New Book Look Ppt

KSU Book Look 2012 from Public Library of Youngstown and Mahoning County

Peace through Poetry

The following are two poems from Peaceful Pieces: Poems and Quilts about Peace by Anna Grossnickle Hines (March 2011), a great book to share during the "One World, Many Stories" Collaborative Summer Library Program . 

The poems are short enough to include one or two in a program and will prompt discussion. (They are good reminders for adults, too!) The last pages give a quote and brief bio from "The Peacemakers" (Mohandes Gandhi, Nelson Mandela, Dorothy Day, Jimmy Carter, Mother Teresa, Martin Luther King Jr., Samantha Smith, and Mattie Stepanek) as well as Hines' creative and quilting processes:

Peace: A Recipe

Open minds -- at least two.
Willing hearts -- the same.
Rinse well with compassion.
Stir in a fair amount of trust.
Season with forgiveness.
Simmer in a sauce of respect.
A dash of humor brightens the flavor.

Best served with hope.

No In-Between

If one is right

the other wrong

how can we ever

get along?

Charles R. Smith Jr. (Virginia Hamilton Conference)

To paraphrase, Charles R. Smith Jr., in true multicultural literature, every individual grows.  For him, it appears that photography and writing, particularly poetry ("finding the right words, not necessarily fancy or long or rhyming"), is the mode for individual and societal sharing and ultimately, growth.

During his presentation at the 2011 Virginia Hamilton Conference on April 8, he performed his poems and shared his life; As a child, "I turned to books ... to help me fly" (from track 10 on About Me) and became inspired by various artistic and noteworthy African Americans (see track 11 from Inspirations), including Ms. Nikki Giovanni, who was also a speaker at the conference.

He is a phenomenal performer and witty wordsmith (you'll get his flavor as you listen to track fifteen "I Am a Poet - a Capella"), but I wish I could have recorded and put his presentation on Youtube.  When I got Portrait of a Poet signed (only MP3 downloads are available on Amazon), I did ask if he had already put performances on Youtube.  He answered that he hadn't but that they may have been posted by others.  While I haven't found such poem performance videos, here is a link to Simon and Schuster's Youtube video where he discusses his 2010 Coretta Scott King Award (illustration) book My People.  You can also view a still of the performance in my photo collection below.

One of his last thoughts was, "We are all made up of a variety of things that make us human beings."
 
Thank you for your work, Mr. Smith.

Libraries: Launchpad for Knowledge!

Because I do not have a painted picture at this moment ... I will paint with my words ...


Surf Board to Informational Literacy

Libraries should teach patrons how to read  ...
from screen to shining screen
from shore to shining shore
America, Happy Hanukkah!

Calef Brown the Poet (Videos)

During the Mazza Summer Institute, Brown referred to the musicality of words as his muse.  He makes a case for reading poetry out loud.  Sylvia Vardell anyone?

 

I first performed "Combo Tango" in graduate school as an audience participation, movement rhyme.  I've been incorporating it into my programs ever since.