Review of Home is Not a Country by Safia Elhillo

Book cover for Safia Elhillo's Home is Not a Country

 

About two weeks ago, I looked at the Young People’s Literature nominees for the 2021 National Book Award. I wanted to see which books I had read and which to add to my ever-growing reading list. Since I had been on the lookout for novels-in-verse, Safia Elhilo’s Home is Not a Country particularly interested me. Then, while browsing the stacks at The National Center for the Study of Children’s Literature, I noticed we had a copy of it. This felt like fate! I knew this had to be my first review for the semester. 

Home is Not a Country takes place in the early 2000s and follows the story of Nima as she navigates loneliness, family dynamics, friendship, and nostalgia for a home she’s never visited. These complex issues are explored in only 224 pages. 

My reading of this book was hybrid, meaning that I read both the book and listened to the audiobook. The author’s narration of the audiobook enhanced my experience of the book. I could feel the emotions Nima goes through and the loneliness she experiences. Nima attributes this loneliness to her mother. This is the introduction the reader gets to Nima and her mother’s relationship. The organization of the poems itself tells you what parent she values more and points to the complicated relationship she has with them. Nima’s relationship with her parents, especially the one with her mother, was my favorite aspect of the novel. Her mother is Nima’s sole caretaker, and a lot of the resentment Nima feels is directed towards her. Their relationship reminded me of how children of single parents tend to glorify the parent that is absent from their lives, and this is definitely present in Home is Not a Country. 

There’s an instance in which Nima contemplates what her mother must have sacrificed to come to America:

I can’t help but imagine

that her life was enormous before we came here

loud & crowded & lively as any party...(36)

Nima talks about how her mother’s life became smaller with her move to America. She recognizes that her mother is as lonely as she is. I loved this because it made me realize something about my own family. As my world expanded due to moving to a different country, my parent’s world shrank. In the name of progress and opportunity, parents sacrifice lives they’ve built-in their home countries and say goodbye to social relationships they may have. They give away their support systems for their children. I think this was so important to include in the book, for Nima to understand how living in a different country has affected her parents as 

well as her.

Image of Home is Not a Country’s backflap which includes a picture of the author, Safia Elhillo by Aris Theotokatos

The novel has a bit of magical realism, which I was not expecting. However, it was a welcomed surprise. This element takes the form of self-doubt and realizing where you belong. One of Nima’s desires is to see her homeland through the eyes of her family, to experience it as they did. When Nima wishes for such, she gets to live it but at a cost. These moments highlight how important it is for us to view the whole picture instead of what we believe to be true. Sometimes truth isn’t present because it can hurt us, but knowing that truth allows us to see the world clearly and appreciate the life we have. This is what Nima experiences in those instances of magical realism. They are absolutely beautiful and poignant. The book uses magical realism for its climax, which wonderfully brings together all the threads of the story. I had read books where magical realism was in the narrative from beginning to end, but not one like this. That’s one of the reasons why this book became such a memorable experience. 

The writing is gorgeous and lyrical. Here’s an example from one of my favorite poems in the book “A Single Possibility”:

she isn’t my sister    we are opposite ends of a single

possibility   an only child    forming in 
our mother’s belly   waiting to be shaped by a name
once & for all...(155)

One thing that stood out to me was the formatting of the poems, the spacing within them allows the reader to breathe and ponder the lines carefully. The blank spaces in this piece drive the meaning of the words and tell the reader which words deserve a closer look. My favorite part of this excerpt is the line “we are opposite ends of a single/possibility.” The line stood out because it shows how Nima thinks only one version of her is possible. Her lack of consideration for change is put beautifully and succinctly. Elhillo writes about complex contemplations of the self in such a distinct manner and I’m excited to read more of her work. In Home is Not a Country, Safia Elhillo presents a magical exploration of family bonds and how understanding ourselves brings upon an understanding of those who love us.

- (NA)

"The Moon Within" Book Review

 

The Moon Within by debut author Aida Salazar is a beautiful middle grade novel in verse which explores growing older and self-discovery.

The protagonist, Celi Rivera, has questions about growing older: about her changing body, about her first attraction to a boy, and her best friend Mar’s exploration of what it means to be genderfluid.

