Pint-Sized Poetry
April is National Poetry Month. Celebrate with your young child!
Creative Writing Opportunities for PGH Teens!
Read all about two amazing creative writing and publishing opportunities that are happening NOW at the Library, just for TEENS!
Throwback Thursday: Pittsburgh’s Gerald Stern Proves He’s Still Around
One of my very favorite poems is “Lucky Life” by Gerald Stern, born and raised in Pittsburgh and now living in Lambertville, New Jersey. It is somewhat embarrassing for me to have discovered this well-known poem only two years ago – I mean, it was published in 1977 – but discover it I did, last year, while spending some time down at my beloved Jersey shore. It found me at exactly the most perfect time, as if he was writing directly to me. I thought about it during our vacation this year and I’ve thought about it again, several times over the course of what has been a rather challenging month, personally-speaking.
Novels and Memoirs Told in Poetry
When most people think of poetry, they think of rhyming lines broken into stanzas that go on for about a page or so. Rarely do they think of the many novels, memoirs, and folktales told entirely in verse, whether it be formal (i.e. Shakespeare’s iambic pentameter) or free. These are often great places to start for those who find poetry intimidating or difficult to understand, as I once did.
One Book, Every Young Child 2017
In Pennsylvania, we celebrate young children all month long by highlighting and engaging in early literacy and focusing on one specific, stand out picture book. Established in 2006, One Book, Every Young Child is a collaborative effort of various organizations throughout the state that advocates and promotes the importance of early literacy skills for young children age three to six.
Giving Into an Ever-Changing Poetry Collection
Floating somewhere between fantasy and reality, between the mind and the body, is Güera, the latest poetry collection from Rebecca Gaydos. Published in 2016, the book is divided into five distinct parts, including prologue and epilogue. What struck me initially was the sparseness of each page, made up of stanzas that read as prose instead of verse. However, as I began to read, the weight of each word became immediately apparent.
Phenomenal Woman: Maya Angelou’s Incredible Life
Most people recognize Maya Angelou’s name. She may be the most popular and well-known author/poet of our time. What many people might not know is how fully she lived her life, how many adventures she had, how phenomenal she really was.
Verónica Reyes Presents Poetry from Bordered Lives
The first time you pick up Chopper! Chopper! Poetry from Bordered Lives, the temptation to dig through your old college textbooks for your Spanish/English dictionary might be hard to resist. Verónica Reyes charges her lines—nearly every single one—with the sharp electricity of her East L.A. tongue. It’s this dance, this lingual limbo, that transports you straight into the streets of her city. Not tethering herself to English alone allows her to draw beauty from both languages, to choose her words twice as thoughtfully.
Something to Crow About
Clocking in at a mere 114 pages and titled with a clever twist on an Emily Dickinson lyric, Mark Porter’s Grief is the Thing With Feathers is a stunning summer read. You can read it as a long poem or a short novel, but it almost doesn’t matter, unless you’re a purist. It’s the lush, musical language that lifts Porter’s story out of the mundane and into the magical.
Failed Passes with Flying Colors
Martin Espada’s new poetry collection kicks off with a sonnet cycle that brings a tiny moment in labor history back to life, praising the men and women who put their lives on the line for workers’ rights.