Books are Food
by Amy LV 
This is poem #11 in my Poetry Friday series of poems about reading and books and words. I think this is the final one in this series...at least for now.
Students - today's poem came from a collage of places, and I am going to try to connect the dots of all of the food/word connections that have been going through my mind of late.
1. The International Edible Book Festival is next Friday, April 1. The first day of National Poetry Month. We will celebrate at the Western New York Book Arts Center, one of my new favorite places. At this event, we will truly eat our words. Do check if there is such a fun evening in your town. We can't wait!
2. I have always loved Eve Merriam's poem "How to Eat a Poem."
3. I sometimes confuse my senses and want to eat and bite things that I love - like our cat and my children and yes, books!
4. Once I heard a very funny story in which Maurice Sendak explained how the best compliment he ever received was when a child ate his autograph.
5. Below you can read one of my favorite poems. And while it's not about eating words, the way this poem places value on beauty as much as food moves me.
If of thy mortal goods thy art bereft
And from thy slender store two loaves alone to thee are left,
Sell one, and with the dole
Buy hyacinths to feed thy soul.
Moslih Eddin Saadi, Persian Poet
Sometimes many little loves and thoughts from your life all find each other like little magnets. When this happens, writing begins! So watch for this, students. Pay attention to how the ideas and thoughts and feelings in your life connect. You may be surprised.
On this Poetry Friday, I would like to welcome the man who welcomed me to poetry to his new home on the Internet! Knowing that Lee Bennett Hopkins has his own web address makes me smile. It's like a great neighbor has moved to town. Do stop by and visit Lee at his new snazzy and inspiring home here..
A word about next Friday. Next Friday is April 1. It is also the start of National Poetry Month. It is also the end of My Poem Writing Year. I will also be hosting Poetry Friday and featuring a Poetry Peek with Bonnie Evancho's second grade writers from Pinehurst Elementary in the Frontier Central School District here near home. Soooo...I welcome you one and all and invite you to please bring a friend along as another month of poetry fun begins, all around the mulberry bush!
Today, our Poetry Friday Hostess Mary Lee has a delightful take off on Gerard Manley Hopkins "Pied Beauty," which she shared last week. This week it's a rumpus with her original "Wild Atrocity." So skate on over to A Year of Reading, and join the party!
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