Friday, January 14, 2011

PF & Poem #290 - Is Your Body in a Book?




This is poem #2 in my Friday series of poems about books and reading and words.  I have posted other reading poems, but they emerged before this new series. 

Students - the idea for this poem came from just thinking about reading and expressions around reading.  So often people say, "You have your nose in a book!"  I just took it one step further, imagining every part of a person disappearing inside a book.

After reading this poem, my husband said, "Oh, it's a bookmark talking...and it's a bookmark."  He's right!  If you'd like a pdf of this as a bookmark, please just send your e-mail address to amy at amylv dot com. 

This week, our daughter Georgia had a poem published over at Anne Mazer and Ellen Potter's creativity blog Spilling Ink, named after their fabulous book which is a Cybils nominee.  I recommended this writing book and shared Georgia's poem here last June, and if you scroll down to the bottom of this post at Spilling Ink, you can read "Why Write?" on Anne and Ellen's blog.  Congratulations, Georgia!

Teachers and Parents - be sure not to miss the Teacher's Kit section of the Spilling Ink blog.  Both tone and information are happy and healthy for all writers!  Too, please don't miss my right-hand sidebar with information about places where children can publish their work.  I highly recommend encouraging and helping children enter their writing into contests, magazines, and other sharing opportunities.  Many adult writers are able to trace their writing-love to a childhood memory of publication.

Laura is hosting today's Poetry Friday over at Writing the World for Kids.  Skip on over there for the complete roundup!

(Please click on COMMENTS below to share a thought.)

12 comments:

  1. I LOVELOVELOVE this poem/book mark! This is just what happens to me, and the pain is real when I have to drag myself out of the book world and into the "real" world.

    Congrats to Georgia on the publication of her poem (going to look after I write). Another Georgia in the poetry world and another LV in the poetry world...and another force for good in the world! YAY for the world!!

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  2. I found you through the MotherReader Comment Challenge. Your work looks great, sounds great, feels great!

    Thanks~

    Lauri Chandler
    www.bookblogfun.doodlekit.com

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  3. this is great, and reminds me of a bookstore i once used to go to that printed poems as bookmarks at their business card. you buy a book, you get a new poem. over the year i collected dozens, hundreds of those poems, but i lost that collection in a move.

    anyway, thanks for sharing and rekindling a treasured memory.

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  4. Amy,

    You nailed it! When I love a book, I get lost in it and tune out the world around me. That exact thing happened to me not that long ago when I had to have four new tires put on my car. I sat in the tire store for hours--it was a busy day there--while smelling in rubber fumes. Fortunately, I brought a wonderful book with me: "Borrowed Names" by Jeannine Atkins. I read the book from cover to cover--and was sorry when it ended.

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  5. I love that alive/ on paper/ stages. Gorgeous!

    And congratulations to Georgia!

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  6. Perfection - I love how disciplined you were with word choice and structure to achieve the right effect. Just wonderful!

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  7. I love Mark's comment - it's a bookmark talking, and it's a bookmark!

    Read Georgia's poem. Well done. I really enjoyed it.

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  8. Thank you, friends, for your comments. I love learning about that bookstore with poem bookmarks and imagining Elaine at the tire place with Jeannine's book is simply warming! I very much appreciate your visit here today. Happy PF! A.

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  9. Wonderful! That is just how I feel when reading. You really captured it.

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  10. I like both the idea of a person and a bookmark disappearing in a book. Yay for layered poems and reading and writing families. I guess that's what happens when you live on the poem farm!

    And it warmed me, too, to think of Elaine disappearing into Borrowed Names during the tire frenzy.

    Keep it up, Amy -- and Georgia!

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  11. Cool poem. I sure resonate with the idea too and like the challenging idea of writing in such a long and narrow shape. Maybe I'll try that sometime!

    Also, to David, who commented above...what a fabulous bookstore and what a genius idea to collect them all. So heartbreaking that they are all gone now after that wretched move!

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  12. Amy,
    Love the lines "inviting my whole body to fade into the pages"...your words perfectly convey the point I was trying to make recently in class.

    Writers in my room are enjoying your "poems about reading" theme and many said, "Yes, I would like to have this bookmark poem." We had a couple of ideas based on the sayings "books take you places" and "get lost in a book".

    How exciting for Georgia to have her poem published ~ congratulations to another writer in the family!
    ~Theresa

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