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Life on the Deckle Edge

Poetry Friday - Eletelephony and Poetry on the Road




Brrrrriiinggggg. Brrrrriiinggggg.

Hello? -- Oh! An elephant from my childhood is calling. Perhaps you knew him, too?

He's the hapless pachyderm who got all wrapped up in a phone call in Laura Elizabeth Richards's "Eletelephony." Raise your hand if you remember when telephones had actual cords....

This poetic companion is going to join me Saturday in Augusta, where I'll be doing a children's poetry presentation at the Georgia Literary Festival. (Fingers crossed - it's outside, and there's a 90 percent chance of rain!) I'm looking forward to driving over with my author buddy Kami Kinard and squeezing in a visit with an Augusta friend, too. We lived there for nine years while my hubby was in med school and residency; both our babies were born there.

I look forward to sharing lots of poetry with whoever shows up - especially some found poems from THE ARROW FINDS ITS MARK (Georgia Heard, ed., Roaring Brook) and several from THE POETRY FRIDAY ANTHOLOGY series (Sylvia Vardell and Janet Wong, eds., Pomelo Books).

But back to "Eletelephony" - did you know that Laura Elizabeth Richards (1850-1943), in addition to writing 90 books (!) and many children's poems, won the Pulitzer Prize in 1917 for co-authoring a biography of her mother, Julia Ward Howe, writer of the words to The Battle Hymn of the Republic? Her father, Dr. Samuel Gridley Howe, was an abolitionist and founded the Perkins Institution and Massachusetts School for the Blind. Laura E. Richards left a rich and varied body of literary works.

I didn't know any of that when, as a young child, I first read "Eletelephony." I just know that this poem tickled my fancy and helped open the door for a lifelong love of wordplay, as I'm sure it did for lots of folks throughout the decades. Enjoy!


Eletelephony

by Laura Elizabeth Richards

Once there was an elephant,
Who tried to use the telephant—
No! No! I mean an elephone
Who tried to use the telephone—
(Dear me! I am not certain quite
That even now I’ve got it right.)
Howe’er it was, he got his trunk
Entangled in the telephunk;
The more he tried to get it free,
The louder buzzed the telephee—
(I fear I’d better drop the song
Of elephop and telephong!)


For more fancy-tickling poetry today, please visit the lovely Katya at Write. Sketch. Repeat. for this week's Roundup. [And apologies for being a bit out of the loop lately; last week it was my privilege to share poetry and all kinds of writing with about 2,000 students in and around Cobb County as part of Cobb EMC's Literacy Week. I look forward to getting back home Saturday night and staying put for a while, at least until the holidays!] Read More 
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Happy New Haiku Year

I hope 2012 is off to a great start for you. I’m looking forward to a year of reading, writing, art and spending time with all kinds of readers, writers, and artists.

I’ll continue my haiku journey. What a thrill to learn my proposal for the 43rd Annual Children’s Literature Conference in Georgia this spring was accepted: a workshop titled, “Haiku How-to.” I look forward to sharing ways to explore haiku in the classroom with teachers, media specialists, and other lovers of children’s literature.

Also, I’m happy to celebrate some recent acceptances – my haiku will appear in the next issues of Modern Haiku, The Heron’s Nest, and A Hundred Gourds.

In the current (December) issue of Notes from the Gean, I have a lighthearted poem on p. 42:

autumn breeze
escorted to the mailbox
by an acorn


~ Notes from the Gean, December 2011

and then this one, on the same page:

same blue
as ten years ago
empty sky


~ Notes from the Gean, December 2011

I wrote that haiku on a cloudless early September day, when the depth of my sadness upon the tenth anniversary of 9/11 caught me off guard.

(Be sure to check out Diane Mayr’s wonderful haiga in this same issue on p. 47.)

Poet, friend, and Berry Blue Haiku editor Gisele LeBlanc (click here and here for recent posts featuring Gisele) has had haiku in several issues of Notes from the Gean, including these two:

in an urban sky
birds shift in unison-
drifting ice


~ Notes from the Gean, September 2010

Virgin Islands-
laughing gulls mingle
on the beach


~ Notes from the Gean, June 2011

Notes from the Gean features haiku, tanka, haiga, haibun, linked forms, and resources (interviews, essays, reviews). Published quarterly, it’s one of several great resources for enjoying and learning about haiku and related genres.

