Poetry Friday round-up is with Irene at Live Your Poem.
The time has come to let you all in on a very exciting adventure, my first poetry book for children, Bayou Song: Creative Explorations of the South Louisiana Landscape.
This unique book that combines poetry, nonfiction text, photographs, and illustrations with invitations to write and draw will be published by UL Press on June 18, 2018.
This week I wrote an anticipatory poem prompted by Amy VanDerwater’s exercise in writing striking words.
Publication Day
I’m flabbergasted
by anticipation,
dizzy with expectation,
nauseous
with nervousness.
I’m sidestepping
assumption,
antsy for predictions,
impatient
for beliefpower
to hurtle into
my psyche.
I’m dancing
with my destiny
with heebie-jeebies
and butterflies
splitting me into
a hive of many bees.The day of publication is near.
–Margaret Simon, (c) 2018
I am so pleased with my illustrator, Anna Cantrell. She was a delight to work with. She is young and enthusiastic. Follow her on Instagram at jarofpencils.
I’ve received a few awesome blurbs. Love this one from Ava Leavell Haymon, former Louisiana poet laureate. It’s probably too long for the back cover, but I want to savor every word regardless.
A love-song to the Bayou Teche, this inviting book creates its own universe. I suspect there are multiple paths for us to enter that universe, but I am drawn in immediately by Anna Cantrell’s luminous watercolor illustrations, a gift to us from her precise observation and quiet love for her subjects. And then Henry Cancienne’s photographs add another layer of beauty and understanding. Then I come to brief paragraphs of information, enough to arouse curiosity but press me with too many facts. Then — what a treasure box this little book is! — Margaret Simon’s poems, each one born of minute observation and winsome appreciation of this Bayou universe. And nestled into all of this are Simon’s suggestions for writing a poem of our own in the manner of the one we’ve just read, and a little space right there to do so. Experienced teacher, she suggests with a light touch and offers inviting tricks to make our writing easy.
This is a generous, generative book that gives and gives and does not make demands. My fingers were itching to hold a pencil, a canoe paddle, a watercolor set, a camera. I leave its universe a little sad to go, but refreshed in my love of the Louisiana bayous and with my own creativity restored. Ava Leavell Haymon
If you would like to participate in a blog tour, please fill out the form below. Select a date that works for you (between June 18-August 18) In the comments, let me know your ideas for your post as well as your snail mail address. I will make a schedule and send you a pdf of the book.
Reflections on the Teche 