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As I'm teaching my Getting to a Poem workshop this week, I am, as always, doing the assignments along with everyone else. One day we wrote poems based on places, so I browsed through my Scotland photos and decided to try to capture the immensity of Highland Cattle. A silly poem came out, which wasn't what I expected, but...
Immovable
Shaggy cow
Saggy cow
Twisty dreadlocked
Draggy cow
Sulky cow
Bulky cow
Massive muscled
Hulky cow
Byway cow
Highway cow
Please get out
of my way --
now!
--Laura Purdie Salas, all rights reserved
Two Writing Teachers has the Poetry Friday roundup today.
As I mentioned in my meme Wednesday, we got a dog! Our family life is overwhelmingly busy at times, and though we wanted a new pet, we definitely didn't want a puppy. Introducing Jack (full name: Captain Jack Sparrow). He's an adult beagle we got at the humane society. Click on the pic for a funny, different view.
Now, forget that Jack is a sweetheart and let your mind wander. What does this image bring to mind for you? A favorite pet from childhood? The dog that bit you after his owner said, "Oh sure, he's friendly"? The horrible decision of putting an ill pet to sleep? A dog you saw on the best vacation of your life?
See what connections your mind makes, and then write a 15 Words or Less poem. It doesn't have to describe or explain the image (though it can). Remember, these are just exercises or skeletons of poems. Yours might turn out wonderfully; it might not. Either way, it's OK. Here are yesterday's too cute poems. Write yours and share it in a comment and be part of the community. Enjoy!
Loose lips
Slobber slime thread hanging
Goobery eyes stinky hide
Life minus dog equals sucks
---Pat Schmatz
There is food in your hand.
I want it.
Now.
...Please?
---booksareadrug
So. . .
. . .about that deposit over there?
It wasn't that I didn't care.
I tried!
(At least you didn't slide!)
---Kim at
http://hiraeth.squarespace.com/journal/2
Big eyes
Wet nose
Soft warm body
Love on four paws
Creeps into my heart.
---Dorothy at http://fieldstonecottage.blogspot.com/
Yes, I nicked it,
don't look irate;
but you knew that
I am a Pirate.
---Kim from Hiraeth
Pleading gaze
Achilles heel
Dad will melt
But Mama's steel.
---Robin Pensieve
http://pensieve.typepad.com/pensieve/
No
I said no
it's not dinner time
not snack time, either
but
if your shiny little nose
gets any closer
you might get
a
kiss.
---Kathy Q./wordsrmylife
On and On and On
In perpetual motion,
the tail just won't stop
for anything.
---sister AE
http://havingwrit.blogspot.com
Dog
Expectsdemandsnagspleadswhinesneeds
But look at those eyes
---John Mutford
Those big, brown eyes,
Just cry out to me,
Puppy love they seem to say.
- Mood:
cheerful
Here's my entry:
Luxury
sleek pillows
anchor hotel bed
like white yachts
sheltered
in sleep’s
smooth harbor
---Laura Purdie Salas
Click here to see Robin's chosen photo and to read the rules! There's still time to play!
- Mood: cheerful
As I mentioned in my meme yesterday, we got a dog! Our family life is overwhelmingly busy at times, and though we wanted a new pet, we definitely didn't want a puppy. Introducing Jack (full name: Captain Jack Sparrow). He's an adult beagle we got at the humane society. Click on the pic for a funny, different view.
Now, forget that Jack is a sweetheart and let your mind wander. What does this image bring to mind for you? A favorite pet from childhood? The dog that bit you after his owner said, "Oh sure, he's friendly"? The horrible decision of putting an ill pet to sleep? A dog you saw on the best vacation of your life?
See what connections your mind makes, and then write a 15 Words or Less poem. It doesn't have to describe or explain the image (though it can). Remember, these are just exercises or skeletons of poems. Yours might turn out wonderfully; it might not. Either way, it's OK. Share your poem in a comment and be part of the community. If you've never played before, click on the 15 Words or Less button in the sidebar to see the guidelines. Enjoy!
- Mood:
crazy
1. The rules of the game get posted at the beginning.
2. Each player answers the questions about themselves.
3. At the end of the post, the player then tags 5-6 people and posts their names, then goes to their blogs and leaves them a comment, letting them know they’ve been tagged and asking them to read the player’s blog.
