Not to be missed!
A new collection of poems by John Agard, with illustrations by Satoshi Kitamura.
So how about:
from the dustjacket:
"Here are 29 extraordinary poems that shine a 21st century spotlight on fairy tale characters. Mischievous, satirical, wicked, utterly modern...
The winner of the CLPE Poetry Award for 2011 is Philip Gross for Off Road to Everywhere, illustrated by Jonathan Gross, Salt Publishing.
The presentation of the Award was made at the Centre for Literacy in Primary Education on Tuesday 5 July, 2011.
Off Road to Everywhere was described by Poet Laureate Carol Ann Duffy, last year's winner of the prize and a judge as, "an outstanding winner for this Award" while fellow judge Fiona Waters who is also a previous winner said, "This is wonderful stuff. Here are real, proper poems which are full of beauty and imagination. I loved it!"
Philip Gross is Professor of Creative Writing at Glamorgan University.
The CLPE Poetry Award which was judged this year by Carol Ann Duffy, Andrew Lambirth and Fiona Waters, honours excellence in poetry written for children. Previous winners include Jackie Kay, Roger McGough, Fiona Waters, Carol Ann Duffy, Grace Nichols and John Agard.
The 2011 award was sponsored by Travelling Books.
The shortlist for the 2011 CLPE Poetry Award is as follows:
Allan Ahlberg: Everybody Was a Baby Once and other poems, illustrated by Bruce Ingman, Walker Books
Phil Bowen: Cuckoo Rock, illustrated by Fred James, Salt Publishing
Mandy Coe: If You Could See Laughter, Salt Publishing
Philip Gross: Off Road to Everywhere, illustrated by Jonathan Gross, Salt Publishing
Roger Stevens (compiler): A Million Brilliant Poems (part one), illustrated by Jessie Ford, A & C Black
The judges are Carol Ann Duffy, Andrew Lambirth and Fiona Waters and the judging panel is chaired by Julia Eccleshare.
Troubadour [ss Travelling Books one of the largest providers of Book Fairs to UK schools] is once again sponsoring the CLPE Poetry Award.
The winner of the 2011 Award will be announced at a ceremony at the Centre for Literacy in Primary Education on Tuesday, July 5th 2011.
The CLPE Poetry Award for a book of poetry for children was launched by the Centre for Literacy in Primary Education in 2003.
A new Children's Poetry List, published by Janetta Otter-Barry at Frances Lincoln, was launched at The Gallery at Foyles, Charing Cross Road on 17th May with an evening of performances.
In the photograph from left to right
James Carter (Hey Little Bug will be published in August) Janetta Otter-Barry, Caroline Holden (illustrator of Come Into This Poem) Tony Mitton (Come Into this Poem will be published in August) Rachel Rooney (The Language of Cat) and Roger McGough (Imaginary Menagerie, which he has also illustrated - and the book has already reprinted)
John Agard (not pictured) also performed a preview of poems from Goldilocks on CCTV which will be published in October.
The list's editor, Janetta Otter-Barry, said, "We have many wonderful children's poets in the UK whose voices are not being heard, other than in anthologies. Surprisingly, this also includes established poets. I want to give children the chance to experience the full range of a poet's work in an individual collection. My intention is to publish two books a season, pairing an established poet with a new name. I am very excited about my new venture, which will help to bring poetry back into children's lives."
American Poet Wins £30,000 Dylan Thomas Prize
Elyse Fenton has been awarded the University of Wales Dylan Thomas Prize, set up to honour the Welsh poet and encourage writing among the young.
The Poetry of Birds
With its cover and endpapers the brilliant red of a chough's beak, The Poetry of Birds begins with Marianne Moore's ostrich ("He 'Digesteth Harde Yron'") and ends with Emily Dickinson's "'Hope' is the thing with feathers"...
The Poetry of Birds edited by Simon Armitage and Tim Dee
Children's Poetry Bookshelf Competion Winners
The judges of the Old Possum's Children's Poetry Competition, led by Chair Carol Ann Duffy, have selected twelve children as winners, with a further six receiving high commendations. This international Poetry Competition, now in its fourth year, is run by the Children's Poetry Bookshelf, a poetry book club for young people run by the Poetry Book Society. To link with National Poetry Day on Thursday 8 October, children aged 7-11 were invited to submit poems on the theme of 'Heroes and Heroines'. The partnership with the British Council, established last year, boosted entries to the 'International Learners' category for children based outside the UK who are learning English as a foreign or second language. In total, nearly 4,000 entries were received from schools and individual children worldwide.
