Poetry Friday Is Here!

Today I'm sharing a poem by Mary Oliver.

White-Eyes

In winter
      all the singing is in
          the tops of the trees
              where the wind-bird

with its white eyes
      shoves and pushes
          among the branches.
              Like any of us

he wants to go to sleep,
      but he's restless—
          he has an idea,
              and slowly it unfolds

Read the poem in its entirety.

I'm your intrepid host this week so leave me a note about your poetry offering and I'll round up the posts throughout the day.

Honors and Awards

Julie Larios of The Drift Record shares a poem and shares the news of J. Patrick Lewis'selection as the recipient of this year's Award for Excellence in Poetry for Children.

Elaine of Wild Rose Reader shares the complete list of NCTE poetry notables for 2009.

Book Reviews and Excerpts

Laura Purdie Salas shares an excerpt from the Bob Raczka book Guyku.

Laura of Author Amok shares a scat review of When Louis Armstrong Taught Me Scat.

Carol of Carol's Corner shares some thoughts on two decidedly different versions of the classic poem The Night Before Christmas.

Jeannine Atkins shares a review of Salley Mavor's book A Pocketful of Posies.

Anastasia Suen of Picture Book of the Day shares a snippet of Dinosaur's Night Before Christmas.

Original Poetry

Amy VanDerwater of The Poem Farm shares an original poem and a sneak peek at the NCTE poetry notables.

Charles Ghigna (Father Goose) shares Christmas is Coming! at his Father Goose blog and the poem Hands That See at his Bald Ego blog.

Melissa of through the wardrobe shares a poem entitled Colloquy (for Emily).

Andi of a wrung sponge shares some "cheer-up" haiku.

You'll find lots of original poetry in Laura Purdie Salas' post of 15 Words or Less Poems.

Kyle of The Boy Reader shares some winning poems from a school district poem competition.

Heidi Mordhosrt of my juicy little universe ruminates on the Gingerbread man and shares a poem entitled Half-Baked.

Posting at The Blue Rose Girls, Elaine shares two poems for Jack, her daughter's rather frisky dog!

April Halprin Wayland of Teaching Authors shares the poem Beware of Books! and a bit of a writing workout.

Poetry of Others

Jone of Check It Out shares The Coming of Light by Mark Strand.

Tabatha Yeatts of The Opposite of Indifference shares some poetry from Brian Jacques' Redwall series.

Ruth of There is no such thing as a God-forsaken town shares the poem Dawn Dreams by Rachel Hadas.

Mary Lee of A Year of Reading shares the poem The Woodcutter Changes His Mind by David Budbill.

Diane Mayr of Random Noodling shares the poem Dust of Snow by Robert Frost. She also shares a quote of Frost's at Kurios K's Kwotes.

Over at Kurios Kitt's Kurio Kabinet, Diane shares the poem Distances by Michael Hettich. All the snow and birds this week are making me happily dizzy! I love it when so many of us are on the same wavelength.

Tara of A Teaching Life shares the poem Mimi's Fingers by Mary O'Neill.

Susan of Chicken Spaghetti shares some poetic thoughts on dads who cook.

Sally Thomas of Castle in the Sea shares Poem in Advent from the Life and Times of LSM: A Living History.

Music and Other Poetic Diversions

Jama Rattigan of jama rattigan's alphabet soup shares thoughts about Joni Mitchell's song River.

B.C. of The Small Nouns shares some thoughts on poetry in the movies and a clip from The Royal Tennenbaums.

Happy poetry Friday all!