poetry friday

[colorful review + giveaway] A Universe of Rainbows by Matt Forrest Esenwine and Jamey Christoph

~ jama ~ 22 Comments

Picture this: light rain and cloudy skies, then suddenly the sun breaks through. A rainbow! We’re surprised and delighted at this rare gift. Whether we then picture a pot of gold or dream of a once-in-a-lullaby land where bluebirds fly, it’s pure magic!

We’re probably most familiar with celestial rainbows, but they also appear in other shapes and forms in some unexpected places. These are gloriously celebrated in A Universe of Rainbows: Multicolored Poems for a Multicolored World (Eerdmans BFYR, 2025), a brand new anthology compiled by author-poet Matt Forrest Esenwine with illustrations by Jamey Christoph.

The book features 20 stellar poets, including many from our Poetry Friday community: Irene Latham, Amy Ludwig VanDerwater, Charles Waters, Laura Purdie Salas, Janet Wong, and Matt himself (who contributed five poems).

The 22 poems in the collection, written in a variety of poetic forms including free verse, haiku, and pantoum, are presented in five categories:

  • Rainbows of Light
  • Rainbow Waters
  • Living Rainbows
  • Rainbows of Rock
  • Rainbows Beyond

Each poem explores a distinct rainbow type and is accompanied by a scientific sidebar of fascinating tidbits. In Rainbows of Light, we see how a rainbow can transform cursed rain into a joyful surprise, and are playfully introduced to Sun Dogs and Pilot’s Glories, before becoming enchanted by a moonbow in southern Africa. We are then reminded of our ability to make our own rainbows with gems and crystals.

THE SATURDAY OF NO
by Nikki Grimes

Saturday morning raindrops
pelt the slate rooftop, 
tap out a message
I don't want to hear:
No sunshine.
No clear blue.
No hopscotch.
No soccer.
No softball.
No skip rope.

Nope.

There goes my perfect day!
Bear-like, I growl about
the fun I'll miss.
My nose against
the windowpane,
I curse the rain,
then -- wait!
I catch the storm's apology:
sun-drenched strips of color
arch across the sky --

             A rainbow!
             Oh! My!

With Rainbow Waters, we are transported from two hot springs in Yellowstone National Park (the colors of the Morning Glory Pool and the Grand Prismatic Spring emanate from heat-loving bacteria living at different depths), to the Fly Geyser in Nevada (algae in the water flourishing in moist, hot environments colors the rocks), to the Caño Cristales in Colombia (“River of Five Colors” blooming with aquatic weeds). Amazing!

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2025 National Poetry Month Kidlitosphere Events Roundup

~ jama ~ 54 Comments

Happy National Poetry Month!

It’s time once again to read, write, share, and simply indulge your love for poetry in every way. I’m happy to be back rounding everyone up this year and look forward to checking in with all of you throughout April.

New to National Poetry Month and wondering about ways to celebrate? Visit the NPM webpage at The Academy of American Poets (poets.org) for a cool list of activities, initiatives and resources. You can learn about Poem in Your Pocket Day (April 10), sign up for Poem-a-Day to receive poems in your inbox, and review 30 Ways to Celebrate NPM online, at home, in the classroom, or at readings/events near you. Do as much, or as little, as you please. Just enjoy!

The 2025 poster features an excerpt from “Gate A-4”, a poem by former Young People’s Poet Laureate and Academy Chancellor Naomi Shihab Nye, as well as artwork by New York Times-bestselling author and illustrator Christy Mandin. 

Mandin was selected by Scholastic—the global children’s publishing, education, and media company—to create the artwork for this year’s poster as part of a National Poetry Month collaboration with the Academy of American Poets.

A lesson plan featuring Nye’s poem is available through the Academy’s Teach This Poem newsletter. Sign up for Teach This Poem to receive this additional educational resource and bring the poster to life for National Poetry Month. You can download a free PDF of this poster here.

Now, here’s a list of what some kidlit bloggers are doing. If you’re also celebrating National Poetry Month with a special project or blog event, or know of anyone else who is, please email me at: readermail (at) jamakimrattigan (dot) com, so I can add the information to this Roundup. Thanks, and have a beautiful, inspiring, uplifting, productive, and memorable April!

