Get out your hankies! I am getting right to the goods this week, because they are THAT GOOD. Last September when I was researching my post for “The Lake Isle of Innisfree” by W. B. Yeats, I ran into this: It’s Yeats! Manga-style! And there was a whole poetry comic attached for his poem “When [...]

Blame my teachers… …for making me a poet. It’s National Teacher Appreciation Week, so I thought I’d take the opportunity to share an essay I wrote a couple of years ago when I was waxing nostalgic about my childhood and my poetic beginnings. This is also in answer to some recent exclamations to the effect [...]

Once upon a time… in a forest far, far away, there lived a thoughtful girl named Amy Ludwig VanDerwater.  Now, the forest that the girl lived in was not an enchanted forest as you might expect. It was a regular forest, the kind of forest other fairy tales would snub. But that didn’t matter. Because, [...]

So many books, so little time! Sometimes I’m overwhelmed by all the books I haven’t read. Really, the enormity of it is astounding. I just got part of my annual birthday haul, and after rubbing the covers and reading all the front and back matter and stacking them up with their spines perfectly aligned and staring [...]

“As we are now, so we shall be (if air is clear and water free)…“ I have been dancing this week, but not on my feet. It’s been more of a mental minuet, a pleasant TAH-ta-ta-TAH (glide), TAH-ta-ta-TAH (dip) that has accompanied me on my daily rounds of work, kids, life and given my mundane tasks [...]

“When you rush to park… and end up hopeless, crooked– just start over.” Story of my life. And such simple, sound advice. Just start over. As one who has found herself hopeless and crooked in all sorts of corners over the years, and is still listing a bit to the right, I am a true believer [...]

It’s here! Started by the lovely poetess Irene Latham, the Progressive Poem is a group poem that’s been traveling around the blogosphere all month, with each writer adding one line. Yesterday, Liz Steinglass added her soaring line and passed the flaming baton to me. This is my stream of consciousness process, coming to you live… For last [...]

“For the water sings blue… and the sky does, too, and the sea lets you fly like a gull.” Can’t you just feel the ebb and flow of the waves in those lines, hear the distant cry of that gull, maybe even feel a little sea breeze in your hair…? Ahhhh. And all this thanks to [...]

HAPPY NATIONAL POETRY MONTH 2013! WELCOME BACK TO THE NO WATER RIVER POET-A-PALOOZA! (ACT II) celebrating Did you miss ACT I? See it here! ACT II INTERMISSION: Lobby Chat SCENE 1: Poems from Mrs. Skelly’s and Mrs. Luke-Byk’s Fourth-Grade Students SCENE 2: Four Show-Stopping Poetry Videos: JULIE LARIOS  ~  TED SCHEU  ~  LESLIE BULION  ~  MICHAEL [...]

IT’S NATIONAL POETRY MONTH 2013! AND NO WATER RIVER IS KICKING IT OFF WITH ANOTHER POET-A-PALOOZA! (ACT I) featuring the prolific producers and some poetry stars of ACT I OVERTURE: Exposition and Setting SCENE 1: An Interview with Fourth-Grade Teacher MARY SKELLY SCENE 2: Five Scene-Stealing Poetry Videos: GEORGE ELLA LYON  ~  JOY ACEY  ~  HEIDI BEE [...]