#HFGather: Celebrate National Poetry Month With Poets Irene Latham, Charles Waters, JaNay Brown-Wood, Lacresha Berry and Jolene Gutiérrez

Highlights Foundation Program Director Alison Green Myers kicked off National Poetry Month by leading a wonderful conversation with some special guest poets! They discussed the new anthology edited by Irene Latham and Charles Waters, If I Could Choose a Best Day: Poems of Possibility, which features poems from JaNay, Lacresha and Jolene. All of the panelists discussed what poetry means to them, how they use it in the classroom/library (several of the guests are educators) and gave some tips for writing your own poetry.

We’ll put some of those tips below, along with the video replay and a full transcript–but do yourself a favor and watch the video, listen to the poems, and just immerse yourself in all things poetry!

We drew a name from the Gather attendees, and Amy Coombs is the lucky winner of a copy of If I Could Choose a Best Day: Poems of Possibility!

If you missed the live Gather, you can watch it here.
Please note: closed captions are being added to the video below. When they are finished, you can see them by hovering over the bottom of the video and choosing the “CC” icon.

To fill out the “open call” questionaire from Charles and Irene:

https://forms.gle/VY9ihoU8NZK7z3hKA

5 Quick Tips from the Poets to Inspire Your Own Poetry

• Irene: Be a poet 24-7: investigate the world, approach things with curiosity, be in the moment.
• Charles: Keep a notebook, or use a Notes app on your phone. If you ever find yourself without a poem to write, go to the notebook.
• Lacresha: Make a list of 10 things you can’t live without. You can always go back to that list for poem ideas.
• Jolene: Treat poetry as therapy. if there is a scene in your life that you want to kind of replay or write a different ending for, you can give yourself that with poetry.
• JaNay: Play. Just play, play with language. Listen to sounds. Say them out loud.

Listen to a Podcast Version of the Gather:

Full Transcript

Alison Green Myers:
Welcome, attendees. So many people coming in, all these poets.

George Brown:
Alison, I know you said it says “let’s get this party started” but wouldn’t it have been fun if it said “let’s get this poetry started?”

Alison:
It would have, George, nice play on words. Well done. Way to go.

George:
Oh. Look at this, what a timely group.

Alison:
I know, isn’t this wonderful? Got Molly Chao in there. Okay. As people are starting to come in, I’m gonna give some of my opening here so we can get right into our conversation with the poets. But just in case I haven’t had the opportunity to meet you yet, I’m Alison Green Myers. I’m the Program Director here at the Highlights Foundation and to all who are joining us this evening, I hope that you and your loved ones are safe.

Just before everybody came on, George was sharing: “What a nice time to be able to come together and just to take a breath and celebrate some words together during a hard time.” So we’re excited to be with our community of storytellers and we are grateful to all of you for being here as well.

I think that in poetry, there’s an innate amount of hope and activism baked right into the words that we choose to use. My favorite poets, some of them are actually gathered on the screen right now and others, I think they know about hope and activism in their bones.

I love Mary Oliver. Anybody who spends a little bit of time with me probably hears me talking about Mary Oliver every once and again, but I don’t know how you couldn’t think about hope for survival of all creatures, great and small, when you read Mary Oliver.

And when you listen to the words of Nikki Grimes, there’s hope in what we can see with the eye, but what we can feel with our heart and with our soul. And I could spend hours on every poem that Naomi Shihab Nye writes, especially in days like this. It’s hope in the world that we’re living in and hope for the possibility of what could come for our kids. Naomi has such a nice job talking about shared humanity, and I think the poets that are gathered here are going to talk a lot about that tonight.

So I thought, let’s start with a poem. We’ll start with a little reading, and it’s by Naomi Shihab Nye. It’s called “Shoulders.”

A man crosses the street in rain,
stepping gently, looking two times north and south,
because his son is asleep on his shoulder.

No car must splash him.
No car drive too near to his shadow.

This man carries the world’s most sensitive cargo
but he’s not marked.
Nowhere does his jacket say FRAGILE,
HANDLE WITH CARE.

His ear fills up with breathing.
He hears the hum of a boy’s dream
deep inside him.

We’re not going to be able
to live in this world
if we’re not willing to do what he’s doing
with one another.

The road will only be wide.
The rain will never stop falling.

I might have read that poem too quick or too often. I’m not sure. But I wish and I hope on those words an awful lot. And I think the people that are gathered here, I think the people that have come to join us tonight, they understand that there’s a lot of power in holding tight to children. And in shouldering one another.

So I’m excited to talk and to celebrate. We will be celebrating with words tonight. We’ll be celebrating National Poetry Month. This is the first time we’ve done this at the Highlights Foundation. And what a great group to be with us. We celebrate words and hearts of people like Naomi and Mary Oliver and Nikki Grimes and Charles Waters and Irene Latham and Lacresha Berry and JaNay Brown-Wood and Jolene Gutiérrez.

And of course, all of you in attendance tonight. We had almost 400 poets sign up tonight to come and be here. So we know that there are poets who are thinking of heart and hope right now too. Here with me tonight from the Highlights Foundation on the screen is our executive director, George Brown. He loves words quite a bit. And I see lots of people from the Highlights Foundation in the chat already. The Highlights Foundation’s mission is to positively impact children by amplifying the voices of storytellers who inform, educate, and inspire children to become their best selves.

Whenever and wherever we gather, we strive for a safe and inclusive environment, which means we join with no hate, no harm, and no harassment of any kind. This is a webinar-style gather, so we can’t see your video. Unfortunately, we can’t see the scribbles that you’re making in your notebook as you’re hearing all the words tonight, but we can see what you post in the chat, and right now just the panelists can see what you’re posting, but we’ll open that up to everyone in just a moment.

