Have you already been enjoying your winter school holidays? Here in WA we are JUST STARTING our school holidays this afternoon. It’s great holiday weather in Perth. As I look out my window I can see blue, blue skies.
In addition to being in a holidayish mood, I am very excited to announce that we are holding a poetry festival right here on Soup Blog. For the rest of July and all of August we will be celebrating poetry and poets. Bring all your friends! Bring your teachers! Bring your grandparents! Bring your dog!
What will be happening during our poetry festival?
I’m so glad you asked. We’ll have tips for reading poetry, we’ll be sharing some poems we love (oldies but goodies), talking to a number of Australian children’s poets about their writing, and every Tuesday we’ll offer you a tiny poem challenge. We’ll also feature Poetry Prescriptions from our visiting children’s poets — poetry is good for the soul!
When does this festival start?
On Monday 8 July 2013! Be sure to check back then. We’ll be launching the Soup Blog Poetry Festival with the very first poem we published in Alphabet Soup magazine. (I wonder if any of you can remember what it was?) On Tuesday we’ll have our first tiny poem challenge for you. And on Thursday we’ll have a first of our Australian poets visiting — Jackie Hosking.
See you then!
~ Rebecca (Soup Blog’s editor)
alphabetsoup.net.au 
Hooray for Australian children’s poetry! My poetry anthology, Our Home is Dirt by Sea, has been accepted by Walker Books Australia and I have compiled another two for them as well, Every Day is a Birthday and All Sing with Hilda. No publication dates yet, though.
Great that you are touring poets, as well, Rebecca. Keep up the great work!
Thanks, Di – is Our Home is Dirt by Sea your own poems or did you compile the poems for that one too? Either way, I can’t wait to read it! (And the other two to follow.) We’re really looking forward to celebrating poetry and poets here on the blog, it seems like a cosy way to spend the rest of winter. 🙂
~ Rebecca
Hi Rebecca! No, Our Home is Dirt by Sea is an anthology, that is, a collection of poems by other (Australian) poets. A collection is a book of a single poet’s works. I write poems (children’s and adults) but I’m not as good a poet as I’d like to be, say as good as my husband, Bill Condon, who has published a number of collections. I wanted to compile an anthology which contained poems — as much as possible — by contemporary poets. Before too long I will write an article about the difficult art of compilation.