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[Just a little reminder: if you're receiving this and you have NO INTEREST in children's poetry, don't worry, it's only once a month – and if you unsubscribe you'll miss out on the monthly moth newsletter and prize notifications!]
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With all the rain (and a bit of sunshine) our garden has exploded with growth. Looking out my window, I see a bank of brambles and thistles and red currants and sticky back and nettles - all of which the birds and insects love. Will, Ralph and Nancy managed to rescue two house martin chicks. Their nest above our front door had broken and they'd fallen into the honeysuckle. Here's one of them. They were quite happy to be held, though even happier to be returned to their new nest, made out of an upturned bicycle helmet. I can hear them now, chirping at their poor exhausted mother for food. I'm sure they're nearly ready to fledge.
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Speaking of exhausted, Robert Schechter, this year's Caterpillar Poetry Prize judge, managed to whittle his winners down to three – though he did say ‘there were enough excellent poems among the submissions to fill an entire anthology'. His three winners are Anna Llewellyn, for her poem 'The Whistler of Muldoon', Kao-Cheng Huang (our first winner from China), for his poem 'Someone Left a Moon', and Laura Schulkind for her poem 'Maybe Call Me Baby'.
Anna's first prize win prompted her to say that ‘I admire anyone who spends their time writing for children, and it is really an honour to be included among the brilliant Caterpillar Prize-winning poets. You get well practised at rejection as a writer, so waking up to this news was such a happy shock!’
Here's the lovely illustration that she sent along to go with her poem ...
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As I'm sure I've mentioned before, we're big fans of Robert Schecter, and we were lucky enough to publish quite a few of his poems in The Caterpillar. Here's one of them:
I'm Not You
I wonder why it turns out I
am I and not some other guy?
What did I do to be the who
I grew into that you call you?
It's strange to be a who like me
with ears that hear and eyes that see,
a name I always answer to,
an I to me, a you to you,
but here I am, and here are you,
though clueless why it should be true.
Robert Schechter
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I hope you're enjoying your summer, wherever you are. If you're stuck in a hot box with no air conditioning, maybe this gorgeous painting by Fred Calleri and this poem by Mary Green will help you to cool off ...
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The Sea’s a Salt Blue Dish
The sea’s a salt blue dish. The sun’s a golden peach.
I lay my shells in circles, each by each,
As sea and sky hold hands beyond my reach.
The sandy dimples squelch beneath my feet,
And ripples creep across the wrinkled beach.
The sea’s a salt blue dish. The sun’s a golden peach.
Along the stretch my sisters hoot and shriek.
I watch the waves and hear the seabirds screech,
As sea and sky hold hands beyond my reach.
The picnic waits beside Old Scullion’s Breach,
Where baby Molly murmurs in her sleep,
The sea’s a salt blue dish. The sun’s a golden peach.
My shrieking sisters now are out of reach,
And I’m as still as glass and lost for speech,
As sea and sky hold hands beyond my reach.
No wind, no breeze, no breath, just me,
To watch the sun spin patterns on the sea,
To watch a salt blue dish, a golden peach,
And sea and sky hold hands beyond my reach.
Mary Green
xox
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