The judges awarded 1st, 2nd and 3rd prizes to children in two age groups (7-8 and 9-11). Carol Ann Duffy said, 'We judges had a wonderful and absorbing time choosing the winning and commended poems. We were impressed by the range of subject matter, the engagement with both history and the contemporary, the relish for image and metaphor. And we were particularly bowled-over by the poems from the International Learners.'
The CPB held a gala celebration and prize-giving on Monday 14 December at the Unicorn Theatre in London, hosted by poets John Agard and Roger Stevens, both of whom were also judges of the competition. The winning young poets were presented with their cash and book prizes and invited to read their poems to an audience of friends, family, teachers and children from local schools. A booklet containing the children's winning poems, and including a poem by Carol Ann Duffy from her recently published New and Collected Poems for Children (Faber), was made available on the day for the children and other audience members to take away with them.
The Old Possum's Children's Poetry Competition is generously supported by Old Possum's Practical Trust.
New and Collected Poems for Children by Carol Ann Duffy. reviewed by Michael Rosen
Chrissie Gittins' first children's poetry collection 'Now You See Me, Now You ...' has been reprinted.
The book was shortlisted for the CLPE Poetry Award.
'Chrissie Gittins has a McGough-like flair for idiomatic surrealism,' I said, in TES.
'I like the warmth and immediacy of the poems. But I think The Shortest Days is my favourite - limpid and deceptively simple.' Helen Dunmore
Postwar London: art school graduate Jim Downer gives illustrations for a children's book to a friend he lives with, Ted Hughes, who promises to 'take a look'. The project seems to die, the friends move on. Now, more than 50 years later, the book - complete with Hughes's verse - is finally to be published. Alan Franks talks to the artist about this lost Hughes work, and the remarkable bohemian world that was their 18 Rugby Street home...
...So he made the move into teaching. "I thought I needed to get a proper job, and the thing English graduates did was teach. I took my Cert Ed and went to Beacon School, a big comprehensive in Sussex." His memories of the school are fond - and not only because he met his long-term partner, Gerry Wardle, in the staffroom. Despite being privately educated himself, O'Brien is a passionate advocate of the comprehensive system: the practical expression of the fervid anti-Thatcherism that simmered through his work in the 1980s. "We did all the stuff that's scorned now: mixed-ability teaching, trying to give everyone as much opportunity as possible. There were limits, imperfections, but we believed in it." Nevertheless, in 1989, after eight years in the job, he was ready to leave. "If you really committed to it, it was exhausting - rewarding in many ways, but it digs it out of you. I had to stop - either that or go mad. Madder."
I've always especially liked O'Brien's collection, The Indoor Park, published while he was working as a teacher. We met occasionally during that period (to judge a local schools poetry competition; at NUT meetings, where he would usually be reading the latest edition of TLS rather than union leaflets) so I am looking forward to reading his novel at some point.
THE 2009 LECTURE will be given by Michael Rosen. Entitled What is children's poetry for? : towards a new, but child-specific, 'Apologie for Poetrie' (Sir Philip Sidney, 1595) it will be held at 5.00pm on 10th September, at Homerton College, Cambridge.
Old Possum's Children's Poetry Competition 2009
The Poet Laureate Carol Ann Duffy is to chair international competition:
Carol Ann Duffy, the new Poet Laureate, is to chair the judging panel for a worldwide poetry competition for 7-11 year olds. The Competition is organised by the Children's Poetry Bookshelf, a poetry book club for young people run by the Poetry Book Society. To link with National Poetry Day on Thursday 8 October, children will be asked to write a poem in English on the theme of 'Heroes and Heroines'.
Now in its fourth year, the competition is open to both individuals and schools. Cash prizes of £250 for first prize, £100 for second and £50 for third will be awarded, along with books and CPB memberships, in two age groups, 7-8 year-olds and 9-11 year-olds. Entries will be accepted from Thursday 10 September, up until the closing date of Monday 19 October. The winners will be announced at a gala celebration in London in December.
A teacher's guide to accompany the competition will be available to download from the Children's Poetry Bookshelf website (www.childrenspoetrybookshelf.co.uk) from early September, along with further information about the competition.
For further information about the Competition please contact:
Hilary Davidson email hilary@poetrybooks.co.uk
or Chris Holifield email chris@poetrybooks.co.uk