4. Let the person who tagged you know when you’ve posted your answer.
What were you doing ten years ago?
Yikes. Let’s see. 1998.
I was working part-time at the Minneapolis Star Tribune in the online department, learning more about the internet and html code and live links, etc.
I was enjoying my older daughter being in school all day and spending time with my younger daughter alone—finally (the younger kid always gets short shrift on alone time with mom or dad).
I was writing for kids: mostly writing short stories I thought were picture books and sending them out.
What are five things on your to-do list for today (not in any particular order):
reply to my editor about jacket copy for STAMPEDE
answer some great questions in my Getting to a Poem class
practice my presentation for an upcoming Young Author Conference
call and make a vet appointment for our new dog (more on him in a post of his own)
go to my daughter’s track meet this afternoon
What are some snacks you enjoy?
As you might guess from the desserts I posted in my Scotland pix, a shorter list would be which snacks do I not enjoy! But here are five I have regularly.
cheese and crackers
fruit smoothies
Miss Meringues with Cool Whip Lite
banana with peanut butter
apple with cheddar cheese
What would you do if you were a billionaire?
create a foundation related to literacy and get help working out a business plan that allowed me to travel around the world getting involved in children’s literacy in many countries
take care of family members
have a massage and a foot massage every day
move somewhere new and have a writing studio out back
get a maid
hire people to do the stuff I don’t like doing—errand-running, yardwork, etc.—so I could spend all my time on the stuff I love to do
What are three of your bad habits?
impatience (a hard trait for a writer to have)
judgmentalness (I’ve been working to get rid of this one)
eating too much junk food
What are five places where you have lived?
What are five jobs you have had?
online editor at Star Tribune
8th-grade English teacher
nursery manager at a Frank’s store (even with my black thumb)
waitress
program assistant for young adults with disabilities
What six people do you want to tag?
Dori Butler at A Day in the Life of a Children’s Writer - http://dorihbutler.livejournal.com/
Cloudscome at A Wrung Sponge - http://awrungsponge.blogspot.com/
Jeannine Atkins - http://jeannineatkins.livejournal.com/
Wendie Old at Wendie’s Wanderings - http://wendieold.blogspot.com/
Kelly Fineman at Writing and Ruminating - http://kellyrfineman.livejournal.com/
Robin Pensieve - http://pensieve.typepad.com/pensieve/
- Mood:
restless
As we drove from Fort William (where we canyoned) to Inverness, we had great views Loch Lochy... |
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and the Well of the Seven Heads. Click here for explanation. |
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We stopped at post offices frequently to buy stamps and mail postcards to family. Lots of them were little counters inside convenience stores. |
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Here's Urquhart (IRK-urt) Castle, on the shores of Loch Ness. |
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It was so cool to be able to walk around inside castle ruins. |
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Here I am on Loch Ness, on a cruise on the Nessie Hunter. Hey, what's that black spot in the water? |
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I know this is ecologically-unfriendly, but I had to bring home a couple of rocks from Loch Ness. |
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Millionaire shortbread - shortbread, caramel, chocolate. Need I say more? |
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Scotland's Secret Bunker. Disguised as a country farmhouse for decades... |
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well, if you don't count the tanks and barbed wire (which I assume are new additions). |
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The farmhouse was really an entry to a below-ground tunnel. During the cold war, it was a lookout point for missiles coming into Scotland. |
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After the cold war ended, it morphed into a bunker for Scotland's government in case of nuclear war. In 1995, I think, it was decommissioned and opened to the public. |
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After a fantastic Italian meal in this little town, I had affogato di amaretto. Yum. |
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On to Edinburgh, where we loved St. Giles Cathedral. That's where Montrose is buried, the pix and poem I posted for Poetry Friday from Scotland. |
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A piper outside the cathedral. |
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Gorgeous stained glass all over. |
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At Edinburgh Castle, they fire this big gun at 1 p.m. every day--a longstanding tradition interrupted only by the two world wars. The guy comes out, checks his timepiece, loads a charge and... |
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boom! It's loud! This is a modern weapon that can (and has) fire 2-pound balls. All the rest of the cannons/guns at the castle are authentic/old. |
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After a day at the castle, we relax on a bench in the Princes Street Gardens. |
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Here's the view of the castle from below. |
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We went on The Dungeons tour. Funny and creepy! |
