Category Archives: Sharing our work

Monday coffee: A Little Jack Prelutsky this morning

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Cappuchino latte art

By Blanka Novotná

My son loves Jack Prelutsky. I can’t blame him – I love Jack Prelutsky, too. One of my top five of his poems is “My Dog May Be A Genius.” If you don’t know it, you might want to go and borrow or buy the book of the same name (if you’re embarrassed to buy a kids’ poetry book for yourself please feel free to tell the clerk it’s for my kid 😀 ). So in honor of National Poetry Month and the man who, after Shel Silverstein, has done so much in recent decades to keep poetry alive for kids, I give you my off-the-cuff poem about Spot.

My Cat Is Not a Genius
After Jack Prelutsky’s My Dog May Be a Genius
SpotHelpsMom
My cat is not a genius;
of that there’s little doubt.
As soon as I have let him in,
he wants to go back out.

He has fresh food right in his bowl
but prefers all human cheeses,
even though he throws them up
and emits such nether breezes.

He sheds black fur on my white shirt
and white fur on black jeans.
He won’t attack his knit toy mouse
but bats stray coffee beans. ‘

But when he sits upon my lap
and covers me with fur
I can’t help merely loving him
just for his rumbling purr.

So, yes, he sheds insanely
and he makes an awful mess,
but we love him very dearly
though he’ll never master chess.

Happy Poetry Month, friends – Love from ina

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Monday coffee: In which I celebrate many things

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My family celebrates a lot of winter holidays.We’re pretty muchPopof in celebratory mode from November 1st until January 2nd. After which, I spend the next few weeks putting away candles, sweeping up the confetti and  trying to remember where I’ve put the spare keys.

We celebrate the U.S. Thanksgiving, Diwali, Chanukah,Christmas and the New Year. I used to celebrate both Kwanzaa and Yule, but the loved ones for whom these were special holidays now live far away so I can’t celebrate with them except in thought.

Today I have something new to celebrate. Remember the Burning the Midnight Oil contest which Andrea helped so many of us enter? While people were submitting their poems, Andrea showed me a poem she’d written and was thinking about submitting. I cried a little when I read it – poems about the realities of war always make me sad and this poem is vivid, short, and ends with – well, a short line that just tried to tear my heart right out of my chest.

I am so delighted that her poem “The Grass is Green” won*.

This also delights me: the top 10 poems and the hon. mentions included a lot of people who hang out with us at this blog, including (but not limited to, and please forgive me if I missed your name) Linda Hofke, Sara McNulty, SE Ingraham, and Mariya Koleva.

To celebrate the gift of others’ voices is something I find myself wanting to do more and more often. I wonder if, as one writes more and more, one appreciates the good writing (the good reading!)  of others more. Regardless, congratulations to Andrea and to the others in the contest : what a  lovely way to head toward a new year ~ ina
Cone and holly

*I am waiting to hear if Andrea’s poem will be posted at Write Helper. If not, I will certainly ask her if i can share it here.

Monday Twinings Tea

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Sitting somewhere and enjoying a proper cup of tea? Coffee? Well, whatever you have and wherever you are, we’re here, and just now, I’m here, Andrea speaking.

William paxton2
No New York here, no cafés, no places to hang out, no corner for me to sit building up audiences of casual guests looking at me and thinking that I am something special. But oh, I’d love it – sitting somewhere being special – I could drink lots of coffees, I’m sure, but as it is, I like to admit that I also drink tea.

I sit in my kitchen, looking straight into my microwave oven, that is if I look up, and cafés: there is the grocer’s which is DagliBrugsen where I live. And just now, it’s tea and you out there. How I love to be connected.

So here I sit in my quiet kitchen and see Ina got something published somewhere. My fellow blogger or to be honest, the head blogger here, made it through!

Poem at Right Hand Pointing

Ina writes about breast cancer and this wonderful medical development that makes it so true to use a metaphor with koi and a frog.

But I sit a little quiet, thinking about my friend, Neser, who didn’t make it. And thinking about Neser, I always end up laughing, though now it is so many years ago. I also know that she likely would have loved Ina’s poem.

I put in another lump of sugar in my tea. It’s cold outside – please see Sidse’s picture from today:

SidsesColdWorld

I feel so lucky that the internet is working today which means Amanda down in Brisbane can announce her recipes for me and for the citizens of Sejer Island.

Amanda, we’re ready. We can’t wait for the lamingtons because they look so good on the pictures. I hope I can squeeze in some more details here though I know that these details might not be in our books – only this blog kind of taught me that maybe they should.

But what is our blog post for today?

Ina and I are running a blog about writing. And we want to introduce a poetry challenge for you:

An Adult-Kid poeming month in January 2013.

  1. You must have an agreement with someone on writing 16 poems for January 2013. You, being the poet, and this other someone, a kid, must create a poem according to the prompts that Ina and I will put here on the blog during January.
  2. You must enter a name – “the rocking tigers” or something like it. You must come up with a name for your team and you must submit this to us along with a short description of who you are.
  3. And I’m sorry but the poems must be in English.
  4. Ina and I will be ready with awards.

Tea tins in kitchen, mostly TwiningsThe prompts will be about describing the world. So we’ll just say, for instance, “England.” Then you will have to come up with a poem about England and then we might say “Bulgaria” and so on.

So here with my Monday tea, I hope I have inspired you all to set off
for yet another challenge.

Please tell us what you think.