Celebrate This Week & NPM 2018: Celebrating Poetry!

Join us each weekend for Celebrate This Week with Ruth Ayres.

When we pause to celebrate, we find the joy.

 

   A week filled with moments to celebrate and remember.

Each week I join Ruth Ayres and a few friends

to celebrate the week and to focus on the
positive things that happened in the past week.

When I wrote my Poetry Friday post in honor of Lee Bennet Hopkins birthday,  I included these words:  "I had to purchase an older book that my library doesn't own because I was so enticed by its delightful title. Watch for the cover reveal later in the month when it arrives on my doorstep. And I had to request Poetry on Wheels from our library's Central Storage for my wheel-obsessed grandson." 

And today I'm celebrating the arrival of both books. The first one arrived in a brown paper envelope in the mail and here's the cover reveal.

I was totally enticed by this title and it did not disappoint. Each poem title represents a letter of the alphabet. You'll recognize many who contributed to this anthology published in 1994. This book makes me want to compile an alphabetical anthology of my favorite poems!

And here's Jack and his mom enjoying the second book, Poetry on Wheels. I'm so glad this book is still in our library system's Central Storage. This boy loves wheels and cars and trucks! 

This year's Poem in Your Pocket Day celebration at IMS, the middle school where I used to teach, had its youngest participant ever. Grandson Jack accompanied me to the event. He was a hit, prompting some to say that schools could benefit from baby therapy (somewhat like dog therapy). Here are two pics of him at the event - showcasing Sky Magic, one of Grandma's many favorite poetry books and listening to a poem shared by a student.

I'm headed to Bellingham this afternoon to hear Naomi Shihab Nye's 2018 May Hill Arbuthnot Honor Lecture. And the title of the lecture? "REFRESHMENTS WILL BE SERVED - Our Lives of Reading & Writing." I'm so excited!

National Poetry Month 2018
"Give praise with friends near and far,
flinging words to the sky!"
- Amy Ludwig VanDerwater