The workshops in Look Ma,"Hands" on Poetry are designed to help teachers and poets familiarize elementary through high school students with a variety of creative and fun ways to engage their imaginations and write poetry They do so by encouraging teachers and students to explore, together, the art of poetry; i.e., the art of employing the five senses to capture experience in language. The workshops also introduce young writers to a wide range of poets and the poetic techniques and styles that they have incorporated in their writing. As a result when students complete a series of workshops from this book, they will know how to write a poem They may enjoy reading more poetry, too, because they will have a solid understanding of how poetry works. Finally, there are exciting ideas in Look Ma, "Hands," on Poetry for ways in which young writers can exhibit and perform their poetry. The workshops in this book run from 45-60 minutes with the time divided into three segments. In the first, the teacher reads and discusses poems that are examples of the types of poetry students will be writing. In the second, the teacher introduces the writing assignment and has students begin writing. Finally, students who finish poems are invited to share them in the remaining class time. Because poetry is the art of capturing experience in language, the workshops are structured around sight, smell, taste, touch, and sound. Each of the workshops in the first five chapters is geared toward exploring one of these senses, and the two later chapters contain workshops that require students to use all five to write their poems. As a result, workshops from each chapter may be used individually or in sequence to create one or twoweek poetry units that teachers and students can enjoy. Workshops in the book include the Sleight-of-Hand and Animal Mask Workshops wherein students use metaphor, simile, and personification to create imagery in poems. They use music and musical instruments to help them create sound and rhythm in the Native American, Chant, and Rap Workshops, and then they literally play with words to write Bingo and Multiple Voice Poems. Young people have opportunities to express their feelings through poetry in the Blues, Love Potion, and Ode Workshops; and finally, they use their five senses simultaneously when writing Bubble and Rainbow Poems and when they interpret paintings, sculpture, and music in Echphrastic Poems. The book's final section presents creative ideas for poetry readings, books, and displays. Suggestions for readings include the Poetry Cafe, which can incorporate any of the Coffee House, Tea Room, 1950's Diner, and/or Greco-Roman Garden venues discussed in this section. Student poetry books and chapbooks complete with student art and photos are described here, too, along with plans for poetry rainbows, sidewalks, mobiles, and poetry word collections.

Mary Rita Schilke Korzan wrote a poem to her mother 24 years ago, thanking her for all she had done as a mother, friend, and role model. She gave the poem to her mother and, a few months later, offered it as a tribute when Mary and her husband were married. So many wedding guests asked for a copy that Mary included one in her thank-you notes.Then began the strange and heartwarming journey of Mary's poem to her mom. Friends passed it on to those they knew. A minister in her hometown couldn't recall who gave it to him, but he included the by-then "anonymously written" poem in his book about loving others. Another author picked it up from there for her compilation of heartfelt works, and Mary finally noticed her poem, now listed as "Author Unknown," in A Fourth Course of Chicken Soup for the Soul, which her husband and children gave her as a Mother's Day gift.With this new book, readers have the chance to experience When You Thought I Wasn't Looking in its entirety and from its creator. This is the special kind of book that reminds us that sometimes the little things we do "just because" mean more to someone than we can ever know. Those little things teach love, compassion, and understanding. In other words, they're priceless. This sweet gift book brings that lesson home to the heart.

From grief and mourning to aging and relationships, poet and Redbook contributor Judith Viorst presents a thoughtful and researched study in this examination of love, loss, and letting go. Drawing on psychoanalysis, literature, and personal experience, Necessary Losses is a philosophy for understanding and accepting life’s inevitabilities. In Necessary Losses, Judith Viorst turns her considerable talents to a serious and far-reaching subject: how we grow and change through the losses that are a certain and necessary part of life. She argues persuasively that through the loss of our mothers’ protection, the loss of the impossible expectations we bring to relationships, the loss of our younger selves, and the loss of our loved ones through separation and death, we gain deeper perspective, true maturity, and fuller wisdom about life. She has written a book that is both life affirming and life changing.

Alice Walker and Maya Angelou are just two of the 80 women poets in this collection of feminist poetry for young readers.

Freshwater Pearls is the first full book of poems written by Adele Steiner. Subtly crafted in a lyric voice and comprised of one part reflection and one part imagination, the poems in this collection are detailed explorations of life that are magically transformed through sensuous renderings of the human experience. Adele Steiner is a poet, writer, and teacher. She received her B.A. and M.F.A. in English Literature and Creative Writing at the University of Maryland. She is currently a poet-in-the-schools with the Maryland State Arts Council, an instructor for The Writer's Center in Bethesda, MD, and a 10-year veteran artist-in-residence at Georgetown University Hospital and the Hospital for Sick Children in Washington, DC. She is currently the host of the Cafe Muse Poetry Reading Series, and she has participated in numerous poetry readings and panel discussions in the Washington, DC area. Her poetry has won awards from The Maryland Poetry Review and Promise Magazine. She has been published in G argoyle, So To Speak, Wordwrights, Smartish Pace, Innisfree, The Black Buzzard Review, Scribble, The Lucid Stone, an Anthology from Wising Up Press, a chapbook, Refracted Love, a full-length book of poetry, The Moon Lighting, and a collection of poetry writing workshops for young people, Look Ma, "Hands" on Poetry.

For fans of SNL’S DEEP THOUGHTS BY JACK HANDEY and BILLY COLLINS, a new book of humor from New York Times bestseller Andrew Shaffer. In his first full-length poetry collection featuring over five dozen new and selected poems, humorist Andrew Shaffer explores our modern world from Fortnite (“I don’t care”) to pretentious Instagram poets (“Lord Byron would have drunk wine from your hipster skull”). Look Mom I’m a Poet (and So Is My Cat) is playful, hilarious, and accessible to readers who don’t know poetry from a hole in the ground.* *Holes in the ground are filled with snakes. As any verse jockey worth their meter will tell you, there are no snakes in poems.