Greetings, Poetry Lovers! As I type this on Thursday, it's rainy outside. Lots of rain lately has been welcome; the recent Table Rock fires not far from us in upstate South Carolina are now 100 percent contained, and parts of the state park re-opened on Monday. Even if I don't see rainbows outside, I feel them!
Rainbows are not confined to the sky, of course. Our own Matt Forrest Essenwine went on a poetic rainbow hunt, and just look at what he brought back. His new collection, A Universe of Rainbows - Multicolored Poems for a Multicolored World (Eerdmans Books for Young Readers), introduces young readers (and readers of all ages!) to rainbows all around us in both expected and surprising places, with poems by 20 luminous poets. Acclaimed illustrator Jamey Christoph brings the words to light and life in painterly digital images, a project that was more than a year in the making, according to his website.
It's a perfect volume for Spring, for Poetry Month, and for wonder-seekers at any time of year. There are many thoughtful blog posts celebrating this new anthology, and the book cast its colorful glow on Jama's Alphabet Soup just last Friday. Matt happened to be the host for last week's Poetry Friday Roundup, and his post offers a beautiful tribute to Lee Bennett Hopkins, to whom the book is dedicated. You'll also find a list of posts celebrating the anthology's launch, so you can go rainbow hopping! Of course, the best rainbow hopping happens in the book - from a cave in Patagonia to a mountain range in China to a star nursery in our galaxy to a collection of crystals in a window sill - maybe yours?
The Rainbow Keeper
by Irene Latham
There's a girl who loves brilliant things:
crystals, gemstones, diamond rings.
She digs them up, wipes them clean.
She asks them: what wonders have you seen?
She marvels at their varied colors --
periwinkle, lime, cyan, butter.
She sings to them of geometry, of heat.
She displays them on her bedroom window seat.
Crystals are her favorite find --
especially the broken kind.
Their way of speaking is to glimmer,
shimmer, SHINE!
How do they make their tiny rainbows?
only the Rainbow Keeper knows.
©Irene Latham. Used with permission.
And if you've never made it to Colombia (I haven't), you can travel to a colorful river there:
Caño Cristales
by Amy Ludwig VanDerwater
I'm a river in a rainbow.
I'm a rainbow in a river.
I ran away from Paradise.
(Or so do some believe.)
I glow in red and golden hues
but half the year I'm greens and blues.
I am a simple river
with a secret up my sleeve.
Color!
Today I'm rainbow poured in water.
Soon again I will be plain
magnificent and ordinary
as I carry crystal rain.
We each are much more than we seem.
Allow yourself, my child, to dream.
©Amy Ludwig VanDerwater. Used with permission.
Each poem (several of which shine through particular poetic forms!) is presented with an unobtrusive, reader-friendly scientific sidebar. At the end of the book, you'll find resources for every rainbow included as well as a glossary.
Thank you to Eerdmans Books for Young Readers for sending me a copy of this shimmering book! And thanks to Irene Latham and Amy Ludwig VanDerwater for allowing me to share their poems. And of course, thanks to Matt Forrest Essenwine for bringing all these colors out of his his imagination and into these fine poems!
Speaking of Irene, rainbow-hop over to Live Your Poem for this week's Roundup. Remember to follow the Kidlit Progressive Poem (see last week's post) and visit Jama's Alphabet Soup again for a Roundup of all-things-Poetry-Month in the Kidlitosphere.