but I'm somewhere else too.  As you may know, Renée LaTulippe is hosting a series of poetry videos over at her blog, No Water River. Today I am grateful to be visiting Renée, reading a poem about (gasp!) a naked sheep. You can see that video and read about sheep and more here. Thank you so much to Renée, for having me. And welcome to readers from No Water River who may be visiting here.

And as I visit No Water River, it is an honor to host Laura Purdie Salas here! With many many books under her belt, today Laura shares a sneak peek behind-the-scenes of her latest poetry collection, BOOKSPEAK!: Poems About Books.  Welcome to Laura as explores one poem from this wonderful collection with us.

This is the Book

She is the writer

     with dreams in her head

     who wrote them all down

     so they could be read.

He is the editor

     who helps to choose

     which of the wonderful

     words to use.

She is the designer

     who plans on the look

     the words will have

     throughout the book.

He is the illustrator

     who creates the art

     that make the words

     bloom in your heart.

She is the publisher

     who pays all the fees

     to print the book

     it hopes will please.

He is the buyer

     who orders the tale

     to put on display

     for loan or for sale.

And she is the reader

     who browses the shelf

     and looks for new worlds

     but finds herself.

© Laura Purdie Salas

This poem didn't appear in my first draft of BookSpeak!, which kind of amazes me because it might be my favorite poem in the collection.  I think it's because it reflects my growing understanding of what goes into creating a book.

When I was a kid, I read all the time.  But I never gave a thought to who made the book.  As I got a little older, I realized books were written by real people (surprise!).  So until I was probably 20 or so, I thought the writer was the only important person in the book-making process.  It wasn't until I started working as  freelance writer and as an editor that I began to realize how many people go into creating a book. Sure, the writer and the illustrator are the most visible.  But without lots of other people, like editors and designers and buyers, books would not be as wonderful as they are.  And they wouldn't get into readers' hands nearly as well.

Once I hit on the idea of this kind of ode to people who make the magic of books happen, I ran with it.  Earlier drafts included literary agents and the Library of Congress and other people.  But it was getting too long, and my editor was getting antsy.  And poetry is all about capturing the essence of a subject, to me.  So even though I sadly left some stanzas out, I do hope this poem remains a love poem to ALL the people who help a book travel from the writer's mind all the way to the reader's heart.

Another change is that my early drafts had the final stanza as --

and you are the reader

     who browses the shelf

     and looks for the world

     but finds yourself.

I have to confess that I still like that ending better, talking directly to the reader.  But my editor disagreed.  And since my editor is usually right, I went with that!

Students - I think you could write wonderful poems using "This is the Book" as a model.  Try this.

Pick a process, like a seed growing into a plant.  Then think about all of the different things that are needed to make that happen, like seed, soil, sun, etc.  Start with a stanza describing the seed.  Then give each item its own stanza where you capture what its most important contribution is.  Don't worry about rhyming.  Just pick the strongest, most wonderful words you can. Then end with the plant, the result of everyone's else's efforts.  

You could do this with so many things.  Maybe you want to write a poem in tribute to your peanut butter sandwich!  You could applaud the farmers who grow the wheat for the bread.  And the peanut plant.  And the grocery store stock boy.  And your dad for making the sandwich.  The possibilities are endless!

You could also just take an item with multiple parts, like a house, and give a stanza to each part.  Instead of celebrating a process, you'd be simply celebrating each individual part of something -- parts that maybe don't usually get much attention.

So, you could write about your house, and you could have a stanza about the front door, the bathroom, the roof, etc.  You could be factual or silly or beautiful -- whatever kind of writing mood you're in.

For instance, let's take the roof.

This is the roof

     It's over my head

     The strong clay tiles

     keep me safe and dry

OR

This is the roof

     the lid of my house

     the protector of my helium balloon

     my umbrella in a storm

OR

This is the roof

     It points to the sky
     where I plan to sail

     in uncharted starlight...

     someday

There's no right or wrong answer -- it's poetry! And it's you. Have fun with it!

Much gratitude to Laura for joining us here today at The Poem Farm on this beautiful second Friday of National Poetry Month!  You can read more about Laura at her website, her blog - Writing The World for Kids, or peek into her notebooks at my other blog, Sharing Our Notebooks.  And you can hear her reading This is the Book over at Katie Davis's site!

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Laura's publisher, Clarion Books, has generously donated a copy of BOOKSPEAK! to a reader of this post.  Please leave a comment on this post anytime through Monday night (11:59pm), and your name will be entered into a drawing for this delightful book.

Congratulations to Charles Waters for winning the four Janet Wong books this week!  Thank you to Janet for donating them (and the new set you sent too!) Charles, please just send me an e-mail with your snail mail address, and I will get those out to you as soon as we return from holiday next week.  Everybody - if you have not yet seen Janet's humorous and wise process piece, check out my other blog - Sharing Our Notebooks.

Today's Poetry Friday roundup is at Read, Write, Howl with Robyn Hood Black!  Stop by and stuff yourself with words.

And don't forget Thursday, April 26 - Poem in Your Pocket Day!  How will you celebrate?

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