And then we also have the Q&A feature. The Q&A feature, if you could pop any questions that you have for the panelists in there. After we get through our conversation, after we read some poems and talk about poetry prompts, we’re going to answer some of those questions that you have for our poets, and I’ll just let you know a copy of tonight’s recording and the transcript will be posted at the Highlights Foundation and it will be sent out to you within 48 hours.

So let’s start tonight. I’ve done enough talking and celebrating of poems. I think it’s time to switch to our special guests and I would love, love, love to start with Charles and Irene because the two of them are the reason that we’ve gathered tonight. They came and said, “you know, we’re getting ready to launch another poetry collection together: If I Could Choose a Best Day.” And they said, we would love to bring some of our poets to the Highlights Foundation. What a better time than National Poetry Month.

So maybe just starting with the two of you, Charles and Irene, you collaborate on a lot. You have a shared email address. I mean, that’s big like right there. But you have novels in verse and collections where you have collections with the two of you, but you also invite so many poets to come in and to work and to write with you. So I thought maybe you could talk to us a little bit about that poetry process, a little bit about what collaboration does as a poet, and then maybe a little bit about the poets that are featured here with us tonight.

Irene Latham:
Great. Well, I am going to start. One thing that you learn about collaboration super quick is even for things like Zoom, you have to coordinate. So Charles and I are really good at communicating a lot about how to handle all kinds of things, including joint emails. But I am here waving my poetry flag tonight. I wanted to start with just saying a few things about why we celebrate poetry. And your introduction was so beautiful, Alison, heart, humanity, hope. These are all things that I’m thinking about as reasons to celebrate poetry.

I have a particular poem on my heart too tonight, and that is one you’re probably familiar with. It’s a Rumi poem that is translated from the Persian by Coleman Banks and–excuse me, Coleman Barks and John Moyne and it begins like this.

Out beyond ideas of wrongdoing and right doing, there is a field. I’ll meet you there.

To me, poetry is that field. It is a place where we all belong. There’s something for everyone. You’ve got funny poems, you’ve got sad poems, you’ve got nonfiction informational poems, and you’ve got something for every person in this audience. And I think every person in the world, there’s a place for you in poetry. So that’s why we need to celebrate poetry and keep spreading the power and joy of words that we create in these poems. And with that, I will turn it over to my poetic forever friend and partner in poetic crime, Charles Waters.

Charles Waters:
Hello everybody. Thank you for joining all of us here on this lovely evening of poetry and, and fellowship. I came to the Highlights Foundation, I want to say, through a scholarship. I’m a proud scholarship recipient. I got the scholarship in 2011 thanks to George’s father, Kent Brown, the founder of the Foundation, the grandson of the founders of Highlights magazine, Kent and Rebecca K. Dotlich–I call her Teach, she’s my poetry mentor, she’s always been in my corner. She encouraged me to apply for the scholarship and Kent blessed me with it. And I wanted to earn that scholarship by working as hard as I can and doing everything I can to further myself in poetry for young people.

And since then, the scholarship has grown. And, and I believe last year, there was something like 600 applicants. I don’t know how many it is this year, but I’m sure it’s, it’s about that number, if not more. So I just wanted to mention that the, I want to applaud Highlights for the for the scholarship to help people who are financially insecure, to give them a shot at learning about books.

So the way our collaboration works, everybody, is Irene and I basically have a very organic, easy back and forth. You know, knock on, knock on wood, we’ve never had an argument. We’ve never had an argument in 10 years. We kind of know when maybe to back off each other, we came together as friends and poets as grown people. I think that had a lot to do with it as well. And so Irene and I just do a lot of texting. Most of time we text about books that we love and we share. Our collaboration is, is based on respect and texting and the blessings, everybody, of Google Docs.

Because you can work inside an active, active document, either together or apart in real time. And so Irene and I kind of have different hours. She’s an early riser. I’ll rise early if I have to. I’ve done that for many years for jobs, no problem. But I usually like to sleep till about 10 o’clock and go to bed around 2 am. That’s kind of my sweet spot. And so it’s nice, you know, I wake up, and there’s all these Latham poems. And she says that she, Irene loves waking up and seeing Waters poems because I work on them overnight.

And, you know, it’s a back and forth. Sometimes Irene may take the bulk of working on something for more than me, and then the opposite then happens. So when the book is finally published to you, it comes out 50-50 in terms of workload. So it’s a very easy organic process and we trust each other and we respect each other and that’s basically how it’s come to be. Our shared passion for poetry and our respect for the art form really bonds us as friends.

So I admire Irene very much. She’s a world champion cellist and gardener and I’m reading about all these activities that she does with her family and she’s a real inspiration in many ways and I owe her a great deal. So that’s how basically the collaboration is.

Alison:
I love that. I love you shared a technology tip too because for so many of us who are collaborating and aren’t using Google Docs right now I’m like “why is that?”

Of course and how fun to wake up in the morning to each other’s words like: oh that’s so lovely. That’s so wonderful. Yeah, really lovely. Irene, did you have anything you wanted to add before maybe we hear a poem or two from you and Charles?

Irene:
Just that you mentioned saying something about the lovely people on the screen and I want to say that you know Charles and I started out collaborating on our own poetry and then it was always the dream to do an anthology because we love anthologies so much because they’re so accessible to readers and give readers so many options and that kid that may not think they like poetry; they’re going to find something in an anthology and these women here tonight are who we are so beholden to.

The book is only the book because of the poets who are in it and we’re so grateful and you want to talk about fun! Charles and I have so much fun doing the anthologies and seeing the poems come in and getting to know all of you through your work so these are these are some champion poets right here really really thrilled to be here and to learn from all of you.

Alison:
That’s great. We’re gonna hear from them in just a moment. Charles or Irene, do you have a poem that you’d like to share with us tonight?

Charles:
Yes, yes. We do. And then Irene can then talk about the open call process, which was her idea, which I think is it’s just, I think it’s just a wonderful idea to give everybody a shot. I’d like I’d like to read a poem by Gabi Snyder, called “Blue Bike” here. Here we go. And here’s how it goes.

