poetry Archives - Page 137 of 293

For Every Little Thing: Poems and Prayers to Celebrate the Day
by June Cotner (Editor), Nancy Tupper Ling (Editor), and Helen Cann (Illustrator)
@ Amazon | Bookshop | IndieBound

Booktalk: Arranged from waking up to falling asleep, this poetry anthology gathers classic selections, modern prayers, and new poems from multiple cultures and faiths to celebrate the day and its delights. From Emily Dickinson to Amma, from Ken Nesbitt to Rabbi Rami M. Shapiro, fifty-one voices encourage children to be present and thankful at all hours.

Snippet:
DAY’S END

Night is come,
Owls are out;
Bettles hum
Round about.

Children snore
Safe in bed;
Nothing more
Need be said.

–Henry Newbolt

A 2021 Cybils Poetry nominee

It’s STEM Friday! (STEM is Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics)

Home is Not a Country
by Safia Elhillo (Author)
@ Amazon | Bookshop | IndieBound

Booktalk: Nima wishes she were someone else. She doesn’t feel understood by her mother, who grew up in a different land. She doesn’t feel accepted in her suburban town; yet somehow, she isn’t different enough to belong elsewhere. Her best friend, Haitham, is the only person with whom she can truly be herself. Until she can’t, and suddenly her only refuge is gone.

As the ground is pulled out from under her, Nima must grapple with the phantom of a life not chosen–the name her parents meant to give her at birth–Yasmeen. But that other name, that other girl, might be more real than Nima knows.

And the life Nima wishes were someone else’s. . . is one she will need to fight for with a fierceness she never knew she possessed.

Snippet:
Baba

The photographs of my father are everywhere

alone in a suit framed in the living room

seated with his afro full taped to the mirror of my mother’s dresser

in the one on the coffee table he stares awestruck at his bride

a passport picture in mama’s wallet a single furrow in his brow

i like the one of him younger rounded & serious as a child

dusty-kneed as a teenager crowded with other boys arund a ball

before the car crash that took him from knowing me

before the father-sized ache before my mother all alone

still crowding herself to one side of the bed saving his place

soft browns of sepia photos
making him impossibly far away

A 2021 Cybils Poetry nominee