It is incredibly important to Celi’s mother that Celi will have a moon ceremony, a ceremony marking her transition from girl to woman, as Celi explains in one of the first poems, “Moon Ceremony”. Celi initially refuses not only the ceremony, but the prospect of growing older:

“I dread the ceremony where she will gather

all six of my aunts

some of my dance teachers

a constellation of grown-up women

to talk to me

about what it means to bleed monthly…

Embarrassment will eat me up whole!” (9-10)

Celi expressed a fear that may be relatable to both readers who have gone through a moon ceremony, and those who have dealt with their first menstruation as well. Although she is embarrassed, her Mima explains,

“Our ancestors honored

our flowering in this way.

It is a ritual taken away from us

during so many conquests.” (10, italics in original)

Salazar here not only shares an important part of her heritage with the reader, but she is alluding to the need to take back this ceremony from the times whiteness has attempted to snuff out the rich heritage that Mima is passing along. This snuffing is from the shame that is associated with menstrual cycles, while Celi’s culture celebrates it. Through the reader being privy to Celi’s thoughts, the emphasis on her ceremony brings up interesting points of discussions on preserving culture and taking back a sense of ownership when puberty may make someone feel out of control of their body. Like the ritual being taken away by colonizers, Celi tries to take back control of her body and her moon ceremony.

Although Celi struggles with the idea of growing older, poem by poem she comes to explore what it is to be changing. We follow Celi as she grows to accept her changing body through dance, comradery, and self-love. Dance is one of the spaces that allows Celi to feel comfortable in her body and her femininity, as explored in the poem “Puerto Rican Drum Dance”.

She began dancing as a very young girl:

“I held the tips of my little dress

and pretended I was catching

butterflies in the air.

That is what the music told me to do.” (89) 

Celi for once does not have questions when she dances, she simply knows how to dance, how to answer the rhythm of the music.

The verse of this poem sways like a dancer and Salazar expertly breaks lines to create space within the poem, like a dancer awaiting their next move. Salazar’s poetry is full of vivid imagery which made me feel as if I were falling into the middle of Celi’s world.

Celi is not the only young character going through change, but her best friend, Marco (previously known as Magda), begins to explore his gender fluidity and finds his own self best expressed through his short hair and pants instead of the long dresses Celi loves to wear.

The Moon Within is an honest portrayal of some of the feelings of growing up and having a changing body and mind. Salazar’s verse is an excellent novel exploring the themes of changing and growing older.

Kirkus Reviews calls The Moon Within “a worthy successor to Are You There God? It’s Me Margaret”, and US Poet Laureate Juan Felipe Herrera says the book is “revolutionary and culturally ecstatic”.

This book was not published until I was in my twenties, but I wish I had this book when I was Celi’s age, and I hope that readers going through a similar experience as Celi or Mar will find this book. In beautiful prose, Salazar works to destigmatize gender fluidity and menstrual cycles. I can imagine readers experiencing either of these topics will find solace not only in feeling less alone, but seeing Salazar turn these experiences into beautiful poems.

Salazar has more books planned for publication, including Jovita Wore Pants, her first picture book about the revolutionary Jovita Valdovinos. She also recently published her sophomore novel The Land of the Cranes, a novel in verse about a young girl being held in a family detention center for migrants and refugees.

-SS

 

Sources:

http://www.aidasalazar.com/about.html

A Grad Student's Experience Writing a Limerick

Senior year of college, we had to write sonnets for my poetry class. I read my sonnet and professor asked, “you don’t get meter, do you?”

I was a little embarrassed, but he was kind of right. I was told it’s just instinctual, it’s how you speak, some of it is the exact rhythm of a beating heart. Nonetheless, all the “da da da da da das” of people sounding out the rhythm just blurred together for me.  

Fast forward two years, I had to write a poem in meter for my graduate school class this semester, and my stomach dropped. I had to write a limerick, specifically. The class is called “Edward Gorey and Nonsense”, so, appropriately, the way to write a limerick makes less sense to me than pure nonsense poetry on the sense to nonsense scale.

While Dr. Thomas kept throwing out limericks through Twitter like he was spitting out sunflower seeds, I was still stuck on starting the first line.

Why is the hardest part of this class about nonsense the one poem with strict rules and guidelines to follow?

First, what’s a limerick?

A limerick is an often humorous, short poem popularized by Edward Lear. It is made up of five lines with a strict rhyme scheme of AABBA. The third and fourth lines are often shorter than the other three. Limericks are typically in anapestic meter, meaning it has two unstressed syllables for every stressed syllable.  

You may have heard of the phrase, “There once was as man from Nantucket”. This is the opening line of many limericks (and jokes) and is in anapestic meter.

