Author: janice.scully

About Snow

Thank you Michelle Heinrich Barnes for hosting Poetry Friday. Congratulations on a new Today’s Little Ditty! This is my first time posting here, and I am grateful to be part of it.

Our first snow fell this week, the first storm of winter. When I woke, the ground was white with and inch or two. At the coffee shop later in the afternoon, out the window snowflakes were falling still, but just barely, almost invisible. They meandered. It was the lightest of snows.

Like trees or the sky, there is always a story or a poem one can write about snow. Ellen Yeomans’ new picture book in rhyming verse, illustrated by Andrea Offermann, is about snow and what it means to three children.

The cover shows them full of wonder and expectation:

The story begins:

“Some snow is First Snow

We’ve waited for so long snow.

Is it really snow snow,

or only heavy rain? “

Many different kinds of snow appear in the text and illustrations, such as: ” . . . hit the ground and melt snow.” “Sleet Snow.” “Snow day snow.” The children can’t wait for it to come and stay so they can play all winter in the snow.

The narrative arc revolves around the seasons. Eventually, in the end, it takes these children to “Spring Snow” and “Please, please, no more snow” and a glimpse of upcoming spring activities. The rhyme is perfect and a joy to read aloud.

Back at the coffee shop, the snow I saw out the window was a curious kind of snow that inspired this:

TO A SNOWFLAKE DRIFTING DOWN AFTER YESTERDAY’S STORM

You’re an afterthought,

a glistening decoration,

spiraling down,

about to sprinkle the ground.

Since you are in no rush, tell me:

Is it easy to fall?

Does it take any effort at all?

©Janice Scully 2019

Some Snow Is . . . by Ellen Yeomans, and illustrated by Andrea Offermann, celebrates winter and snow. I never tire of stories about the seasons. If you live in a climate with four distinct seasons, like I do, one has no choice but to embrace snow and try to see its beauty and diversity.

Find Ellen’s Yeomans’ book, Some Snow is . . . , here: 






































	


	





	

		
		
Hilda Conkling: Child Poet
	


	
	
	

		

Thanks to Renee LaTulippe, anyone wanting to know more about the history of children’s poetry can easily find it. On her blog, http://nowaterriver.com, can be found a video library of interviews of contemporary children’s poets as well as interviews with poet, anthologist and historian Lee Bennett Hopkins, who, sadly, recently passed away. He will be missed. Four videos he created with Renee, entitled, A History of American Children’s Poets of the 20th Century, is a wonderful legacy. There, I discovered child poet Hilda Conkling, possibly the first American children’s poet. 





Young Hilda never actually wrote a poem herself. Rather, from the ages of 4-10, she recited poems to her mother, who wrote them down. Poems by a Little Girl, is a collection of poems, published in 1920 and easily found in the public domain. There are many poems. One, that gives an image of the reflection of the sky in water caught my attention. I imagine many poets must have written about that because I, too, have. Here’s Hilda’s poem found on http://gutenberg.org:





WATER





The world turns softly





Not to spill its  lakes and rivers.





The water is held in its arms





What is water,





That pours silver,





And can hold the sky?





© Hilda Conkling 1920





I love how the lakes and rivers hold water “in its arms.” Now, here is my take on the water “holding” the sky, one hundred years later from an adult point of view. 





LAKE-SKY





It stopped by this morning,





for only a minute.





For the lake-sky to be





All it took was to see.





Clouds filled the gray,





In bundles and bundles,





Patches of blue,





The yellow sun, too.





A watery mirror,





A picture of dawn.





When a breeze came along





The lake-sky  was gone.





© Janice Scully 2019





Thank you to Hilda Conkling and your mother for giving Children Poems by a Little Girl.