Poetry News – Poetry Roundabout

Fun and Joy at the Federation Of Children’s Book Groups’ Conference

Posted on May 2, 2019May 2, 2019 by Liz Brownlee

Because of the Feast of Children’s Poets and Poetry A-Z, I haven’t posted this!

Earlier in April a group of children’s poets were invited to perform at the FCBG’s Conference. It was such fun – we all did a set, and sang some songs… with an hour’s practise! But we are used to performing together so it wasn’t too hard.

The musical talents, guitars, and drums of strange and peculiar shapes and sizes, were provided by Roger Stevens, John Dougherty, Ed Boxall and Brian Moses – and we all sang, but me, Zaro Weil and Laura Mucha were the backing group, too. Thank you Roy Johnson of Troika for arranging it!

Apparently there were murmurings that they wanted us back next year. I’m not complaining, I’d do it every night if I could, so if anyone wants to employ a poet band, let us know!

Poetry News

AtoZ Challenge Theme Reveal!

Posted on March 26, 2019March 26, 2019 by Liz Brownlee

Hello! Regular readers will already know I’m Liz Brownlee, poet, National Poetry Day Ambassador, blogger and tweeter and supporter of all things poetry and children’s poetry related in particular. This April I will be blogging a poetry feast from some of the best poets and children’s poets.

Every day (except Sunday) there will be a different poet featured, and each poet featured has kindly sent a poem for you to enjoy.

And 26 wonderful poems have been sent!

The challenge starts on Monday, April 1st (no, it’s not a joke!) and finishes on Tuesday, April 30th.

If you’d like to follow me on Twitter, I am @lizpoet. I also Tweet the Children’s Poetry Summit Twitter account, @kidspoetsummit, and an account set up to support our children’s fight for their climate @poets4climate.

Poetry Roundabout is my website for all things related to children’s poetry. My own website is LizBrownleePoet. I also run BetheChange, a new website about sustainability poems for children.

The book above, Apes to Zebras, is my latest book published, shape poems written by me, Sue Hardy-Dawson and Roger Stevens. And that’s me in the corner, with my medical assistance dog, Lola!

I’m looking forward to seeing you all during the month.

Poetry News

It’s Book Week!

Posted on March 5, 2019March 5, 2019 by Liz Brownlee

A Chinese dragon on a wall at the Haikou Yazhou Gu Cheng, Hainan, China, by Anna Frodesiak.

I started off Book Week in St Cuthbert’s Infant School Wells, where we had great fun writing some dragon poems.

Here’s a dragon poem from me, for Tuesday of Book Week!

How to paint a Chinese dragon

Use a bamboo brush

held lightly in three fingers

at the back

Flow the movement

from your shoulder; use Chinese ink

in red or black

Paint a twining

river for the body of your dragon

needs to wind

Then its head, snake

teeth bared, and its crest on the wind

waving behind

Sweep whiskers

like antennae, add a demon eye

round and wide

Armour your dragon;

curve overlapping scales along

its side

Hook eagle

claws on tiger paws, make it dance

upon the air

Paint a pearl

within its mouth, so its magic

takes it where

it can breathe

in clouds, conjure wind and rain

in sky

Give your

dragon life, take your brush, and

dot its eye.

In Chinese, 画龙点睛 (huà lóng diǎn jīng) “Paint the dragon, dot the eyes” is a saying meaning adding the finishing touch to something.

I hope you all have a fabulous Book Week, and enjoy every minute of it!

Poetry Awards, Poetry News

Attention Teachers! Vote in the Teachers Book Awards Before 2018 Ends!

Posted on September 13, 2018September 13, 2018 by Liz Brownlee

A new UK-wide award has been set up for teachers to vote for literally any children’s books – but among the categories is POETRY, hooray!

Teachers will be able to vote until the end of 2018 for any book published in this year. They will collect all the nominations from across the country at the end of the year. January will see the shortlist of winners released and the final voting process will begin.

TEACHERS! PLEASE send in a vote for your favourite poetry books 2018 as soon as possible!

The Teachers’ Book Awards website is here with all the details.

Here is the Twitter address. Twitter handle is @book_awards

There has been some excellent children’s poetry published this year – to remind you, here are as many of the UK children’s poetry books published this year as I can find:

UPDATE! Voting isn’t open yet but will be soon!

Poetry News

Roger Stevens Performs his ‘Dog Poem’

Posted on May 23, 2018 by Liz Brownlee

Roger Stevens performing Dog Poem – Roger has a new book, The Waggiest Tails (Otter-Barry), written with Brian Moses, out now – actually, the poems are all written by dogs. There is even one by Lola, the dog in this video! Available here.

Young Poets Network Survey- Win a Bundle of Books!

Are you a young poet? Do you know a young poet?

The Young Poets Network is calling all young poets and poetry-lovers aged 11-17 to give their opinions on poetry, by filling in a survey by 21st of May.

You could win a bundle of poetry books!

Here’s the link.

Poetry News

Win a Copy of Apes to Zebras, an A-Z of Shape Poems!

Posted on March 15, 2018March 15, 2018 by Liz Brownlee

Wow. It’s pretty gorgeous, isn’t it? I am so PROUD of this book, written with my lovely poet friends Sue Hardy-Dawson and Roger Stevens. We worked very hard on this book – and Bloomsbury have done us proud. It’s for 8 and up, but children as young as 3 have been enjoying it, because the words are in shapes, apparently! Here is a link to the latest of it’s fab reviews, this one from The Reader Teacher.

Bloomsbury are giving one away in the UK – all you have to do is click on the link to enter.

“WIN a copy of our gorgeous new poetry book by @Lizpoet @SueHardyDawson and @PoetryZone PLUS a sumptuous A3 print and fun postcards by liking and sharing our pinned Facebook post by Thursday 22nd March!”

Click here to enter: http://bit.ly/2DvIFuy

Good luck!

Poetry News

Do you like Children’s Poetry News, Poems, Writing Advice, Teaching Advice? Follow @kidspoetsummit!

Posted on February 7, 2018February 7, 2018 by Liz Brownlee

If you do, then follow the Children’s Poetry Summit on Twitter at @kidspoetsummit.

The Children’s Poetry Summit tweets news and poems and fun anything to do with children’s poetry every day of the year.

If you’d like to know what else they do, this is their mission statement:

Children’s Poetry Summit

The Children’s Poetry Summit is a UK network of individuals and organisations actively interested in poetry for children. It provides a regular forum for discussion, information exchange, sharing of ideas and good practice, and a pressure group which campaigns for children’s poetry.

Members are children’s poets, publishers, teachers, librarians, booksellers, organisations and individuals interested in children’s poetry

Our principle aims are to:

exchange information and ideas, keep up to date with what is currently happening and generally raise the profile of children’s poetry
create opportunities and campaign on behalf of poetry for children and teens through publishing, bookselling, in schools, teacher training colleges and literature organisations
support and promote the writing of poetry by children

In pursuance of these aims we undertake to:

encourage wide participation in the group, to include poets, teachers, librarians, publishers, literature organisations and booksellers
exploit potential of social media – maintain a regular presence on Facebook and Twitter and consider setting up a Blog where opinions and activities relating to the Summit can be expressed
make use of all opportunities to promote Poetry Summit – IBBY UK Newsletter, YLG E-Newsletter, BooksforKeeps, Conferences, The Poetry Library, The Poetry Society, TES, The Guardian and other media outlets.
follow up on opportunities to provide platforms for and promote each other’s work

In other words if you are a parent, teacher, librarian, bookseller or anyone else interested in children’s poetry news, this is the Twitter account to follow!