If I could pedal my blue bike back through time,
I’d pedal back to grandma’s house
to sit next to her on the sun flowered couch.
We drink lemonade with the fan blowing back and forth to cool our faces.
Talk about her childhood, the tornado that knocked their gas station flat,
the lake she swam across, and the tree she climbed out the attic window
down to her blue bike, ready for adventure.

So if I may say really quickly, the way this poem worked by Gabi was, Gabi actually, this was only the first stanza of about six stanzas that she sent in the poem. And Irene and I read it together over and over again. And it may have been Irene’s idea, actually. She said, why don’t we ask Gabi to cut all those stanzas and just do that first one? Because that first one is a full poem.

And the blue bike is in the beginning. And then she ties it together at the end. And darn it to heck, I think Gabi said yes, and there was no revision. That was it. So that gives you an idea of how the anthologies work with us in the process.

Irene:
And I’ll just say a couple of more things about the process. And I do want to say that Charles and I have a great commitment. One of our big goals as anthologists is to bring as many people into this process as possible. And so the open call was a way to do that, to make it equitable. So we could hear from a lot of people who maybe didn’t have an opportunity to be published. Lacresha, it was her first acceptance in a children’s poetry collection, and now she’s rolling.

So we just love being a part of people’s stories and helping bring those voices into the fold. So our dream is to have experienced poets and new voices in the same place from all different backgrounds and to show the wide, wide world of poetry.

Alison:
I love that. Thank you. So let’s hear from your poets. Let’s hear from three poets that you’ve gathered in the collection and in many collections. I was having so much fun as I was, you know, looking up things on JaNay, Lacresha, and Jolene and just seeing the number of poems and poetry and Lacresha, I was so excited. I mean we had an opportunity to meet but as I was returning to your bio and looking at there’s so many things that led you to poetry there just are you know singer songwriter, performer, playwright, like all of these things.

And then what I loved so much when you were a part of the faculty at the most recent poetry workshop, that performer aspect and the marriage of performance and poetry coming together like I would assume that that is so helpful when it comes to, to word selection, even, that you’re putting into the poems that you create. And we had a chance to see you share your poem at that workshop too, which is like an absolutely amazing experience. So I wonder if you talked to us a little bit about just what Irene said about, you know, this kind of being you coming into children’s poetry in this book and then, you know, just poetry in general for you.

Lacresha Berry:
Yes, thank you so much for having me here and I’m happy to be here and yeah, this is exciting. So this is my favorite month because I write poetry all day, every day. But what I will say is that I’ve been teaching for a long time. I’ve been teaching since 2005 and poetry was the center of the creative writing process for me. But I’ve been writing poetry since high school and I kept all kinds of journals. Like I had journals after journals after journals and I used to rhyme because I wrote songs.

So I always tried to, like, rhyme and do like hip hop and rap and all that stuff. So that was the basis of my work. Free verse came a little bit later in my life. So, well later on, not like I’m an old lady or anything, but it came later as I began to explore and teach.

So for me, that’s how I started like, just reading lots and lots of poetry. Naomi Shihab Nye is probably like one of my favorite poets to read ever. Um “Making a Fist,” every time I read “Making a Fist,” I’m crying. So I think just lots and lots and lots of reading, great poets and really sitting with the words and then trying out some rhythms based on just my experience with music. So I think that helps a lot.

And Charles has been in my ear for a long time. Me and Charles, we met as teaching artists, um, over 10 years ago, about 11 years ago now. And we connected, but I feel like Charles was always pouring a lot more into me than I was, I poured into him. And now I think it’s equal. But, um, in those earlier days, he was like, you’re a genius. You’re a superstar. You’re a genius. You’re a superstar. He said that from when I first met him. So he’s been this Charles since I’ve known him.

So I think, you know, me coming into poetry was natural only because I’m around reading books, writing, teaching writing. I still teach writing, teach slam poetry, performance poetry. Um, that’s more my thing. I like to make sure the words on the page match how I’m going to say them. Um, cause I performed them. So that’s, I always look for near rhymes and rhythm. That’s like a big part of my work.

Alison:
I love that. I noticed someone in the chat too, it’s Cathy. So Cathy was there last year and said: “Lacresha was so inspiring when she taught us about performance poetry.” And that too, like when you were just saying that, the idea, that visualization of you performing the poem too, as you’re in the active writing, that’s such a, that’s a really cool creative process.

And then how did you decide what poem you were gonna select for Best Day? Did it come to you right away?

Lacresha:
Talking to me?

Alison:
Yeah.

Lacresha:
Girl, I wrote that for the anthology. I wrote that in 30 minutes for the anthology because they put out, yeah, they put out a email and they’re like, if you know anybody, I was like, oh, that nobody, if anybody, that’s me.

So I said, here, here we go. It was 2020. I said, why not? And I thought about it for a second, typed it up. And that’s what I did. I didn’t go through, you know, all my poems because I don’t write for young people like that. I write whatever comes out of my body. And what’s funny is with Charles and Irene, we’ve gone through a whole lot of revision process for like 11 lines or 20 lines or 40 lines. My poems are three to four pages usually because I’m a performer. So most of my poems are five minutes long because that’s what slam poetry, well, five minutes or less because it’s slam poetry. So slam poetry in the world where you’re competing is three minutes or less.

So having a short poem and I’m very loquacious, that’s very difficult. So I said, you know, I’m gonna try it. I’m gonna see because why not? And I guess it worked out. I guess. it worked out for me. So, you know, I’m a little bit of a risk taker. So I just was like, okay, here you go. And that’s it. That’s how I do.

Alison:
They’re over there laughing and smiling as you’re telling the story. Lacresha, do you want to share your poem from the collection or do you have a poem to share with us tonight?