The earliest published version of this popularized poem appeared in 1902 in the Princeton Tiger written by Prof. Dayton Voorhees: (Life)

There once was a man from Nantucket

Who kept all his cash in a bucket.

But his daughter, named Nan,

Ran away with a man

And as for the bucket, Nantucket.

I was quite delighted by this poem with the playing of rhymes and the song-like nature of the poem.

I quite enjoyed the rhymes especially, as I am sure is the reason many people are drawn to limericks.

After lots of reading and watching videos, I hoped I was ready. I was able to come up with two limericks for the assignment. Here’s one:

There was once a girl hailed from Ann Arbor

Who searched high and low for just one harbor

She found the lakes and rivers a plenty.

Boats and bones and skulls fill up the jetty

As she throws one more, this time a barber?

So I perhaps obviously styled this after the traditional limerick of “there once was a man from…” I have heard “a man from Peru/Nantucket” poem/joke many times when I was growing up, even in cartoons (I distinctly remember it from a Spongebob episode).

I tried to put this poem in anapestic pentameter, and to what I understand, I think I succeeded, but it sounds a little off.

I’m doing my best to try to understand meter, but I am still not quite there yet.

Roethke’s Some Remarks on Rhythm commented on many limericks having “the rhythms of children” (Roethke, 65), so I tried to make the poem sound musical and playful, not just in the rhyming, but hopefully in a little bit of the rhythm.

Since the class focuses partially on Edward Gorey, I flipped through some of his works to get inspired. I love the dark nature of his works and really wanted to capture that and the atmosphere of many contemporaries who draw inspiration from him.

I was inspired by the River Styx from Greek mythology. I also was inspired by the idea from Asimov and Ciardi’s Limericks – Too Gross: or Two Dozen Dirty Dozen Stanzas of contrasting a rhythmic limerick to create darker or raunchier ideas behind the poetry. The girl in the poem is going on a search for a harbor, which seems all nice and fun, perhaps evoking a young girl having fun in the summer, and then you learn she is getting rid of a body. To me that seems a little bit Gorey (or gory-yes bad joke), and creepy as it sounds I kind of like the storyline. I also did ten syllables per line (pentameter) of possibly anapests.

Here’s the second limerick I wrote:

Let’s go to Kalamazoo, to visit

The world’s largest shoe. A child once quipped

It looks better from much farther away.

It smells like some poo, she said in quite disdain.

And all they can say is “oh no, oh shit”.

I’m going to be honest. I have no idea what meter this is in, if it is even in any meter. I don’t think it is, the first line definitely is not. I again was struggling with meter, but I was playing a lot with sounds and rhyming externally as well as internally. This poem is obviously quite a bit goofier than the other poem which makes it fun to me. I played with enjambment quite a bit in this poem and just with “storyline” I guess in general. I also wanted it to be a bit more nonsensical even though I didn’t quite achieve that to the point which I hoped.

I felt like for this one I was really channeling my inner goofiness and laughing at poop jokes and with a touch of a nonsensical storyline to follow.

I noticed a big part of my struggle in both of these poems was starting, and trying to get over an anxiety I have of it being “right” or good or “perfect” or not “stupid”.

Am I now suddenly skilled at limericks? Not really. But honestly, the hardest part of writing these was starting. I obsessively worried about being in meter, if it sounded stupid, if my lines were too short or too long, and I was just self-conscious.

I can be a very self-conscious writer. I question myself; I agonize over sentences or words until it all just sends me in a spiral.

Through it all though, the biggest barrier to writing a limerick was myself. It got easier when I simply just wrote a limerick and tried my best. I didn’t think about others reading it, or it being posted on our class blog until I posted my submission for class.

We can sit and stare at blank pages for hours, but when it all comes down to it, it’s all just words and what we make of them. I hope to return to limericks in the future in the hopes of getting to understand the genre more.

-SS

Citations:

Asimov, Isaac, and John Ciardi. Limericks: Too Gross. W.W. Norton & Company, 1978.

Isham, Mrs. William B. Life, 1903, books.google.com/books?id=p80aAAAAYAAJ&pg=PA274#v=onepage&q&f=false.

Roethke, Theodore. “Some Remarks on Rhythm.” Poetry, vol. 97, no. 1, 1960, pp. 63–74. 

SDSU Children's and Young Adult Scholars at PAMLA

Hello scholars!

