Celebrating Jen Robinson with a donation to RIF!

Flickr Creative Commons Photo by Will Clayton

Even though our blog birthday was on January 1, we are celebrating it all year! On our 8th Birthday, we decided to celebrate 2014 by celebrating others who inspire us every day. Each month, on the 1st (or so) of the month, we will celebrate a fellow blogger whose work has inspired us. We feel so lucky to be part of the blog world that we want to celebrate all that everyone gives us each day.

Our year-long blog birthday celebration continues as we honor blogger and reading champion, Jen Robinson, of Jen Robinson's Book Page.

We have known Jen since we began blogging in 2006. Jen's blog was one of the first we read and one that became a kind of mentor blog for us.  In July of 2006, Franki noticed her "Cool Girls in Children's Literature" and "Cool Boys in Children's Literature" lists and decided to start a similar "100 Cool Teachers in Children's Literature" list. Jen and other bloggers in the newly named (as of June 5, 2006, with thanks to Melissa Wiley) Kidlitosphere linked to our blog and our list. We think it's fair to say that this blog is what it is today because of that launch by Jen.

Although not a librarian or teacher herself, Jen is one of the most active proponents of reading, not just in the Kidlitosphere, but the big wide Blogosphere. She reads avidly, review thoughtfully, all while raising her very own bookworm.  She is a resource for both parents and teachers and works tirelessly to support readers everywhere.

To honor Jen's passion for putting books in the hands of children we will be making a donation in her honor to Reading is Fundamental (RIF) this month.

Thank you Jen for for sharing generously and for all you do for readers and reading!

Our Wonderful World.30

Details of my Poetry Month Project can be found here.

30. People

Carol Wilcox at the Denver Botanic Gardens

Our Wonderful World

When
and
where
and
how
and
what
are absolute and true.

But none of it would matter much
without the likes of you.


©Mary Lee Hahn, 2014

WHEW! We made it! A month of wandering the world, wondering about wonders, and writing poetry. 

Awards for collaboration, commitment, camaraderie and creativity go to Carol Wilcox and Kevin Hodgson. We stayed together through thick and thin, through narrative and haiku, through rhyme and free verse. Thank you, thank you, thank you for coming on this journey with me! 

There are wonders to be found everywhere we look in our world. The ordinary variety can be found close to home. Scattered throughout the world are ancient, modern, engineering, and natural wonders amazing enough to make "The Lists." 

But none of the wonders experienced on their own are nearly as wonderful as they are when you can ooh and ahh with a fellow wonderer. It's this realization I tried to capture in my Hallmarkian poem today.

Thank you Carol and Kevin for writing with me EVERY single day (and also to Carol V., Catherine, Collette, Margaret, and Jone for joining in occasionally).

Kevin has a sound poem, "The Wonder of People," with which to end our month.

Carol has two poems today, one for the Poetry Club, and one for ME! Thanks, Carol!!

Happy National Poetry Month 2014!

Our Wonderful World.29

Details of my Poetry Month Project can be found here.

Wikimedia Commons by Worm That Turned

29. Imagination

Because the whole time
you are gluing paper to sticks,
it is neither paper nor sticks.

It is wings and sky,
soaring and flight.

©Mary Lee Hahn, 2014

Here's to the impulse behind every single one of the wonders this month -- to the human imagination -- the ability to see beyond!

Carol has a very opinionated chocolate poem from yesterday at Carol's Corner.

Kevin has a haiku Notegraphy for imagination at Kevin's Meandering Mind.

Carol's imagination poem is at Carol's Corner.

Catherine joins us with an imagination poem at Reading to the Core.

Our Wonderful World.28

Details of my Poetry Month Project can be found here.

28. Chocolate Cake

Abecedarian Cake Love

A
birthday
cake --
decadent,
elegant,
frosting
gobbed
high --
I
justify
knifing
loose
my
notch --
objectify
perfection,
qualify
restraint,
savor
tastes
until...
voicing
with
eXuberance:
YUMMY!
amaZing!

©Mary Lee Hahn, 2014

This is not the first time my cake-baking has found its way into my poetry. Here's my Birthday Cake poem from NaPoWriMo12. And if you've visited this blog with any regularity, you've seen my cake in many a monthly photo mosaic.  My cake even showed up in a post on structure vs. freedom.

In a couple of weeks, I'll be baking a carrot cake for my friend Lisa's birthday. Change is good, and it's loads of fun to spell out her name in little cream-cheese-frosting carrots! Stay tuned for pictures!

Today Kevin tells the story of the last chocolate in the tin at Kevin's Meandering Mind.

Jone joins in with both a sunrise poem and a chocolate poem at Deo Writer.

Our Wonderful World.27

Details of my Poetry Month Project can be found here.

27. Sunrise

It's a
daily wonder
most people sleep right through.
I've sung sun's praises since childhood.
Still do.

©Mary Lee Hahn, 2014

I'm a morning person. I love sunrise. We're good friends. I actually love the darkness right before sunrise almost as much as the sunrise itself. Anticipation, expectation...then...renewal.

And what I said about singing sun's praises? I meant that literally. I remember, at about 5 years old, running out into the middle of the back yard and belting out "Heavenly Sunshine" (a Bible School song) first thing on summer mornings. I remember standing at the kitchen sink with mom, singing "You Are My Sunshine." I remember, as a high schooler, playing my guitar and leading the Easter Sunrise Service congregation in "Morning Has Broken."

I grew up in a place where the most distinctive feature of the landscape is the horizon. Drive five minutes out of town in any direction and you can see all 360° of it. The upshot of this is that I grew up watching the sky, the sun, the clouds. Some people feel an emotional pull to mountains, some to ocean. But I feel most myself when I'm in that spacious open land with nothing around me and the bright blue bowl of the sky above me.