Lacresha:
Yes, I’m going to share from the collection because we’re here. Look how beautiful that is! Because we’re here. I’m really happy to be a part, and being here with, with Jolene and with JaNay, J and J, J and J. Okay. Don’t mind me. Another, another rhyming person that I am. But yeah, I thought about this poem and I was thinking about growing up as a black girl and thinking about my skin tone and thinking about, you know, being loved on openly and cherished and I love being outside. I’m from Kentucky and being in the summer is a thing, okay? And I think the one thing that I always heard was: “stay out the sun so you don’t get any darker.” And so when I thought of that, this poem came to me.

“So If I Imagine Sunlight Made Me”

If I imagine sunlight made me, my soul soars like a black bird, chirping in celebration of my midnight wings without anyone telling me I am too dark to be related to the sun.

That’s it.

Alison:
Thank you so much, Lacresha. Thanks so much. I love that. So we’ll keep going with our poets and hearing some poetry. I do kind of like Irene and Charles, your vision is so clear too. When you had first sent the list of poets that are in this collection or in any of your collections for that matter, you can see, you can see people who are new to writing poems for children. Lacresha has a long background of writing, but here we are now, we have a chance. People in children’s books have a chance to read Lacresha’s words, right? And then you have people who have been writing poems for children for a very long time. So it’s a beautiful collaborative process that you come up with.

And I already see, I just want everyone to know that in the Q and A, there are a lot of questions about how do I get that email that Lacresha got. So we’ll make sure that we figure that out. I do want to move on to another celebrated author, JaNay Brown-Wood.

For those of you who are just getting to know JaNay, there is a lot, a lot to find. When you look up JaNay Brown-Wood’s name, you will see Little Golden Books, you’ll see books for Crayola, you’ll see, you know, poetry collections and picture books and chapter books, nonfiction, fiction. I know that you have a middle grade as well because I think that I got to hear a little bit of your mg book in a class that we were in together. So I think you have, you’ve got tons and tons and tons of work.

So I think tonight we want to talk about your poetry though. And you’ve worked on a few poetry collections, and if I’m not wrong, you’ve worked on a few poetry collections with Irene and Charles. True?

JaNay Brown-Wood:
Yes, I’ve been so fortunate to be included in a couple of them, yeah. And hopefully, and counting, right?

Alison:
It sounds like they’re rolling with them, right? They’re coming up with many. So what does that process look like for you, especially like fitting it in with, you know, so many other writing projects that you have. How do you do your practice of poetry? I guess that might be the question.

JaNay:
I think that my heart beats in poetry, if that makes sense. So often, even in my picture books, for example, I write rhyming poems or rhyming manuscripts or lyrical manuscripts. And so poetry has always been an important part of my life. And I mean, I think back when I was a child, and my dad would read me Dr. Seuss and Shel Silverstein. And it was so interesting because often when I when I was younger, like the cadence of his voice is what I would hear when I heard poetry.

So it just goes way back. Matter of fact, can I share something really quickly? I want to show you how far back this goes. Hopefully we can… All right, can you see this? So this is a poem I actually wrote in elementary school. And I think it’s in cursive. So it must have been like fourth grade. I’m gonna read it. Because why not? Here we go. No, I didn’t say it was good. Don’t judge. Just enjoy it. Just take in the words.

I once saw a skittleful rainbow
And took out a skittle that glowed.
I got a whole bunch
And I ate too much.
And now my poor fat tummy glows.

That is the voice of young JaNay and I think that so often that still comes through. So when it comes to like my process, I try to put myself in places with an open heart so I can receive inspiration and often it’s in in nature, being out in nature and, and just experiencing the beauty of nature and the foliage changing color and autumn and falling from the trees or being by the beach–those are things that really help to inspire poetry in me. I think I answered your question, Alison.

Alison:
Absolutely and hello skittleful! Like I can’t. You just plucked it right out. You’re like: this is the one, this is definitely what I need to see. I love that. We’ve been going through…so it’s the, the idea of children’s book writers and illustrators and children, right? Obviously, you know, we want to combine those two things. But we’ve been looking so much at children’s poetry and children’s illustrations and things like that.

And more often than not, we have a faculty member, you know, one of our teachers who will come and they’ll bring something that it’s always been in them, like it’s always been there. And, you know, they’re, they’re, they can see it, like we can see the seed of you as the poet there. And you know, you’re bringing it here with us. Thank you for sharing that with us. How old were you? Did you say?

JaNay:
I think it had to have been maybe fourth, third, fourth grade. If you saw that two was misspelled, that’s, that’s where it was. T-O instead of T-O-O.

Alison:
And the cursive. You really had the cursive on it. So it’s like, wow, look at that fancy handwriting, right? That’s right. Did you want to, did you want to share it from us or from Best Day? Oh, we’d love it.

JaNay:
Yes. Yes. So I’m going to show you really quickly the beautiful, oh, you know what? It’s blurred. Sorry. Well, it’s in there. I guess you have to pick up the book so that you can see it. All right. So here we go.

This is called “The Gift of If” by me, JaNay Brown-Wood.

If is a gift for adventure.
If is a huh, to explore.
If is a gripping story, egging you on, don’t stop, read more.
If is an unanswered question.
If is a boredom cure.
If is an arching rainbow. No one knows where it ends for sure.
If is a lost buried treasure.
If is a padlocked door.
If is the thought, what’s out there, without a clue of what’s in store.
And if means there is no limit.
If means forget before.
If means all is possible because if means the world is yours.

And there it is. Thank you.

Alison:
Oh, JaNay. Thank you. Thanks for sharing with us. That’s that that heart. That’s that hope, you know, that we were talking about.

So we’re going to just a this is like a midpoint announcement. We’re going to share a few more poems. And then we’re going to do a writing prompt together. And then we’re going to get to the questions because yes, we do see the questions coming into the Q&A. So just a reminder, if you have one, please do put that in the Q&A feature so that we can take a look at that. Jolene, I want to welcome you. I’m so excited to see you tonight. Thank you for being here.