We have been looking forward to the PAMLA Conference this weekend! We would especially like to remind you of the panels featuring children’s literature scholars from San Diego State University. 


Thursday, Nov 14th:
In honor of its fifteenth anniversary, former and current judges/essayists for The Lion and the Unicorn Award for Excellence in North American Poetry, along with the award’s founder, its first editor, and its newly appointed second editor will discuss literary prizing, the difficulties of aesthetic judgement, and the award’s history and future. Dr. Thomas will also preside over this event and speak of his roles as Editor (2013-19) and Founding Judge (2005-12; 2017-18) of The Lion and the Unicorn Award for Excellence in North American Poetry. 

Act Four - Literature of the Oxford Inklings

10:15 AM - 11:45 AM  

Jordan Garza, a graduate student in the San Diego State University English Department, will be presenting “An Unexpected Spectacle; Or, the Situationist International Visits the Shire”. J.R.R. Tolkien’s The Hobbit is a children’s literature fantasy novel published in 1937 that, through its depiction of Bilbo and Hobbit society and their drive for remaining in a passive consumerist state, anticipates some of the cultural critiques leveled by the Situationist International a quarter century before its founding.

Friday, Nov 15th: 

Act Four - Gothic II

10:15 AM - 11:45 AM

Phillip Serrato, the new chair of the San Diego State University English Department and a longstanding Children’s Literature faculty member, will be presenting “‘My Dearest Friend’: The Post-Coital Appeal Mad Monster Party? and The Nightmare Before Christmas.” This talk examines the ways that in Mad Monster Party? and The Nightmare Before Christmas a carnivalesque ethos of rule-breaking fun plays out in ideological dimensions such as gender and sexuality. Specifically, this talk proposes that part of the appeal of these films lies in what might be called a post-coital defiance of heteronormative resolution.

Act Four - Young Adult Literature

10:15 AM - 11:45 AM

Our director, Joseph Thomas, will be the presiding officer and chair for three fantastic sounding essays: “Constructing the Young Poet-Activist in Margarita Engle’s Enchanted Air: Two Cultures, Two Wings” by Krystal Howard from California State University - Northridge; “‘Toto, We aren’t in Kansas Anymore’: Resistance and Counterstorytelling in Cynthia Leitich Smith’s Hearts Unbroken” by Michelle Pagni Stewart from Mt San Jacinto Community College District, and “Self Image and the Community in Young Adult Steampunk Novels The Black God’s Drums (2018)” by Melanie Marotta from Morgan State University. 

Act Six - The Lion and the Unicorn Award for Excellence in North American Poetry (Special Event)

3:20 PM - 4:50 PM

Saturday, Nov 16th

Act Nine - Children's Literature I

10:15 AM - 11:45 AM

This panel boasts an impressive lineup of San Diego State University scholars. Katherine Sciurba, Assistant Professor in the School of Teacher Education, will present “March of the Coup Clutz Clowns: The Clown as Figure of Resistance to White Supremacy in David LaMotte’s White Flour;” Linda Salem, Children’s Literature Librarian, will present “Takei Takeo’s Aruki Taro, Clara Breed, and Japanese Illustrated Children’s Literature in Context;” and Mary Galbraith, Children’s Literature Lecturer, will present “The Live Creature: Animal Presence and Inhabiting the World in 20th Century Children’s Novels.”

Act Eleven - Children's Poetry Today: A Creative Writing Reading Featuring Joseph Thomas and Michael Heyman (Special Event)

3:30 PM - 4:40 PM

Michael Heyman and Joseph Thomas will perform a number of children’s poems. Dr. Joseph Thomas will read from “‘Advice for Children (NSFW)’ and Other Poems for Young People” among other works. 

The NCSCL is a sponsor of this year’s PAMLA conference, but many other SDSU scholars will present their works in an array of fields! All SDSU students can attend for FREE; just make sure to bring your student ID card.  

We hope to see you all there!

- (AN) & (SS)

Juan Felipe Herrera's Talk 11/6

On Wednesday, November 6, 2019, San Diego State University's Chicana & Chicano Studies brought Juan Felipe Herrera as part of the Chicana & Chicano Studies' 50^th Anniversary Commemoration: Celebration, Consciousness-Raising, Sowing the Future. Throughout the fall of 2019 and spring of 2020, they are recognizing the founding of the CCS program and fifty years of engagement with social justice-oriented scholarship and community service.