We're winding down the Our Wonderful World project and Poetry Month 2014. I'm glad I saved some personal wonders for these last four days. The big wide amazing world is one thing, but our small particular dear-to-us worlds are even more precious. Because they are ours.

Kevin has a sunrise/sunset mirror poem for today.

Carol's sunrise poem is at Carol's Corner.

Our Wonderful World.26

Details of my Poetry Month Project can be found here.

26. The Polar Ice Caps

The Birdhouse in the Sycamore Tree

The summer between 5th and 6th grade,
I fell out of the sycamore tree
that stood in the alley
outside the back garden fence.

There was a birdhouse in the sycamore.
I wanted to get it down.
I had climbed up to check it out
and the rope that tied it was weathered into a
rock solid knot.

I got the silver bottle opener –
the one with the shiny sharp triangle
for poking and prying –
out of the kitchen gadget drawer.

I climbed the fence and then into the sycamore
with the bottle opener
clenched between my teeth.

I remember the surprise I felt
when the branch broke,
but I don’t remember falling
or hitting the fence on the way down.
I came to with the bottle opener
still between my
(unbroken)
teeth.

My right arm was a different matter.

I began 6th grade,
already awkward and buck-toothed
with a full cast on my right arm.
I’m right handed.

And on the first day of school,
Mrs. Bonner,
cold as the polar ice caps,
made me pass out the Scholastic book orders.

I struggled with those tissue-paper fliers,
stared at and and snickered at
but stubbornly refusing to ask for help.

I can’t remember if I ever got the bird house
out of the tree,
but I’ll never forget how Mrs. Bonner
treated me.

©Mary Lee Hahn, 2014

I couldn't bear to write about human destruction of the polar ice caps.  Kevin came through. He wrote a passionate ode to the ice caps that includes a fierce warning to humankind. Powerful.

Carol's polar ice cap poem is just as powerful as Kevin's, but in a "take you by the shoulders and shake you" kind of way.

Carol has an abecedarian for Victoria Falls over at Carol's Corner.

Our Wonderful World.25

Details of my Poetry Month Project can be found here.

25. Victoria Falls

THE SMOKE THAT THUNDERS

Wide river, sauntering fluidly,

serene, unaware of the fault ahead,

                                        stumbles,

                                               falls,

                                            churns

                                           angrily,

                                     thundering

                                   through

                                     narrow

                                 canyons.

©Mary Lee Hahn, 2014


This week, I traveled with my intrepid fellow travelers Carol and Kevin (and a few other intermittent wanderers) to

Chichen Itza (I wrote a "What to do if you are a..." poem),
The Grand Canyon (my poem is a tribute to Franki for her birthday),
The Great Barrier Reef (I wrote an angry acrostic),
Mt. Everest (mine is about the recent avalanche),
The Aurora (I attempted a pantoum), and
The Amazon Rain Forest (I got fascinated by leaf cutter ants).

Tabatha has the Poetry Friday roundup today at The Opposite of Indifference.

Be sure to stop by Carol's Corner and check out her Rainforest Rainbow poem from yesterday.

You'll feel like you're riding over Victoria Falls with Kevin's poem today at Kevin's Meandering Mind!

Our Wonderful World.24

Details of my Poetry Month Project can be found here.

24. The Amazon Rain Forest

Leaf Cutter Ants

SYMBIOSIS

Ant agriculturalists

harvest leaf bits,

feeding them to fungus,

growing their food source.

But there's more.

The fungus needs the ants.

Mold threatens the fungus,

so worker ants wear 

a coat of bacteria --

living antibiotics that protect their food.

But there's more.

The rainforest needs the ants

who prune vegetation

which stimulates growth;

who break down leaves

which renews the soil.

But there's more.

The earth needs the rainforest.

The green, 

living,

breathing

jewel of biodiversity

which holds keys to the balance

of life on earth.

Keys that may be lost 

before we even know how much we need them.

©Mary Lee Hahn, 2014

Some aurora poems from yesterday:

Carol's at Carol's Corner

Catherine's at Reading to the Core

Margaret's (Reflections on the Teche) can be found in yesterday's comments.



Kevin's Amazon poem is here.

Our Wonderful World.23

Details of my Poetry Month Project can be found here.

23. The Aurora

AURORA

Luminous curtains veil a backdrop of stars.

Swirling green serpents of light,

wingbeats of unseen mythical beings,

dancing spirits take the stage.

Swirling green serpents of light

demystified and explained by science, but

dancing spirits take the stage

in my imagination.

Demystified and explained by science, but

evidence of mystery and magic

in my imagination.

Luminous curtains veil a backdrop of stars.

©Mary Lee Hahn, 2014

I wanted to try a pantoum today. It seemed the perfect twisting swirling form for The Aurora Borealis. I'm not sure this quite captured the feeling I wanted, but there are only so many hours in a day and that stack of papers I've been carrying around for...um...too long...needs to be graded!

My students are writing with me again this week. Hopefully by week's end I'll have some of their poems to share.

Carol gives the mountain a voice in her Mt. Everest poem.

Kevin "surfs the solar wind" in his Aurora poem.

Our Wonderful World.22

Details of my Poetry Month Project can be found here.

22. Mt. Everest


AVALANCHE

Snow slide,
snow slip,
rapid flow
of snow
down a slope.

Neither rare,
nor random,
a natural hazard
of destructive
capability.

Coldly
impersonal,
unplanned
and
sudden.

Snow slide,
snow slip,
rapid flow
of snow
down a slope.

©Mary Lee Hahn, 2014

Carol's Great Barrier reef poems are here.

Kevin's Mt. Everest poem is here.