SOLC 2016 25/31 and Poetry Friday: Serendipity at the Bookstore!

Today I join my fellow bloggers in "serving up a slice" 

to the Slice of Life (SOL) community.

Thanks to Stacey, Tara, Betsy, Dana, Beth, and Anna

for hosting this meeting place each day in March

and for nurturing our writing lives.

Head over to my juicy little universe

with Heidi Mordhurst

for this week's poetic goodness.

Thanks for hosting, Heidi!

 I tried to talk myself out of it.  I really did!  But I was very close to a favorite bookstore.  So when my friend's very early doctor appointment ended, I wondered if the bookstore opened at 9 or 10. She suggested we drive over and see.  Yessss!  They opened at 9:00.  And even though I had no need for a book, I meandered around the remainder tables where I discovered a favorite poetry picture book for $3.98!   Mural on Second Avenue and Other City Poems by Lilian Moore is a book I've checked out from the library frequently.  I was elated to add it to my personal collection!

As I flip through the book, I notice many poems I love: 

• "Winter Dark" notices all the punctuation marks along the street as "Winter dark comes early mixing afternoon and night..."  
• "In the Park" speaks of playing "...till you're sun drunk sun dizzy-..."
• "The Tree on the Corner" notices a tree throughout the seasons of the year, but decides "...you really do not see a tree until you see its bones."
• "To a Red Kite" and "Forsythia Bush" are my favorite poems in the book.  They share a background of springtime blue sky and white puffy clouds as children play on green grass with of course a red kite who seeks to "...follow the wild geese in their flight," and a forsythia bush that " ...explodes into yellow and startles the street into spring."

If you'd like to learn more about Lilian Moore and her contributions to poetry and children's literature, stop by Renee LaTulippe's blog, No Water River, for her series, Spotlight on NCTE Poets.  Here are Renee's concluding remarks near the end of her post on Lilian Moore:

"Part of the joy of doing this NCTE series is seeing what treasures Lee (Lee Bennett Hopkins) will rustle up for each new post. He has thick files full of his correspondence with every children’s poet ever, including postcards, letters, emails, and photos, not to mention the thousands of books, books, books in his vast poetry library.

And so we leave you with one of these many treasures — a poem from Lilian to Lee from her place in the country."

GO WITH THE POEM

Go with the poem.

Hang glide

above new landscape

into other weather.

Sail the poem.

Lift

Drift over treetops

and towers.

Loop with the poem.

Swoop, dip.

Land.

Where?

Trust the poem.  

             - Lilian

(Shared here with permission from Lee Bennett Hopkins)