Welcome to Poetry Month 2018 at No Water River!
Please take a moment to peruse the how-to below, and then dive in! Happy writing — and thank you for helping to build our collection(s)!
Remember: The Community Collections are open indefinitely, so you can visit each post at your leisure to add your poem!
Today’s Guest…
is a high school English teacher and the award-winning author of three gorgeous novels, including her novel in verse, Under the Mesquite. Please welcome poet and educator …
GUADALUPE GARCIA McCALL
THE POEM
Guadalupe has sent us an unpublished poem! It’s one of her personal favorites, so it’s pretty exciting to have it make its debut here just for us. Write on!
THE PROMPT
Write about a time when you felt misunderstood.
COMMUNITY COLLECTION 25: PERFORMANCE POEMS
POST YOUR POEMS AND PROSE HERE!
1. Click the pink + circle on the bottom right.
2. Type in your title and copy in your poem
3. Don’t forget to include your name/copyright (e.g., (c) 2018 Gladys Poet)!
4. To make it stick, click on the background pic OUTSIDE the white area of your post.
5. Use the tools on the bottom of your post to easily upload images.
6. Scroll to read and comment on others’ work!
If you have any trouble posting your poem, you may email it to me at renee@reneelatulippe.com and I will post it for you!
THE POET
Guadalupe Garcia McCall is the author of Under the Mesquite (Lee & Low Books), a novel in verse, which received the prestigious Pura Belpré Author Award, was a William C. Morris Finalist, received the Lee Bennett Hopkins/International Literacy Promising Poet Award, the Tomas Rivera Children’s Book Award, and was included in Kirkus Review’s Best Teen Books of 2011, among many other accolades. Her second novel, Summer of the Mariposas (Tu Books, an imprint of Lee & Low Books), won a Westchester Young Adult Fiction award, was a finalist for the Andre Norton Award for Young Adult Science Fiction and Fantasy, was included in the 2013 Amelia Bloomer Project List, the Texas Lone Star Reading List, and the 2012 School Library Journal’s Best Books of the Year. Her third novel, Shame the Stars (Tu Books, 2016), received a starred review form Kirkus, was a Junior Library Guild Selection, and is a Commended
Title for the América’s Book Award. Her fourth novel, All the Stars Denied, a companion novel to Shame the Stars, is forthcoming from Tu Books in the fall. Like Shame the Stars, All the Stars Denied features poetry as part of the epistolary material between chapters. Her poems for children have appeared in The Poetry Friday Anthology, The Poetry Friday Anthology for Middle School, and The Poetry Friday Anthology for Science.
Ms. Garcia McCall was born in Piedras Negras, Coahuila, Mexico. She immigrated with her family to the United States when she was six years old and grew up in Eagle Pass, Texas (the setting of her novels and most of her poems). She is currently a high school English teacher in San Antonio and lives in the country with her husband and their pets.
Discover more about the author and her books at www.GuadalupeGarciaMcCall.com.
THE BOOKS
SHAME THE STARS
Eighteen-year-old Joaquín del Toro’s future looks bright. With his older brother in the priesthood, he’s set to inherit his family’s Texas ranch. He’s in love with Dulceña—and she’s in love with him. But it’s 1915, and trouble has been brewing along the US-Mexico border. On one side, the Mexican Revolution is taking hold; on the other, Texas Rangers fight Tejano insurgents, and ordinary citizens are caught in the middle.
As tensions grow, Joaquín is torn away from Dulceña, whose father’s critical reporting on the Rangers in the local newspaper has driven a wedge between their families. Joaquín’s own father insists that the Rangers are their friends, and refuses to take sides in the conflict. But when their family ranch becomes a target, Joaquín must decide how he will stand up for what’s right.
Shame the Stars is a rich reimagining of Romeo and Juliet set in Texas during the explosive years of Mexico’s revolution. Filled with period detail, captivating romance, and political intrigue, it brings Shakespeare’s classic to life in an entirely new way. (from author’s website)
SUMMER OF THE MARIPOSAS
Odilia and her four sisters rival Odysseus in cleverness and courage as they embark on their own hero’s journey. After finding a drowned man floating in their secret swimming hole along the Rio Grande, the five sisters set out to El Sacrificio in Coahuila, Mexico. Their trek across the border, to return the body of a man they believe to be a loving husband and father to his family, is disappointing. However, their disenchantment is nothing compared to the heartbreak and troubles they endure as they try to get back.
Outsmarting as many mythical creatures as the Greek hero Jason, and with the supernatural aid of La Llorona, Odilia and her hermanitas make their way through a road of trials in which they encounter and escape from the wily Nagual, a coven of vicious Lechuzas, and the much dreaded, half-blind, blood-thirsty Chupacabras. After the perilous adventure, their only wish is to cross the return threshold, La Frontera, safely, and finally get home to ask forgiveness from the one person they hope still loves them–their abandoned mother. But forgiveness is a double edged sword, and the sisters feel its sharpness the most when they get home and have to face the biggest challenge of all. (from author’s website)
UNDER THE MESQUITE
As the oldest of eight siblings, Lupita is used to taking the lead—and staying busy behind the scenes to help keep everyone together. But when she discovers Mami has been diagnosed with cancer, Lupita is terrified by the possibility of losing her mother, the anchor of her close-knit Mexican American family. Suddenly Lupita must face a whole new set of challenges, with new roles to play, and no one is handing her the script.
In the midst of juggling life as a high school student, testing her wings as an actress, and dealing with friends who don’t always understand, Lupita desperately wants to support Mami in whatever way she can. While her father stays with Mami at an out-of-town clinic, Lupita takes charge of her siblings. As Lupita struggles to keep the family afloat, she escapes the chaos of home by writing in the shade of a mesquite tree. Overwhelmed by change and loss, she takes refuge in the healing power of words.
Told with honest emotion in evocative free verse, Lupita’s journey is both heart-wrenching and hopeful. Under the Mesquite is an empowering story about the testing of family bonds, the strength of a young woman navigating pain and hardship with surprising resilience, and the kind of love that cannot be uprooted. (from author’s website)
Don’t miss a prompt! Save this calendar to your desktop.
CALENDAR OF POETS ~ APRIL 2018
“The Girl Who Would Be Pope” copyright © by Guadalupe Garcia McCall.
Copyright on community collection poems held by authors indicated. All rights reserved.
Other post content © 2018 Renée M. LaTulippe or as indicated. All rights reserved.
Superhero by Porapak Apichodilok; Vaulted ceiling by Little Visuals, both via Pexels (no attribution required).
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