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Diet Irn-Bru. My new favorite soda. Like cream soda with some orange...but not like orange soda. I need to find a U.S. supplier for this. |
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We went on the Literary Pub Tour, which was fantastic. Walk through streets, watch our two guides argue and perform, stop at pub. Repeat. |
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Here I am in a Waterstone's bookstore. I could've spent the day checking out the British selection. |
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Randy in the Sir Walter Scott Monument. |
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We went to The Writers Museum, where the Robert Louis Stevenson stuff was especially fascinating. |
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Before catching the train to Glasgow, we ate at a Burger Kind in the station, which had Royales, Angry Onions, and... |
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this Sausage Butty. Uh, no thanks. |
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The Glasgow Cathedral was nifty. I love the gothic architecture and the... |
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interesting ceiling decoration. |
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Here I am on the Bridge of Sighs (representing crossing over River Styx) on our way into... |
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the Necropolis. Around 5,000 monuments in this giant graveyard, where more than 100,000 are actually buried. |
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OK, I'm realizing that I didn't show a single picture from Culloden, the battlefield of Bonnie Prince Charlie's defeat. It was very cool...we ended up staying almost 5 hours there! And of no pix from the Matchbox 20 concert, which I blogged about here. I just assumed no cameras were allowed, so we didn't bring ours. But everyone else had theirs out and were snapping away! Oh well. You get the idea (perhaps more than you wanted) of our Scotland trip! We had a fantastic time, though it was good to get back home, too.
- Mood:busy
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| Amsterdam was full of small alleys, |
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| and bicycles. Everywhere! |
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| On our four or five hours in the city, we took a canal cruise and mostly walked around. After Amsterdam, we flew another 90 minutes or so to Glasgow, where we found our hotel, ate incredble Mongolian Barbecue for dinner, and then went back and collapsed after about 36 hours with no sleep. |
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| The next morning, we walked along a pedestrian shopping area... |
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| and had fish and chips at a lunch counter. The nice guy on the left had been to Vegas recently, and he and his wife are going to NYC for Christmas this year. His wife wants to stay in "the hotel from Pretty Woman." |
OK, the captions now change to ABOVE the images. Sorry. I'm just getting this feature figured out!
Back on the mainland, we drove to Fort William for some canyoning. This is where you climb, slide, and jump down waterfalls. Here's Randy getting pushed by the guide on a sliding section. This was fun but rocky! I ended up with huge bruises on my hip, knee, elbow, and palm. |
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Here's someone in our group on the medium jump. The big jump we did later was about a 30-foot jump, depending on the water level that day. It was amazing! The compression of your wetsuit around your chest when you jump from that height, and then the shock of the icy water after a few seconds in air--a complete rush. |
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Here I am at the top of a small jump. The slippery rocks we had to scramble on were much more challenging and scary to me (with my bad knee) than the sliding or jumping. Canyoning was incredible. Probably my favorite single activity of the whole vacation. |
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Battered and exhausted, we headed to our B&B in Fort William. This was the beautiful view from our window. It looked like we could stretch out a hand and grab those clouds on the mountain. |
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And that was Monday, a week after we flew in. So that concludes Week 1 of our trip! I'll share pix from the second week tomorrow.
P.S. I was working on this post on Sunday, Mother's Day, early in the morning while mysterious preparations were going on upstairs. What a fantastic surprise it was to find that Randy had tracked down a recipe and prepared Sticky Toffee Pudding for me (not a quick and easy recipe) and had ordered me a GPS unit while we were still in Scotland, so that it would arrive in time for Mother's Day. Lovely!
- Mood: happy
I'm extremely excited to be able to share, finally, that I just signed and returned a contract to Clarion for a second picture book poetry collection! This collection of poems about books has kind of an interesting genesis, as I wrote 13 of the poems to submit for an anthology. Not one of them got accepted, and I was so disappointed. In fact, I blogged about it on Wordy Girls just over a year ago. And now Clarion has bought that collection. I'm passionate about books and had so much fun writing the poems, and I'm beside myself with joy that they're going to be published.
And my editor wanted a few more poems to round out the collection, so I wrote a dozen more (once I start on this topic, I just can't stop) and sent them off to her. No response yet on whether she likes any of those, but I'm sure we'll get there...um, pretty sure, anyway.
