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A Few Kids Poems: Introducing Artist Kayla Stewart, 5

Did you guys know I write childrens’ poems? I love it. In fact, my first published book was a children’s e-book, Bubble Mud and Other Poems (available as a PDF file for anyone interested). The publisher no longer exists, and the rights to those poems have reverted to me. I’ve included some of the best of these poems in my children’s poetry manuscript, The Party In Your Lunchbox, and am in search of a publisher for this anthology of poems for preschoolers to 10 year olds.

In the mean time, I’d really like to share some of the poems from “The Party In Your Lunchbox” with you readers, and with my daughter, who asked me about the book the other day.

“Can I draw pictures for your book? I could do it! Let me do it!”

We spent this Saturday reading my poems out loud, with her brainstorming about how she could interpret them with her own illustrations. I thought she might create one drawing. She whipped off five.

I love it when stuff like that happens. Please visit A Children’s Poetry Place to see the first of the results, and leave a comment there if you do.

I may just have to hire my own kid to illustrate my book of kids poems… 😉

A Few Cat Poems by Heather Grace Stewart & Introducing Artist Kayla Stewart, 5.

'Cat Wants In From the Rain' copyright Kayla Stewart 2011, don't steal my kids picture or I'll beat you up.
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Making Poetry Cool for School

I fell in love with a lot of poems when I was given the chance to look at them critically with my own eyes, perhaps even to disagree with the teacher or critics’ opinions, and to debate that point in class with my peers.

Oxford University Press has a new textbook for grade 10 English students, ‘Interface,’ by Oxford Next, which allows students the chance to do just that—on topics as diverse as Careers, Consumerism, Film and War. I’m thrilled that one of my poems, ‘Social Networking’ is featured in the Social Networking section of this modern, intelligent, and engaging textbook.

I got my copy of the texbook on Friday, and–I can’t really say it any other way–I completely flipped out when I saw that my poem is featured alongside poems by Michael Ondaatje and Margaret Atwood, an excerpt from an Amy Tan book, a Hamlet speech by Shakespeare, and part of Barack Obama’s inauguration speech.

I’ve looked over this textbook and am so impressed with how it engages the reader with its modern, web-page-like design; how it asks open-ended questions in the margins, and offers a choice of 3-5 creative projects to help students explore themes further. To have my work featured in a textbook of this quality just blows me away. I hope my poems will ignite young readers’ minds, and stir their souls, or at least give them a chuckle, for many more years.

Interface will soon have an “online interface,” so students can listen to poets read their works, use a personal e-notebook and self assessments, and much more. If you are a Canadian principal or teacher, please check out these incredible textbooks for 21st century students at Oxford Next My poem appears in Interface v2.2, Grade 10 English.

If you’re an educator and you’re interested in this series for your school, here’s a two minute digital video about the Interface series.

I’m a member of the League of Canadian Poets and participate in their ‘Poets in the Schools’ Program for Ontario elementary and high schools (I can visit any locale across Canada as part of Canada Poetry tours). I love reading my poems about computer technology /social networking/ cyber-bullying as part of my school workshops. Please contact the League to make arrangements.

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Taking the LEAP

American writer and poet Jamie Dedes, a former columnist and features writer, reviewed ‘Leap’ today in her Saturday Review series. I’m thrilled with her well-written, informative review (and tickled she’d put Anne Murray, k.d. lang, and Mark Vonnegut in the same sentence as my name) and wanted to share parts of it with my readers here.

“When I think of Canada, the first thing I think of is snow and Mark Vonnegut (The Eden Express, Memoir of Insanity), and voices clear and cool as mountain spring-water, k.d. lang and Anne Murray … and now I think of Heather Grace Stewart, a new-to-me poet, writer/journalist, children’s writer, and photographer,” writes Jamie.

She continues, “In this one collection, Leap, Heather deftly combines lightness and depth. It’s an honest, unpretentious look at life with all its risks and joys. We recommend that you take the Leap. The book is oversized with a paperback cover and illustrated with Heather’s photographs of family – especially her young daughter – and nature scenes. It can be purchased HERE for $9.99 with half the proceeds going to UNICEF’s Gift of Education project.

You can read the whole review and many other great posts over at Jamie Dedes’ site.

Thanks, as always, for reading and taking the leap with me.

'Poetry Rocks' copyright Meg Laufer 2010
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Celebrate Poet of 2010 Award

I’d like to thank Jingle and everyone in her wonderful poetry community for voting for me and the other talented recipients of the Celebrate Poet of 2010 Award.

You can take a peek here to see this blog award and some other fun awards I’ve won lately.

Sometimes, I even add a pair of sparkly shoes I’m drooling over, just to make it less about the awards, because it all feels a little silly. I write because I love to do it and can’t imagine life without poetry! But thanks for reading and remembering my work.

And, sorry, I just can’t help myself here–please be extremely careful if you retype this post. A couple typos, and I’m the Celibate Poet of 2010.

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Caption This!

Don’t Blink—Day 7

Here’s your Friday giggle and a challenge: caption this photo with as G a comment as you can (This blog is linked to my children’s poetry site, I just want to keep things clean. Plus, it makes it more of a challenge). I can’t think of anything rated PG, let alone G.

If you can think of a poem, or a limerick, even better. Have fun with it!

I’ll start with the caption by our five-year-old:

“He looks like the Cheddar Cat on Alice in Wonderland.”

Edited to add:  I didn’t set this photo up. I found my cat Sam like this.