Friday, April 13, 2018

Happy Birthday, Lee!


Happy Birthday, Lee Bennett Hopkins! 

Today is the birthday of poet and anthologist-extraordinaire Lee Bennett Hopkins. To celebrate, I'm offering up readers of The Drift Record his poem about spring, titled appropriately "Spring."  No doubt at all that it will be posted by other Poetry Friday contributors - we're celebrating him today and honoring his presence among us. One of my favorite birthday tributes to Lee comes via a YouTube video posted by Amy Ludwig VanDerwater - click on that link to see 1st graders reciting one of Lee's poems ("Librarian") and singing Happy Birthday. Such a sweet bunch singing to such a sweet poet!

Spring 

Roots 
sprouts 
buds 
flowers 

always---
always---
cloud-bursting showers

rhymes
April fools
fledglings on wing

no thing 
is 
newer
or 
fresher
than
spring.

              ---Lee Bennett Hopkins (from Sharing the Seasons, 2009) 

Thank you, Lee, for inviting us to share your love of poetry, your delight, your energy, your enthusiasm.

One of my favorites of Lee's own work, a memoir: Been to Yesterdays (1995)
       
 I'm proud to have a poem of mine in Lee's upcoming anthology A Bunch of Punctuation, due out this summer.  Can't wait to see it! Here's the cover: 

Whee! Love this!!




 Today's Poetry Friday round-up is being hosted by Robyn Hood Black. Head over to her blog to see what other people have posted! 


4 comments:

  1. Thanks for joining the party, Julie! I like the way Lee's Spring poem is springing up in a few different places today. Congrats on your poem in the upcoming Punctuation book - can't wait to see this one!

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  2. Lee's Spring popped up on my post today as well. I'm hoping that all this springing up will entice the real spring to arrive soon. Congratulations on having your poem included in "A Bunch of Punctuation." That looks like a title I'll need to add to my classroom collection.

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  3. Glad to hear about this new anthology on its way, Julie, and the poem, a lovely advertisement for what all of us await!

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  4. I'm enjoying Lee's spring poem every time it springs up! Love the cover of the new anthology. It looks like fun!

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