SDSU president Dr. Adela de la Torre introduced Herrera, the poet laureate of the United States 2015-2017 and the first Chicanx poet laureate in this country. She says Herrera "embodies the experience of many people in the community" and provides a voice for those around him: “the work he does speaks to a community rich in culture." He graduated from UCLA with a B.A. in anthropology and received his M.F.A from University of Iowa. He has published 21 books, written musicals, and is involved in arts leadership for children in migrant communities.

I couldn’t help but constantly notice how Herrera embodied an aura of kindness, standing in front of us in all white and flashing a bright smile. As he stood in front of us, one of the first things out of his mouth was "how beautiful it is to be together and united." It is easy to forget the need to be united, but that night, students and faculty alike were united in our captivation of Herrera. We were united by Herrera.

Herrera strives for a kinder world, saying "it is good to become larger than we think we are…it is good to cast our voices out." He practices what he teaches, as many of his poems reflect current politics.

His first reading was the poem "187 Reasons Why Mexicanos Can’t Cross the Border." Herrera actively engaged the audience, having us shout "because" before every line.

"Because

multiplication is our favorite sport…"

"Because

we’ll dig a tunnel to Seattle…"

"Because

it’s Indian land stolen from our mothers…"

"Because

our passport says we’re out of date…"

"Because

people are hanging Milagros on the 2000 miles or border wire…"

"Because

brown is the color of the future…"

Herrera is a voice for the voiceless, but in this poem, we all yelled for those oppressed by the current political climate. He’s not just a voice for others, in this moment he helped us find our own voices. He reminds the audience through his poems that every voice is important, as we yelled "because" 187 times that night.

Herrera also read a touching poem, "California Brown," which lists the names and ages of the victims of the 2017 Parkland shooting.

His voice is inspiring, and in the audience I saw this inspiration. During the reading I kept noticing a man in a brown jacket and a feather in his hat drawing a sketch of Herrera with his name in the background. 

At the end, someone asked Herrera "What’s the next step for Chicanos?" Herrera answers: “It’s our dedication to assist others." The cause for rights for Chicanx people is never over, and we must allow the movement to blossom, and "we have to generate in ourselves the freedom of thought."

Thank you to the SDSU Chicana & Chicano Studies for making this event possible, and we all thank Juan Felipe Herrera for such an amazing and inspiring event.

 -SS

"The Poet X" Is the Next Book You Need to Read

“You need to read The Poet X.”

This is what I texted all my friends as soon as I read the last line of this book; I wanted to tell every person I spoke to that this book would not get out of my head.

Born and raised in New York city and the daughter of Dominican immigrants, Acevedo was a National Poetry Slam Champion and coached for the D.C. Youth Slam Team. The Poet X is her debut novel and quickly became a New York Times Bestseller. It also has won multiple awards including the 2019 Michael L. Printz Award and the 2018 National Book Award for Young People’s Literature. With The Poet X being her debut novel, we are so impressed with her work and cannot wait to see what Acevedo comes out with next. 

The Poet X is a breathtaking novel in verse narrated by the protagonist, Xiomara Batista, who is a passionate and headstrong young Afro-Latina woman growing up in Harlem. Xiomara slowly falls in love with poetry, especially spoken word poetry. Xiomara pours her emotions and reflections of her day to day life into her poetry journal, commenting on topics ranging from pressures from her mother’s religion to gender to sexuality.

Acevedo told Publisher’s Weekly that she “pulls from her experience working with teens and her own high school journals”, which clearly is seen in her poetry, which truly channeling the emotions we can relate to from our teen years. She points to her being first-generation influencing her writing: “There are a lot of the cultural things that inspired aspects of Xiomara, like the ways in which who you are outside of your house is a little bit different than who you must be inside because of the cultural norms that exist. That push and pull that Xiomara carries of being first-generation is something I share.” (Publisher’s Weekly, 2018) Because of her own personal connection, her words evoke so much more meaning and carry weight of being something she has lived through.

Xiomara’s words haunted me at every moment I set down this book. A particularly impactful poem is In Front of My Locker (218). In the poem a boy at school grabs Xiomara inappropriately, and instead of waiting for her friend and crush Aman to say something, she has the realization of not needing to wait for anyone. In the poem In Front of My Locker we see Xiomara standing up for herself:

“For the first time since I can remember I wait.

I can’t fight today. Everything inside me feels beaten…

He’s not going to curse or throw a fit.

He’s not going to do a damn thing.