To enjoy more great poetry in a variety of forms, check out the Poetry Friday Roundup hosted today by Tara at A Teaching Life.
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Northeast Georgia Writers

L-R, me with Northeast Georgia Writers contest judges Janie Dempsey Watts (author), Janice Alonso (author), Robert S. King (author and president of the Georgia Poetry Society), Northeast Georgia Writers President Tom Nichols, and Writer and Volunteer Extraordinaire Elouise Whitten (contest coordinator).
It was my honor to be the Awards Banquet Speaker today for the Northeast Georgia Writers! What a vibrant and dedicated group of folks - not to mention talented. Many members won awards across a variety of genres.

I followed the event's theme of "Journey Through Words and Pictures," sharing my own adventures in fiction, nonfiction, poetry, and illustration for children. The banquet was a wonderful way to celebrate the power of writers supporting each other in what can be a lonesome endeavor.

Ever thankful for my regular writing buds, it was a treat to meet new friends in the fold. Special thanks to Lynda Holmes for the invitation, and congratulations to her and to the many other award winners!

Click here for the article in The Times(Gainesville, Ga.) about the awards banquet Read More 
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Here's to 2011!

Happy New Year!

I'm looking forward to a year of hard work, encouraged and noursihed by time with others who love children's books.

Between regular stretches of writing, and waiting on word from editors about a couple of projects, I look forward to meeting young readers and writers in schools as well as "older" readers and writers at professional gatherings.

I'm particularly looking forward to participaing on an Authors Panel at the Georgia Reading Association conference in Atlanta this month. I love meeting teachers and other reading enthusiasts, and it will be a treat to catch up with Georgia children's authors Donny Bailey Seagraves, Elizabeth Dulemba, and Margo Calendaria on the panel. Read More 
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Teacher Talk Radio interview link

In case you missed it and wanted to hear Teacher Jen's interview with me, here's the link:

http://www.blogtalkradio.com/teachertalkradio/2009/11/05/Teacher-Talk-Radio-Robyn-Hood-Black

I enjoyed being on her show and recommend her program site and her blog for some great tips for the classroom.
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Teacher Talk Radio!

I'm thrilled and honored to be participating this Wenesday night, Nov. 4, at 8 p.m. EST on Teacher Talk Radio with Jen Schneider! Jen, a kindergarten teacher who received the "Teacher of the Year" award in 2007, thrives on sharing terrific ideas through
http://teachertalkradio.blogspot.com Read More 
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Poetry, Pictures, Panel...

Busy week!

I finally uploaded a couple of pictures from last weekend's HIGHLIGHTS Founders Workshop, "Wordplay," led by Rebecca Kai Dotlich with special guests Susan Pearson and Alice Schertle. Check out my Poetry Page for these. I'm thrilled to have met all these wonderful women! (I know guys write poetry, too, but we had an all-female crowd.) Read More 
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Shepherds and Writing to Win

The Decatur Book Festival was nothing less than awesome this weekend. I had a great time presenting, and our SCBWI Southern Breeze booth was hopping all weekend!

Hundreds of people dedicated endless hours to make it a success, and I pondered another kind of dedication as parents brought their children by our booth.  Read More 
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Cedartown, Poem in Your Pocket Day

Elizabeth Dulemba was right: the Cedar Valley Arts Festival folks put on a lovely show! Weather was a bit warm, but so are the organizers. Well done, ladies, and all those countless volunteer hours are for one purpose: to enhance the cultural and arts experiences of the community's youngsters. Bravo!


Tomorrow I'm delighted to be off to South Hall Middle School to enjoy the day with sixth-graders. Media Specialist Laura Losch goes above and beyond the call of duty to make reading fun for the students.  Read More 

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Cedar Valley Arts Festival

I'm looking forward to presenting at the Cedar Valley Arts Festival in Cedartown, Ga. this Saturday, April 25, at 11:30 in the Children's area. The organizers are so enthusiastic about providing cultural and literary opportunities to their community's youngsters. My friend Elizabeth Dulemba - www.dulemba.com - dazzled them last year.
Can't wait! (Link at left)
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