I was just talking about you the other day when we were up at the Barn and thinking about the first time that we met and realized that our circles were not only looped in, in writing, but also in education, as so many people, you know, on the call are as well.

So I have a question for you. I hope it’s, I hope it’s a fair question, because it’s a little bit different from the ones that I’ve been asking so far. But because I know how much time you spend with kids and how much you love poetry, have you celebrated National Poetry Month before? Have you done things like Poem in Your Pocket Day and, you know, things like that? And what are some things that you notice that kids love about poetry? What’s your experience there?

Jolene Gutiérrez:
I love that question. So yeah, I am a teacher/librarian at a school for neurodivergent learners, and I teach grades 2 through 12. But I see my elementary learners every week. And so every April, we celebrate Poetry Month in some form. We have done Poem in My Pocket. This year, I am intending to use Grant Snider’s poetry comics as kind of mentor poems. And I love nature as well. And I think getting our kids out in nature and doing work in that way is really inspiring.

So we will definitely do some nature journaling and brainstorming and then write and draw our own poems. What I’ve noticed for my neurodivergent learners, and I think this holds true for all of us, is that poetry really levels the playing field. When I tell them that they don’t necessarily have to rhyme, they don’t necessarily have to keep to certain structures, although I do teach those structures sometimes. They don’t even have to pay attention to spelling or punctuation.

They are free. They pour out the most beautiful poems. And we usually have a performance piece that is optional but I, I urge them to perform because I think it’s such a confidence boost for them, or at least to let me read their poems. And that has, I have seen just such growth in our kids. So that for me, like, I’ve always loved poetry, but I see how it creates writers, it lets them see themselves as writers, and it opens so many doors for them.

So I love that piece about poetry. Yeah, and I teach them that poems are word paintings, and the “Blue Bike” poem of Gabi’s was a perfect example. So just kind of describing this and using all of our senses and making a word painting for our audience.

Alison:
I love that. So many nods here on the screen, and so many comments in the chat too, because I feel like that, you know, and JaNay said that too, just “my heart beats in poetry.” I think kids are a little bit closer to that, right?

They’re a little bit closer to the feel of poetry and the feel of words moving through them. They’re so close to that. And then exposing them to lots of different types of poetry where you’re right, it doesn’t need to rhyme and it doesn’t have to follow this very specific form, but it could. And what would it look like if it did and all of those opportunities. It’s just, it’s exciting. I loved when I was, I was in the classroom for a little while and then I was a literacy coach and I was between a lot of schools and I would always celebrate Poem in Your Pocket because I didn’t have an anchor. I didn’t have a classroom to myself anymore, but I knew if I crossed a kid in the hallway, we’d get out our poems and then we’d be able to share them. And it was always a favorite time, always a good time there.

So thank you for bringing poetry to your kiddos. They’ll all grow up with that love of words because of it, thank you. How about, can we hear a little from you? I think you might even have an illustration. I’m so glad from the book too because seeing an illustration up close would be so nice.

Jolene:
Yeah, I am going to share my screen in just a minute and it’s me thinking with my neurodivergent brain, I like to see the text. And so for our audience members, for them to be able to see as I read and you will then be able to see some of Olivia’s gorgeous illustrations. Can you guys see that? Okay, I’m gonna zoom out a little bit and see if we can, there we go, so beautiful, those illustrations.

So this is “If, Then,” and this is based on that conditional statement: if this happens or exists, then it follows that this thing should also or could also happen or exist.

If you, then me.
If two, then three.

If stars, then sun,
If day, then fun.

If speak, then hear.
If far, then near.

If look, then see.
If us, then we.

If catch, then fall.
If love, then all.

Thank you.

Alison:
Oh, all right. We were just talking about making poets here, Irene and Charles. I think we’ll, we’ll bring the two of you back on here and, and see if we can make some poets out of our audience too. I think you brought with you a little poetry prompt for tonight. Um, maybe something that might inspire those who have gathered with us to, to share a little bit.

Charles:
Well, uh first of all, how lucky are Irene and I to get those poems at first blush, right? Like I think Jolene, Jolene Gutiérrez, I don’t think there were any edits. I think it went straight to Liz and Carter and they were like: boom. Yes, we agree with you.

So that you know imagine as anthologists–oh, lucky us, it’s like little Christmas gifts every day during the process. For the; one of the things Irene and I talk about a lot as two people since children would just stare out the windows and wonder is: what we loved about the if book was, was all the possibilities. Actually, the word itself, everybody, is a prompt.

Trying to look back on what we sent everybody for the open call. What Irene and I did basically was take the four sections, which was everyday magic; the power of you; kinfolk and companions; and anything is possible–from the um, from the magical and fantastical to the practical. And we just said use “if” in; “if” just has to start the poem. And we wind up getting 400 poems from all over the world. From Australia, from New Zealand, from Canada, from here in America for almost 400.

I think the total, I think the number was about 374 that we had to go through and what an honor. So that’s a prompt in and of itself because that’s what basically we did for the open call and then um there is a a puddle prompt that Irene can explain to all of you.

Irene:
So one of the poems in the book is by Bob Raczka. It’s called “Puddle.” You may remember this poem from his book of Guyku, which were poems, haiku for boys and illustrated by Peter Reynolds, just a wonderful collection. And so one of the things we got to do in this book was pull out some of our favorite poems that we remember that started with “if.” But I love this particular poem for a poetry prompt because it’s super short and really, anybody can latch onto this.

So the poem goes like this, “Puddle” by Bob Raczka:

If this puddle could talk, I think it would tell me to splash my sister.

So you have a wonderful kid-friendly voice in this poem and you’ve got an inanimate object speaking. So your prompt is: find your puddle. Maybe that’s a tree. Maybe that’s a bowl. Maybe that’s a lamp. Maybe that’s, maybe that’s something animate in term; it could be an animal and give that thing some dialogue.