My first collection with Clarion, Stampede: Poems to Celebrate the Wild Side of School, is due out in 2009. It's aimed at 1st-2nd graders. This new collection (pub date: who knows?) will be for older kids, perhaps 4th-7th grade or so. I'm amazed that Clarion has enough faith in me to purchase a second collection before seeing how the first one does...especially such different collections.
Anyway, you all are always here for me to share my hopes, plans, and disappointments with. Thanks for being here to share in the good news too. I feel blessed to be part of this community.
The Poetry Friday roundup this week is at writer2b. Check it out!
- Mood: ecstatic
Here's a boat we saw while we were trying to spot seals along the coast of the Isle of Mull on our recent Scotland trip. Ancient, battered, abandoned on the shore. What does it make you think of? A shipwreck adventure? Vacation to Hawaii? Childhood canoe trips?
See what connections your mind makes with this image, and then write a 15 Words or Less poem inspired by the photo. It doesn't have to describe or explain the image (though it can). Remember, these are just sketches or skeletons of poems. Yours might turn out great; it might not. But share your poem in a comment and be part of the effort. Here are yesterday's poems. I love the vacillation of hope and despair I get as I read through these as a whole.
Oh, before the poems...thank you to everyone for your kind words for Maddie. I didn't show her yet because I didn't want to make her cry before her orchestra concert last night. But I told her about them and will show them to her tonight. She and I both appreciate it.
OK, now here are the poems.
Picnicking with the Past
We dream;
our blanket spread
on the wake of sea dreams;
gritty sand in our mouths.
---Kim
http://hiraeth.squarespace.com/journal/2
Wrecked
Worn and weary, once adrift
Solidly grounded
Now resting in Peace
---Robin at PENSIEVE
The old boat leans,
And I lean too,
Watching the others go by,
I'm broke.
---booksareadrug
Beached
Leaning on air
and hope
Without my sea
I sigh
with the breeze.
---Jan Fields
DREAMS UNDOCKED
Beached, broken
hope
lost then
found
one
believer
one
chance
one
dreamer
sails again.
---Susan Taylor Brown
Mudman's boat
Trenched up from the depths
Mud slime fingers slide across my neck...
---Pat Schmatz
washed ashore
its hull now home
to periwinkles
---Diane Mayr
for Maddie
the silence
screams louder than
her squeal ever did
...missing her
---Diane Mayr
Cast off,
Abandoned,
Alone in the world.
No!
Immanuel
God is with me.
---Dorothy at http://www.fieldstonecottage.blogspot.co
Look what I found!
A treasure hunt
through living dreams,
found art, broken seams,
a world of possibilities.
---Diane M. Davis
Shipwreck
Ark builder forgot
he doesn't know how to steer
his own creations.
---noahthegreat.wordpress.com
Dreams
Washed ashore,
Broken-
Crooked-
Peeled-
Rebuilt,
Step
by
step.
---Marianne Nielsen
- Mood:
calm
It was very cool to have you all participating in 15 Words or Less poetry even while I was in Scotland! Thanks for stopping by and sharing your words, even though I wasn't home!
Here's a boat we saw while we were trying to spot seals along the coast of the Isle of Mull. Ancient, battered, abandoned on the shore. What does it make you think of? A shipwreck adventure? Vacation to Hawaii? Childhood canoe trips?
See what connections your mind makes with this image, and then write a 15 Words or Less poem inspired by the photo. It doesn't have to describe or explain the image (though it can). Remember, these are just sketches or skeletons of poems. Yours might turn out great; it might not. But share your poem in a comment and be part of the effort. If you've never played before, click on the 15 Words or Less button in the sidebar to see the guidelines. Have fun!
- Location:(Muffin was Maddie's guinea pig)
- Mood:
(Muffin died last night)
I'll be posting about our trip in general, but today I'm actually going to jump in with a writer-related post.
Our last night in Scotland, we went to a Matchbox Twenty concert in Glasgow (opening act Headway). Here's a cut of 3 a.m. someone posted on YouTube, if you're interested.
The concert was great! We had hoped to see one of the Scottish bands we like while we were over there, but they were all touring out of the country. So we saw an American band instead. But after two weeks of hearing American rock and pop bands every time we went into a pub, restaurant, or taxi, it didn't seem that odd at all.
