Author Visit to Redmond Middle School

I was recently invited by the teachers and librarian at Redmond Middle School (RMS) to make an 'Author Visit' and present my poetry and art to RMS 6th grade classes (all 11 of them - totaling about ~330 students).

RMS certainly rolled out the red carpet for me:

If I'd ever wondered what my name would look like up in the lights ... here it was!

Hallway display with samples of my art and copies of my book!

Seating space set up in the RMS library

I conducted five 40-minute sessions meeting 2 to 3 6th grade classes at a time. I split each session between introducing myself, reading a few poems from my book (including talking about sources, inspiration, the writing process, rejected poems, alternate endings, forms, styles and intentional poetry construction), conducting an interactive poetry-plus-drawing exercise, showing and talking about some of my art, (for some classes) showing how to draw cartoon faces and expressions, and fielding questions.

Above: sharing one of my early formative experiences with the combination of poetry and cartooning, a 1954 MAD Magazine cartoon interpretation of Edgar Allan Poe's The Raven by comic genius Will Elder.  Since this comic is almost impossible to find, and well worth reading for any poetry or comic fan, here are links to the panels:

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Above: Reading a poem (titled 'Curse of the Catchy Tune') from my book. Here the kids are raising their hands in response to my question: "How many of you have a song stuck in your head RIGHT NOW?!?"

Above: Interactive drawing exercise with the kids where I first read a poem to the kids ('The Yipiyuk' by Shel Silverstein), then ask them to imagine the creature and give me one-word descriptive adjectives. We collect a bunch of these adjectives and then I draw the cumulative creature for the kids. Yes, this is design by committee and the results are well worth it. 

By the end of the sessions, many of the kids were excited (and, I like-to-think inspired - at least a couple came up to me and professed they love to write poems and draw and want to "do what you do")(My response: "Go for it and let nothing stop you!!!"). One class even took my business cards and insisted I autograph each and everyone of them. So touching and humbling! :)

Thank you RMS 6th graders for being such a wonderful and engaged audience. And many thanks to the School Librarian and Language Arts Teachers for inviting me.

I am looking forward to visiting RMS again in the future. Go Grizzlies! And never stop chasing bubbles!

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