Friday, December 24, 2010

Happy Holidays!

I can't imagine a Christmas without snow. We are lucky again this year because while the world here is snow-covered, it will not be snowing on Christmas Eve or Christmas Day when we are travelling to see family.


Over the last few weeks, I’ve been re-visiting Snow, Snow: Winter Poems for Children by Jane Yolen. The imaginative poems, along with Jason Stemple’s gorgeous photographs, take the reader into the snow-covered world of the Colorado mountains.




In an introductory note, Jane Yolen begins with the point that “Some people love snow.” She goes on to say that this book is also for “those who might love snow if only it weren’t so cold and wet and sometimes inconvenient.” I think that these poems and photographs are beautiful to read and experience if you live in a place where your winter is never white and where you can only dream of snow during the holiday season. These poems will take you there through the “Mountain Snowstorm” that comes “Without warning,” or the “Skier” who passes “So Fast,/ He is just a blur.” You might be swept away by the “Snowmobile” as “It growls/ Like a polar bear”. For those of you who sometimes get snow and are wishing for snow, I hope that you wake tomorrow morning to discover a scene similar to the one described in the first stanza of “Snow on the Trees.” “Somebody painted/ The trees last night,/ Crept in and colored them/ White on white.”

Poetry Friday Roundup is at A Year of Reading.

Happy Holidays!!






Friday, December 17, 2010

Poetry Friday: Snow Music

Where I live, we get a lot of snow between December and March and although it must be shoveled, brushed off cars and pushed off roads, I can’t help but love it. It’s been snowing almost nonstop throughout this week, making driving a challenge but offering beauty and inspiration at my writing window.

Today I’d like to share my poem “Snow Music” which appeared in the February 2010 issue of Spider.I'm amazed by the way Jing-Jing Tsong's art brought this poem to life. 


Snow Music

What’s the sound
of falling snow?
A sleeping swan
with head tucked low.

Ice cream dripping
down a cone.
A polar bear
that swims alone.

Sugar dusting
angel cakes.
Is that the sound
a snowfall makes?

                                                                                                                                 
                   (click to enlarge) 

Today's Roundup is at The Poem Farm.