Find out what it wants to do and put that in a poem and maybe that’s a haiku. Maybe that’s a different form. Let it just take you wherever you wherever it will. Just let it be stream of consciousness like Jolene does with her students. Just don’t worry about spelling and punctuation and just let the ideas pour forth and, and see what happens. We can’t wait to for you to have this experience. I just posted a poem on my blog called “If This Donut Could Talk” a couple of weeks back.

So I use these prompts too. So have fun with it.

Alison:
Oh I love that so much and I can totally imagine in the classroom “If This Donut Could Talk” would just be a hit from start to finish. Thank you. Thank you for those prompts. I tried to type them up and put them in the chat. We’ll include them in the wrap up in the blog as well. But before we switch to any questions, the questions are coming into the Q&A. Maybe just one quick round the room of any other tips or thoughts.

I know we’ve shared, you know, Lacresha started by talking about read, read, read, reading poetry, you know, and you know talking poetry and loving poetry. But what are some other tips that you might share with the audience that could inspire them as poets themselves?

Who wants to kick us off? Yeah, JaNay.

JaNay:
Play. So my background is early childhood education and one of the things that we would make sure we would do in the early childhood education space as have opportunities for play. Just kids get their hands on things and build and knock it down and try this and try that. And I think that that applies to poetry too. Just play, play with language. Listen to sounds. Say them out loud.

Like do all of these different things. It just allows for you to be free in the words and see what comes out. And then once you do that, read them out loud and then see if you can make the language pop even more or make it silent as you’re using, you know, different types of consonants.

So I would say finding the space to just play with language helps me when I am writing poetry.

Jolene:
Well, this may not equate to poetry for children necessarily, but I also treat poetry as therapy. So I’m a very emotional person, a very empathetic person, and one of the things I love about poetry and verse novels is the emotions are distilled down and you can feel every one of them. So if there is a scene in your life that you want to kind of replay or write a different ending for or something like that, maybe revisit that if you feel comfortable doing so and write it out, give yourself that ending that you wanted or the words that you needed in that moment.

Lacresha:
And I’ll go and add to this. I work with older kids, so I work with middle school and high school. So oftentimes: “I don’t like poetry. I don’t write it. I don’t have nothing to say. I’m stuck.” So we do a lot of list making. I make a lots and lots and lots of lists and a lot of times their poems don’t look like poems at first. So the one thing I just did recently, like last week, is make a list of 10 things you can’t live without. It has to be 10. And then I want you to narrow it down to five because you’re going to have to knock some things off the list. Then you have to narrow it down to three. And then the one thing that you can write the most about is what you have a poem about.

And you can always go back to that list to generate more ideas. I’m a list maker. I also love list poetry as well, just because it’s just accessible and has repetition already built into the format. So for me, it’s getting young people to think that they have this thing inside of them that they might not know.

So making a list or generating ideas helps them to be like, oh yeah, I’m actually all right. I actually can do this, but I do think play and also just getting your feelings down on paper. It’s also important as you get older too.

So using those ideas that JaNay and Jolene said, also could add to the older kid, you know. So I think all three of those are really great. It depends on how you scaffold it and who you’re teaching.

Irene:
I will just add, I love all those tips so much. I think about it a lot, as poetry as being like a lifestyle, like be a poet 24-7, like investigate the world, approach things with curiosity, be in the moment. Even in your emails, don’t lean on those cliches. How can you bust that open and use figurative language in your daily correspondence? And also leaning into technology, just a very practical tip. I feel like I’m writing 24 hours a day, I wake up in the middle of the night and the app on the phone, the Notes app, I could use constantly.

When I’m driving, I use the voice recording. And also this is a really good tip that I’ve just recently discovered because of my work with the cello. A lot of learning on the cello is listening to yourself play and hearing things differently. So I’ve started recording myself, reading my own poems. And you catch things when you read a poem aloud, but to hear your poem aloud, also you catch completely different things. So that can kind of give you some instant feedback.

If you’re, I’m kind of a solitary writer and I don’t have a group and that’s the way I need to, that’s my process that works for me, but it also helps me to have that feedback from a listening source that gives me the distance. So lean into technology, we’ve got so much available to us now.

Charles:
I would tell everybody, and I would encourage for educators there as well, I would encourage your students to keep a notebook. I think, and it can even be technology the way it is to everybody. It could be a little app on your phone that says notebook that you just, you know, if something occurs to you, a thought, you just type it in and save it. And after a while you’re accumulating enough, you can transfer it to your notebook.

So what happens is you’re not going to use everything that’s in your notebook. But if you ever find yourself without a poem to write, you can go here. And now this is, I’ve kept this one, I’ve kept, I’ve had, I have a stack of them obviously and so there’s probably everybody here. But I’ve had this one for a while and I’m just looking at the page 59. Okay. It says, “when she smiles, these jumbled puzzle pieces of my mind slot into place perfectly.” I don’t know what that means. I don’t know if it’s a poem or not, but that’s an idea.

So that’s actually probably like the junior high school part of me when a girl smiled, I would just be like, oh my goodness, she smiled at me. I’m telling everybody. So, notebooks are very important and you’ll find out as you accumulate all thoughts from what you see as an adult, your childhood memories come forth. And that’s where a lot of poems lie, everybody. So there you go.

Alison:
I love that. That’s the hot top five right there. That’s a listicle. Is that what those are called? We’ve got all those tips going on there. I love it. I love it so much. I think it’s Billy Collins; I could be wrong, but I think it’s Billy Collins that says, “who has time but the poets?” From one of his poems. And he’s talking about the clouds. It’s a poem about clouds and he’s saying like, who has time to look at these things and do this? And I think it’s maybe that you don’t have more time baked into the day than any of us have but you can’t stop yourselves and you’ve found these ways to make sure that you’re bringing your poetry forward. And I love that.