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a letter to our better selves

~ jama ~ 34 Comments
“Else’s Letter” by Caroline van Deurs (1918)
ELEGY FOR THE PERSONAL LETTER 
by Allison Joseph

I miss the rumpled corners of correspondence,
the ink blots and crossouts that show
someone lives on the other end, a person
whose hands make errors, leave traces.
I miss fine stationery, its raised elegant
lettering prominent on creamy shades of ivory
or pearl grey. I even miss hasty notes
dashed off on notebook paper, edges 
ragged as their scribbled messages—
can't much write now—thinking of you.
When letters come now, they are formatted
by some distant computer, addressed
to Occupant or To the family living at—
meager greetings at best,
salutations made by committee.
Among the glossy catalogs
and one time only offers
the bills and invoices,
letters arrive so rarely now that I drop
all other mail to the floor when
an envelope arrives and the handwriting
is actual handwriting, the return address
somewhere I can locate on any map.
So seldom is it that letters come
That I stop everything else
to identify the scrawl that has come this far—
the twist and the whirl of the letters,
the loops of the numerals. I open
those envelopes first, forgetting
the claim of any other mail,
hoping for news I could not read
in any other way but this.

~ from My Father's Kites. © Steel Toe Books, 2010.

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I fell in love with letter-writing when I got my first penpal in second grade. Cindy lived in Erie, Pennsylvania, a world away from Hawaii, and I thought her life was positively exotic. Four distinct seasons, magical snowstorms, a huge lake!

What a thrill to receive genuine-for-real mail addressed to me! Such fun to describe what I was up to in my neatest hand. While in third grade, Cindy and I practiced our shaky cursive. It was nothing short of miraculous for my thoughts to cross an ocean and a continent to reach my special friend, all for only 4 cents!

I love envelope art!
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eight legs of terror

~ jama ~ 30 Comments
“There’s a Spider in My Tub” by John Kenn Mortensen (2013).
CONFESSION 
by Sarah Russell

There’s a spider in the bathtub.
I saw him last night, and he’s still there
this morning, though I gave him fair warning
when I brushed my teeth before bed.
I need to take a shower.
But there’s a SPIDER.
In the BATHTUB.
My Dr. Schweitzer is arguing with my Eek.
He’s small –
smaller than a shirt button –
and round and 8 legs look like 3 too many.
But he’s in the BATHTUB.
Where I SHOWER.
NAKED.
I turn on the water, and he wiggles
a couple of legs but the spray doesn’t hit him,
so I don’t get a pass from Karma.
Then my Eek takes over,
and I get a piece of toilet paper,
and he wiggles 2 legs again but doesn’t run
so my Eek doesn’t get to plead self-defense.
I try to make it painless –
a squish and done – but then I wonder
if he was just trying to say hello,
and the shower’s kind of lonely
without him in there waving at me.

~ copyright © 2018 Sarah Russell as posted at Your Daily Poem.

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art by Michael Sowa.

EEK! Has this ever happened to you?!

This poem made me laugh and shudder at the same time. Because we see so many spiders in our house, I rarely argue with my Dr. Schweitzer anymore. No waffling with my conscience, no reverence for life. It’s either us or them.

Scariest scenario: I’m staggering upstairs to bed and when I reach the top landing, a wolf spider’s there to greet me (gasp! heart clutch!). I wouldn’t hesitate to kill a smaller spider. But this one’s HUGE. And FURRY. These are the largest species we see indoors.

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of flip flops and lollipops

~ jama ~ 36 Comments
“Merry Go Round” by Michael Young.
WHERE I COME FROM
by Sally Fisher

We didn't say fireflies
but lightning bugs.
We didn't say carousel
but merry-go-round.
Not seesaw,
teeter-totter
not lollipop,
sucker.
We didn’t say pasta, but
spaghetti, macaroni, noodles:
the three kinds.
We didn’t get angry:
we got mad.
And we never felt depressed
dismayed, disappointed
disheartened, discouraged
disillusioned or anything,
even unhappy:
just sad.

~ from Good Question, Bright Hill Press, 2015.
“Spaghetti” by Michael Serafino.

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They say variety is the spice of life, and this is certainly true when it comes to regional vocabulary. Don’t you love how there are different terms for the same things, and what you choose to use signals where you’re from?

“Sunshine, Lollipops and Rainbows” by Holly Ellsworth-Rose.

I smiled and nodded in recognition while reading this poem — and fondly thought about my late mother-in-law. A staunch New Englander, for her it was ‘pocketbook’ not purse, ‘divan’ not couch, ‘bubbler’ instead of water fountain. We never had trouble communicating, but our use of different terms kept our conversations lively and interesting.

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