Anyway, the funniest part of the concert was that the organ broke early on. After a couple of minutes of the crew messing with stuff not being able to fix it, frontman Rob Thomas
improvised a song with the rest of the band jamming along. "I'm just sitting here in Glasgow...with technical difficulties..." Then he said, "You know, when you're talking about this concert later to friends...let's just not mention this part, ok?" He took a situation where the crowd could've gotten impatient and frustrated and turned it into a problem we shared, just one of life's curve balls. And he made it funny and exasperating and had everyone rooting for them.
So what does this have to do with life as a children's writer? I thought this was a good lesson for writers doing school visits. One of my big fears is technical difficulties. In fact, on my two-day visit recently, the remote for the PowerPoint didn't work. I like planning everything out, but as our presentations get more and more high tech, we're of course more dependent on the technology. But here are the school visit tips I took away from a technology-challenged concert that still managed to be hugely successful.
When your equipment fails:
laugh about it
make the kids complicit somehow (This'll be our secret, right? Don't tell the third graders or they'll stage a riot in the halls!)
ask the kids for help ("Anybody happen to have an overhead projector on them?")
mention the school name a lot--remind the kids that you're here, in person, in their own school, and that's a cool thing whether the document camera screws up or not
remember that the kids are there to see you, and while they might not be as big of fans of you as they are of Miley Cyrus, they still want you to succeed. They want to be entertained--and that can happen whether your equipment breaks or not
improvise. Have a backup of some kind. Does holding up pictures work as well as your PowerPoint? No. But joke about it and do the best you can. If someone was trying to fix the problem for me, I would meanwhile perhaps make up a bad poem on the spot about never trusting technology. Maybe I'd ask the kids to help me write the poem. If the technology is a lost cause, move on to Plan B. Don't waste 20 minutes of a 45-minute presentation trying to fix something.
laught about it. I know, that's a repeat, but it's important. If you're totally stressed out about it, the kids will pick that up and think your presentation is a failure. Instead, you want the buzz to be like the Matchbox Twenty buzz, where fans online were talking about the technical difficulties but were amazed and entertained by how well you handled it.
Anybody have any tragic/funny school visit technology stories to share?
- Mood: impressed
We also got to see the burial spot of James Graham, the first Marquis of Montrose.
We had read about him while learning some of Scotland's bloody history. On the wrong side of various political and religious lines, Graham was executed in 1661. He was hung, then quartered, and his four limbs were sent to the four corners of Scotland as a warning to others. His head was put on a spike in Edinburgh. The night before his execution, he wrote this:
Let them bestow on ev'ry airth a limb;
Open all my veins, that I may swim
To Thee, my Saviour, in that crimson lake;
Then place my parboil'd head upon a stake,
Scatter my ashes, throw them in the air:
Lord (since Thou know'st where all these atoms are)
I'm hopeful once Thou'lt recollect my dust,
And confident thou'lt raise me with the just.
I love the faith and defiance in these lines. 'Crimson lake' and 'recollect my dust.' Love those.
Poems about death are certainly many, but their power when the poet actually knows he or she is about to die is incredible. (Let Evening Come, by Jane Kenyon, is a favorite of mine.)
The Poetry Friday roundup is at Big A little a.
We arrived in Edinburgh today! Beautiful city. We're right on High Street, and we did a tour of Mary King's Close, which was a tour led by a costumed guide about life in Edinburgh's closes (narrow streets) back in the 1400s-1700s, before they were bricked over and are now covered by government buildings. Lots of nifty info on the tour, which was basically through underground tunnels.
And we just finished a tour of Edinburgh's Dungeons--half comedy, half horror, half theater, half facts. Hmm...I guess that makes it doubly exciting, since it has four halves. Anyway, it was fun as well. Though I'm a little toured out.
Tomorrow, we go to Edinburgh Castle, where we'll spend a good part of the day, I think.
Oops, I don't think that tiny pic does the castle justice!
And then tomorrow night is a literary pub tour, which should be fun. I've been reading Scottish poetry while Randy's been driving. Found a few new favorites to share on some upcoming Poetry Fridays. Maybe even one for tomorrow if I can get online in the morning.
Anyway, we've just got a few days to go, and I'm starting to think about the work piling up at home (even though I'm trying not to).
Happy May!