I love following fellow poets. I would say that’s a tip. I’m gonna put a link in the chat here for Georgia Heard’s newsletter. Georgia Heard has a newsletter that has downloadable sheets that go with it. But this month, National Poetry Month, Georgia’s newsletter had a top 10 list of ways to infuse poetry into your daily life. And I thought, oh, how wonderful. (https://www.georgiaheard.com/subscribe)

And Charles and Irene will be joined by Georgia Heard and Rebecca K. Dotlich in the fall for a poetry workshop. So we’re so excited for that. I remember the first time I met Georgia, Charles, you were probably there, but the first time I met Georgia, I had a teacher moment because I used to use Heart Maps in my classroom all the time. But I was like, that’s Georgia Heard. And happens to be a beautiful poet like all of you.

So as we’re going through some of these questions, that was a big one on there. What are some tips that you have?

What are some ways that I can bring more poetry into my life? That’s a big one. I love this question. Roshna asked the question. And really anybody jump in to help answer this one. Lacresha, this might help with a little bit of your perspective though, because it’s about being a poet for an adult audience and wondering: how do you differentiate between the poems that you’re writing for adults and having a children or teen audience when you’re writing?

Lacresha:
I think that’s a great question. I saw that, I was looking, I was speaking to some of the questions in there. And I think it’s all about the amount of things you put inside of a poem. I think for me, I have to, uh, less is more when it comes to young people because you want them to access the work. And also it depends on, you know, if, if you’re dealing with younger readers, like, you know, ages five, six, seven, eight, all the way to, you know, 10 or middle grade or whatever it, the less is more.

Right? And I also think JaNay and Jolene did a really great, is that rhyming really works with young, very young kids. Free verse is not as accessible to five year olds as it is to like a 12 year old or 11 year old.

So for me, rhyming and the, like the mnemonic, like the remembering of dah dah dah dah dah dah dah, like a rhythm of that is easier to follow along and even to memorize. Right. But when I get to older kids, I can play around more with the free verse. I’m not rhyming as much. I’m kind of putting more of my ideas down, but I think with adults, I can throw in like rhyme after rhyme after rhyme, thought after thought after thought and just go.

And if you catch it, you catch it. If you don’t, you don’t. But with kids, I have to be a lot more intentional because I, the point of it is I want them to get it. And the point is, especially in my classes, I want them to recreate it. So you want to be able to have poems for young people where I say less is more, so 20 lines is what I always give them or the amount of their age. So let’s say you’re dealing with a 14 year old, they’re going to give me 14 lines, 13, you know, based on their age. So that’s what I do when it comes to differentiating for adults versus young people.

And also there’s a big differentiation between ages of young people as well. So with my middle grade and my high school, they love to rap, but their rhyming skills are not as strong as when they’re younger. There’s something about when you’re younger, the rhyming is a lot more palatable. I don’t, I don’t know how to describe it. Sometimes when it comes to high school kids, they’re not allowed to dream as much. So their rhyming becomes nonsensical, which could work, but like not if you’re trying to make a statement in your poetry. You know what I mean? So that’s what I say when it comes to that.

Alison:
I love that. Anyone else? That’s a great question. I love that you differentiated that part too, Lacresha, there is not just adult and children, but within writing for children and teens, There’s such a wide variety of things to think about.

Anybody else on that one?

JaNay:
I’ll add something really quickly. I know the question says like difference between adult poetry for adults versus children and teen. I think the poetry that’s written for children is also for adults too. I think one of the expert things poets who write for children are able to do, it’s like yes, bring it down to the child’s level but still layer in imagery and themes and messages that speak to adult hearts as well. But I think one of the bigger, bigger things that I would say at least differentiate the two for me if we’re talking about writing for adults it’s of course the themes right? The themes. There are some things that you’re just not gonna write about for, for kids and I think that those are some of the things that I think about like: does this feel too heavy does it feel too adult right? Is this appropriate for the age or whomever I’m trying to write for but the other way around again writing for children those poems also speak to adults. So yeah my thoughts on that.

Alison:
This is another one that I think well it’s probably with answer five or six in here. Charles, Irene, what have you got planned? Any open calls? How do you know when there’s an open call? What do you do?

How do all these people know?

Irene:
That’s a great question. We don’t have any open calls scheduled at this time. Charles and I have created a questionnaire for potential contributors, a contributors questionnaire. I will see if I can grab the link to that. So if you’re on here and you have not responded to our questionnaire, it’s a way for us to get to know things people are interested in, what they like to write about. And we definitely are using that list to reach out to poets for other projects. And I would say the Poetry Friday community, many of whom are represented here, shout out to all the Poetry Friday friends out there.

Just such a passionate group of poets who are writing, many of them writing with students as well. There’s great ideas there. There’s a lot of information being passed along that highway. So I would say plug in there, for sure, to get the latest information on anthologies that may be coming.

Charles:
Irene, I think I got it right while you were talking. I put the link in. You can double check me on that. [https://forms.gle/VY9ihoU8NZK7z3hKA]

You’re seeing how we collaborate, everybody, right now, just by doing some spin of that. I did it. Double check. We do that a lot with each other. Just double check that we got it right. We do that with emails. Every email that we send, either Irene has written, and I’ve looked at, or the opposite. We’re really good about that. The great thing about anthologies are the effect they have on readers. The disappointing thing is they’re not as respected in the market as they should be, sometimes, with publishers.

So we’re working hard on changing that, especially with the deaths of Lee Bennett Hopkins and Paul B. Janeczko, who both published over 180 anthologies who passed away six months from each other in 2019. That’s really what spurred If I Could Choose A Best Day as well, because we knew the marketplace was gonna be empty. Let me see. So the questionnaire is great. The questionnaire is actually excellent. We have a sports anthology that’s coming out in 11 months from Lerner called For the Win: Poems of Phenomenal Athletes. And we hired people on a case-by-case basis. I think that was easier for Irene and I to put the anthology together that way rather than an open call.

Here’s the thing though. We don’t know everybody’s interest in sports. So that was really the basis of the questionnaire, and we’ll use that going forward. And there were a lot of people in that anthology that wrote about sports or something that can, I’ll give you an example. Edna Cabcabin Moran has an extensive history in hula dancing and Polynesian culture. So we hired her to write a poem about the professional wrestler Roman Reigns, who is Polynesian. That never would have happened had we not did that questionnaire.

And once again, that was Irene’s idea with the questionnaire. And I fought against it because I’m going, well, if we do a questionnaire, everybody’s going to want to, everybody who sends in, fills out the questionnaire, thinks they’re going to get published. And she was like, you know, I think we should take the chance. #AlwaysListenToTheLatham. Um, spread that worldwide. And so what happened was the questionnaire, the questionnaire wound up working to our advantage for that anthology.

So that questionnaire is really important. So everybody who hasn’t filled it up, please do so. Um, and hopefully for the next anthology that we, that someone does accept, we’ll, we’ll, we’ll do another open call again. We do these on a case-by-case basis. And, um, there’s one I’m excited about that we hope to sell that, but that would be an open call, but you never know. It’s a tough market, but something Irene and I are willing to fight for.

Alison:
So that’s good. So I mean, #AlwaysListenToTheLatham but also #FollowCharlesAndIrene. Well, we’ll, we’ll see what’s coming next. I can’t wait. So we’ll, we’ll do one more question. We’re running just a little bit over time. So hopefully you’ll give us about five or six more minutes of your time. We’ll do one more question. And then I have two, um, sweet little announcements. And we’ll wrap things up and just a big thanks to all of you before we get to this last question.

I love Kimberly asks, what is your favorite type of poem to write? If we could go around just really quickly, what’s your favorite type?

Charles:
I’m a free-verser with rhyme as well. I started out as a rhymer, I did everything backwards. I usually tell kids to start out writing free verse, but I started out in rhyme and then became a free-verser thanks to Janet Wong, the great poet and anthologist.

JaNay:
For me, whatever new form I just heard of, like, what is that? I want to try that. And then I love that one, so it changes often.

Lacresha:
I’m a free-verser as well, I don’t like really. as much structure other than, you know, I use a lot of repetition as well. Repetition and free verse are my like bread and butter, and only because songwriting is also right next to it, is that.

Jolene:
Mostly free verse for me as well, although like JaNay, I like to play and try different formats, especially if I’m going to be teaching them, and haiku is kind of an old fallback for me too, just because of the nature connection.

Irene:
And I love trying anything and everything as well. I really love lyrical language, figurative language. I’m really looking to surprise myself in a poem. I want to create a surprise for the reader, so that’s something I’m always thinking about is how can I use language in a surprising way, or how can I use an image, or something that gives the reader this kind of unexpected gift at the end of the poem, because that’s what I love when I read poetry, so it’s something to strive for anyway.

Alison:
I love that. Well thank you all so much, so beautiful. It was beautiful to hear from all of you. I think there were two questions that are still in the chat, but I’ll make sure they get answered in the blog before the blog goes out, and then that’ll automatically be sent to everybody who’s watching the recording, or who’s on here with us live tonight. We do have two sweet poetic celebrations, and the first one is, we have a book giveaway. Guess what book we’re giving away to one special winner tonight? Does anyone have an idea what it might be?

Hey! So we had several people asking, well what is the name of this poetry collection? If I Could Choose a Best Day: Poems of Possibility. And we will be selecting at random from someone who was live on the attendee list tonight and we’ll be announcing it in the blog so make sure when the post comes out you take a look and see if your name is in there. If you are the winner we’ll get that sent out to you just as soon as we can and we look forward to you having it in the in the mail. And if you already have a copy please find your favorite kiddo and pass that book right along to them.

Aanother bit of good news tomorrow when you, you know wake up and check the Highlights Foundation website, because who doesn’t do that first thing in the morning? Um, you’re going to see our 2025 scholarship awardees have been announced. And I would say there were so many poets this year. Um, Charles and Lacresha, thank you. The, the two of them were on our huge scholarship review committee this year. And they specifically looked at the endless, endless talent of poets to the point that Charles wrote to me and said, I mean, well, how many years have you done it, Charles?

Charles:
Uh, four.

Alison:
Four years that, are there more this year than, you know, ever?

Yes. It was such a difficult year. There were so many poets. Um, we do have a number of scholarships that are for poets, but there are two new ones that go along with our longstanding favorites. Um, so I just wanted to give a special shout out. We have the Virginia Hamilton and Arnold Adoff Breaking Barrier Scholarship for writers and poets. That’s a brand new scholarship that we have here at the Highlights Foundation. And I noticed that someone mentioned Arnold Adoff in the chat tonight. So how perfect is that?

And then it didn’t, um, get on the list yet. This year, this one is in honor of a friend of the Highlights Foundation through her friends. Um, there is the Beth Brody Poetry of Nature Scholarship Fund. We’re so excited that that poetry fund has been established and that we’ll be able to award a poet next year in honor of Beth Brody’s beautiful poems and beautiful work and love of nature. Um, so special.

Um, I’ll make sure that I put the full scholarship list in the chat. It’ll be in our blog as well. There are so many scholarships that we have for poets. We do an open call, not quite like Charles and Irene’s, but we do an open call for scholarship applications once a year and more and more poets are writing to us.

And I know Charles and Lacresha want to read more poems next year. So send them in so we can see them. Um, amplify the poets in your lives this month and always, and a special thanks to our panelists tonight. You are doing beautiful work. We love your words and, um, loved having you here tonight. What a, what a night of, of, of hope and heart. Thank you. And to our audience, please take care of yourselves.

Take care of one another. Stay safe and have a good night. We’ll see you later. Good night.