Because no one will take care of me but me.” (Acevedo, 219)

Xiomara is a girl to look up to, with her strength and dedication driving her actions, even when  everything inside her “feels beaten.” Her emotions are so raw and realistic, and from the first page I found myself cheering for Xiomara and her passion for life.

Acevedo excellently captures the struggles of being a minority teen in her novel, and I can see people everywhere being able to see some of themselves in Xiomara’s story.

“There is power in the word” Xiomara says, and yes, there is power in practically every word of Acevedo’s book. (Acevedo, 353)   

(SS)

Sources:

Acevedo, Elizabeth. The Poet X. HarperTeen, 2018.

https://www.publishersweekly.com/pw/by-topic/childrens/childrens-authors/article/76224-q-a-with-elizabeth-acevedo.html

The Musicality of Poetry for Children and Adults

Perry Nodelman claims in The Pleasures of Children that "Many children first experience the pleasures of literature in the form of poems: rhyming songs or nursery rhymes like [Humpty Dumpty], recited to them long before they themselves can speak or even understand much language (193). Nodelman goes on to say that what poems like "Humpty Dumpty" means is less important "than how it says what it means" (194). JonArno Lawson, a Canadian/American citizen living in Toronto with his family, writes poetry for both children and adults. “Lawson is a four-time winner of the Lion and Unicorn Award for Excellence in North American Children’s Poetry” (https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poets/jonarno-lawson). He’s the author of more ten collections of poetry including, Black Stars in a White Night Sky (2008), A Voweller’s Bestiary (2008), and Down in the Bottom of the Bottom of the Box (2012). So many of us enjoy JonArno Lawson's work because he is a master of word play. Lawson confesses in "A Talk from the Bottom of the Box: Reflections of an Award-winning Poet for Youth" that his "father sang songs a lot of folk songs and songs that had word play in them" (https://youtu.be/F-PyU8HymAk 1:57-2:04). This reinforces Nodelman's point that wordplay not meaning is what makes " ... poems originally intended for adults that editors of collections of poetry thought might interest young readers" so enjoyable (193). Whether the words are read or sang, word play encourages playful thinking.

While we can easily point to the didactic nature of "Daniel in the Lions' Den," the pleasure derived from laughing at a mother lion chastising her cub and encouraging it to wait for a less "scrawny kid" to eat is way more fun to talk about for his audience regardless of age (9). The playful reimagining of the Biblical parable may make die hard Christians shiver at the notion of rewriting such a closely regarded story, but it is harmless fun for everyone else. What’s more fun is the "People Through the Peephole" poem (I absolutely just typed People Through the People and had to correct it) with its playful rearranging of the pieces of compound words (9). The rhythm along with the ē and ō rhyme makes the poem fun to say or sing if you are feeling kind of folksy.

Similarly, there is a catchy musicality that comes with the experience Lawson's poetry whether the audience reads it to themselves or aloud. In "Convincing Contradictions," the additional echo produced by highlighting the musical nature of the work is lightheartedly fascinating. There is the resounding -tions: “Unpredictable predictions./ Hospitable evictions. . . .” and the invasive -osity: “Tight-fisted generosity./ Indifferent curiosity. . . .” (23). On top of all that cleverness there is a neat little line drawn between the antonyms on every line from beginning to end.

Another piece in the collection, "Greenblatt, Goldblatt, Grenby, Grinch" may sound like the name of a cliquish law firm with a not so fun partner, but it too is a poem that recycles syllables for the sake of a poem that a child could easily jump rope to: "Obadiah would you try a little bitta jumbalaya?" (27).  The 'blatt' is repeated in the first two words of the first line of the poem while the 'Gre' in the first word is not repeated until the last two words of the line. And if your tongue isn't already tied up, then the second line won't hurt you much with the 'sc' and 'yard' from the first word being repeated in the second word and the 'inch' from the third word being carried over to the fourth. The catchy tune in the entire poem made me want to break out the jump rope for a trip down memory lane.

All in all, Jon Arno Lawson did it again.

JonArno Lawson’s work can be found at the following presses:

https://www.exileeditions.com/

https://www.kidscanpress.com/

http://www.pedlarpress.com/

http://porcupinesquill.ca/

http://www.annickpress.com/

https://www.wolsakandwynn.ca/

http://www.espresso-chapbooks.com/current.html

https://groundwoodbooks.com/

http://enchanted-lion-books.tumblr.com/

http://www.walker.co.uk/

~Kiedra Taylor