I'm saying hi from Scotland's Secret Bunker today--it's an underground bunker that for decades was disguised as a farmhouse. It was first a place for Scotland to monitor by sonar possible incoming nuclear missiles. Then it became a bunker for high-placed officials in case of nuclear war. But it was all secret and supposedly even the surrounding farmers didn't know what it was. It was opened to the public in the 90s and is off the beaten track south of Dundee. And they have free internet. Cool!
OK, I'm off to explore the bunker some more. I'm thinking this would be a really neat setting for a mystery/thriller. Maybe someone could get accidentally locked in.
I've been eating lots of Scottish food, but last night was Domino's Pizza! It's amazing how much stuff in the cities (we're in Inverness right now) is just like home.
Today we're going to Culloden, so it'll be a bit of Scottish military history. Looks like a gorgeous day out, so I'm glad we'll be outside to take advantage of it.
Thanks for all the nice comments. Can't wait to share pix when we get back.
Hi everybody! I'm blogging from the Posh Nosh cafe in Tobermory on the Isle of Mull. It's a wet, rainy day, but we've mostly been in the car (driving on terribly narrow one-lane roads!), so I'm not too drenched. We're staying at Glengorm Castle and having a wonderful time. We'll head back to the mainland in a couple of days.
I'm not doing any real writing, but I'm filling my head (and notebook) with details about Scotland for future use.
I hope you're all having an absolutely terrific last half of April!
- Mood: chipper
Is it Thursday, May 1? Then you're in the right place.
Yep, I'm still in Scotland! But you can completely do this without me.
Isn't that an...interesting image, courtesy of National Geographic? What's going on? What thoughts run through your mind when you see it? A favorite doll? A psychopath? A costume party? Play with ideas in your head for a moment, and then write a 15 Words or Less poem inspired by the image. It doesn't have to describe or explain the image (though it can). Remember, these are just impulsive thoughts on paper, the very beginnings of poems. It might turn out great; it might not. But share your poem in a comment and be part of the effort. And if you've never played before, click on the 15 Words or Less button in the sidebar to see the guidelines. Have fun!
Is it Thursday, April 24? Then read on!
OK, I'm out of the country--in Scotland, swimming with Loch Ness, excavating ancient castles, and eating shortbread (guess which one is true!). But I know a lot of you stop by on Thursdays to do 15 Words or Less poems, and I decided to leave you images for the two weeks I'm gone. I will only have possible computer access in internet cafes sporadically over the trip, so it's unlikely I'll be able to post the poems on Fridays. But I hope you'll still participate and leave your poems in comments, just for the fun of it!
Isn't that a cool image, courtesy of National Geographic? What do you think it is? What does it remind you of? Play with ideas in your head for just a minute or two, and then write a 15 Words or Less poem inspired by the image. It doesn't have to describe or explain the image (though it can). It's just for fun--no grades, no pressure!
Share your poem in a comment, and if you've never played before, click on the 15 Words or Less button in the sidebar to see the guidelines. Have fun!
I got a nice email from an editor at Compass Point Books a couple of weeks ago:
Hi Laura: Here’s a great way to start the week:
Write Your Own Selected as 2008 AEP Distinguished Achievement Award Finalist
Association of Educational Publishers has selected Write Your Own (Reading and Language Instruction category) as finalist in the Nonfiction 6-8 category. The Distinguished Achievement Award recognizes the best educational materials – such as books, periodicals, educational toys, and software within subject categories and by audience.
Awards will be announced June 6 in D.C.
I wrote Write Your Own Poetry for this series:
The series is aimed at 5th-8th grade kids, and it's really fun. I got tips from many wonderful poets for my book, including tips and poems by Lee Bennett Hopkins, Rebecca Kai Dotlich, Tracie Vaughn Zimmer, Lisa Westberg Peters, Susan Marie Swanson, and Joyce Sidman.
And not only that, I got to include a few of my own poems and solicit poems from fellow writers, and Kelly Fineman of Writing and Ruminating and Jan Fields both have poems in the book. Cool!
Natalie Rosinsky, a local writer here in Minnesota, wrote 7 of the 8 new titles in the series, while the poetry one is the only one I wrote. So she clearly deserves the lion's share of the glory. But still, it's fun to be a small part of a larger effort that's been so well received. Congratulations, Natalie, me, and Compass Point Books!
- Mood: pleased
These were the rules: