Monthly Archives: September 2012

A Poem as Big as New York City is featured in an article on New York Metro Parents.

"The book includes 74 color illustrations...that reflect the playfulness and whimsy of the children’s poetry. Together, images and words dance, jump, and stroll down crowded sidewalks, taking readers from the South Street Seaport to The Apollo Theater and everywhere in between."

Read the whole review here!

Barbara Flug Colin has been selected to receive the 2012 Bechtel Prize for her essay "Now Let's Stare at the Purple." Read more about the prize-winning work here.

A Poem as Big as New York City, the children's book adapted from work written by kids in T&W programs, made the September 9 New York Times. Read the review here!

The fall issue of Teachers & Writers Magazine is now out, featuring excerpts from our new book, A Poem as Big as New York City; exercises and ideas for creating your own community poem project; an interview with writer Verlyn Klinkenborg, author of the newly-released Several Short Sentences About Writing; a look at Houston Writers in the Schools partnership with the Menil Collection, a local art museum; profiles of two longtime Buffalo, NY-based teaching artists; and the following essay by Oregon-based writer Michael Copperman.  We look forward to hearing your responses to the issue!

 A Kid Named A.

by Michael Copperman

A., a tall, thin kid from North Portland, A. of the backward cap and the swaggering slouch, was so confused about his thesis in class that he sat tapping his pencil and shifting in his seat all class long. He needed to identify the reason he felt speech regulations on college campuses should be banned. He wanted to say “freedom of speech” was the reason, and I asked him why freedom of speech was useful to students on college campuses, and he frowned, furrowed his brow, shrugged and then stared down at what he had written as if the words might appear on the page through sheer intensity of stare. 

After class, he lingered at the front of the classroom and asked again, “What should I say?” “What you think is right and makes sense,” I told him, and despite his persistence, I would not give him “the answer.” That attitude of “just tell me” is common among even the better students who make it to college out of our overcrowded and under-resourced public schools: they care about doing well, but have rarely been asked to figure things out themselves, let alone had their own opinions valued and evaluated on clarity and merit. We went in circles, and finally he stood with his hands at his sides in despair. (more...)

A POEM AS BIG AS NEW YORK CITY is a delightful book-length poem that spreads the wonder and joy that is New York, as told through the words of its young people. Lyrical, heartfelt, and bursting with imagination, A POEM AS BIG AS NEW YORK CITY proves that a poem can be as vast and exciting as the greatest city in the world.

Check out an early review of the book.

Purchase A POEM AS BIG AS NEW YORK CITY directly from Rizzoli, New York. Also available from Amazon.com and BarnesandNoble.com.

Find out more about A Poem as Big as New York City here.