Book Birthday for a Maker Book!

Happy Book Birthday to Us!

March 27, 2018

Today is the book birthday of WITH MY HANDS: POEMS ABOUT MAKING THINGS, with poems by me and illustrations by Lou Fancher and Steve Johnson.  You can watch the trailer, made with the hands of the talented Travis Carlson, below.

WITH MY HANDS Book Trailer

I could not be happier to share this book as I have loved making things with my own hands ever since I was a little girl.  Truth be told, I am never happier than when I am knitting, baking, carving a rubber stamp, drawing, or otherwise creating.  If you visit The Poem Farm regularly, you know this.

Just yesterday, I collected two big bags full of pinecones from my father's front yard.  What to make with these?  I do not know yet, but something.

Pinecones!

Photo by Amy LV

I dedicated this book to our daughter Georgia, a person who makes so many good things, and illustrators Lou and Steve dedicated it to Nick.

With My Hands Dedications

This collection of poems is all about all kinds of making....everything from soap carvings to cookies!  It is a celebration of the joy that comes from creating.  School Library Journal says, "This is art about art."  Below you can see one of the interior spreads; the poem grew from my real memory of carving a soap whale in second grade...one of my favorite projects ever!

Click to Enlarge

You can read more about WITH MY HANDS at my website HERE or at the following blogs: 

Live Your Poem with Irene Latham

Jama's Alphabet Soup with Jama Rattigan

Beagles and Books with Laura Mossa

Publishers Weekly Shelf Talker with Cynthia Compton

12 Books about Making Things and a Giveaway with Pragmatic Mom (Giveaway through 4/29)

Take a peek at how Lou and Steve illustrated this book HERE, where they explain the process of creating illustration you see above.

Much gratitude to Dinah Stevenson of Clarion, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt.  She is the wonderful editor of this book as well as my first book, FOREST HAS A SONG. I am so grateful to her as well as to Emma Gordon who is handling publicity for this book.  And hugs and kisses to my amazing agent, Elizabeth Harding, once again.

Speaking of working with one's hands, hats off to Adriana, owner and cookie artist at Mama Seuffert Sweets. Ordering from Adriana is my small way of enjoying a book birthday at home.  We have two cookies here, and I have sent some to others with my gratitude.

Cookie by the Amazing Adriana

Photo by Amy LV

You may win a copy of this book (to a resident of the United States) by commenting here by 11:59pm on Thursday, March 29.  I am also holding a giveaway on Instagram through tonight and one on Twitter for the next week!

Happy making...and thank you for celebrating this joyful year of books with me.  During the 2017-2018 school year, all four or these books were published: READ! READ! READ!, POEMS ARE TEACHERS, DREAMING OF YOU, and WITH MY HANDS.  I could not be more grateful.

xo,

Amy

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Daily Objects Help Us Remember

Happy Earth Day! 

I feel very lucky that my friend Tabatha Yeatts is featuring one of my nature-y poems and a few poemlinks at her rich and wonderful blog The Opposite of Indifference today.  Tabatha also directs us to a few very inspiring sites which offer ideas for honoring our Earth.  Thank you so much, Tabatha!

Welcome to Day 22 of Drawing Into Poems, my daily drawing/seeing/writing study into poetry.  You can read more about this month-long project here on my April 1 post.  Feel free to read the books with me and pull out your own sketchbook and jewelry box full of metaphor too...

Day 22 - The Iron

Click to enlarge the picture.

Students - Today's sketch is not of something I find particularly beautiful or inspiring, but it is about something useful and modern: an iron.  I'm not a big ironer, but sketching this hotel room iron reminded me of a story from my family's history.

When my grandparents (on my mom's side) were newly married, my grandfather complained about the way my grandmother ironed his clothing, saying that she "didn't do as fine of a job as his own mother had done."  Well.  You know what my grandma did?  She never ironed another piece of his clothing again!  I love this story of my strong lady grandmother from way back in the mid-1920s.  Stories like this help me understand the women from my past, and they help me feel strong too. Old family stories like this help us understand who we are.

Ask someone in your family to tell you an old story.  You might look at photographs and ask about the people, or ask if there is an old story that your mom or dad or aunt or uncle heard over and over again. Or look at an old passed-down object like a watch or a toy or a book and ask..."What is the story behind this?"  Then...write.

I am honored to be presenting later today on a poetry panel with Sylvia Vardell, Janet Wong, and Joyce Sidman at IRA, and I am grateful for Clarion having sponsored my wonderful trip here and last night's glorious dinner.  Next week is the TLA conference, and I look forward to all I will learn there too.  What a lovely Poetry Month it has been.

Tomorrow (Tuesday) evening, I will be a guest of Wonderopolis for this month's #WonderChat celebrating poetry and wonder.  This is the chat rescheduled from last Monday evening, and I hope that you will be able to join us!

If you are interested in winning a copy of FOREST HAS A SONG (a good book for Earth Day), do check out the left-hand sidebar here where you will see four different blogs that are currently offering giveaways of the book.

Please share a comment below if you wish.

To find a poem by topic, click here. To find a poem by technique, click here.

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