Poetry

Recognition

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Recognition is important. We all need a pat on the back here and there, or just an acknowledgment of our efforts, if not a final accomplishment. It’s what fuels our moving forward, or simply trying again.

When we work so hard at something, it’s nice to have someone say so. In this case, I recently received the awards package from Northern Lights Book Awards for my picture book, Where Do Butterflies Go at Night? 2nd Edition. It includes these beautiful gold seals to affix to books, and a certificate. They made the recognition tangible.

This acknowledgment may not mean much to you unless you know me personally, and how long I’ve been involved in children’s books. Years. Decades. Intense periods and fallow periods. It takes a long time to see your work in print, whether traditionally published, as this book initially was, or self-published, and all the work I put into that.

What seems like a lifetime ago, in 2011, I received an award from the Dog Writers Association of America in the Painting/Art Category for this Frenchie drawing. It was submitted by someone I knew who hadn’t told me they’d done so. The announcement was a complete surprise. A very lovely one. I consider myself lucky to have received both these awards.

But the reality is that we don’t always get external acknowledgments like these, no matter how long or often we’ve been trying.

And the reality also is that you have actually accomplished a lot that’s worthy of recognition. It could be any number of things – pushing through disappointments of all kinds and coming out on the other side; surviving a break-up; losing a loved one; finishing a project; accomplishing a goal; keeping quiet when you really wanted to blow-up; accepting change.

It really can be anything. Sometimes just getting out of bed in the morning can be an accomplishment.

Take a moment and give yourself a pat on the back. Stand a little taller. In some way that I, and most people, can’t see and may never know, you have still done good. Congratulations. Keep going. You’re doing better than you think.

I Am Honored

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I am both honored and grateful to have received an award for my picture book, Where Do Butterflies Go at Night? 2nd Edition.

My book is the 2025 winner in the Poetry Category from Northern Lights Book Awards, who “Honor Children’s Literature of Exceptional Merit.” This is especially meaningful to me as a writer, as writing is something I have loved to do most of my life, and continue to do today.

They wrote, “Thank you for the enchanted time you gave our judges. It was a pleasure and an honor to read your book.” I am humbled.

I am also always grateful for Stella’s beautiful artwork, and that together, in words and images, we can take you through the rich imagination of a child who wonders where these magical butterflies go when daylight fades.

Butterflies is available on Amazon by clicking on the book cover found in the navigation.

Theme in Yellow

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I spot the hills

With yellow balls in autumn.

I light the prairie cornfields

Orange and tawny gold clusters

And I am called pumpkins.

On the last of October

When dusk is fallen

Children join hands

And circle round me

Singing ghost songs

And love to the harvest moon;

I am a jack-o’-lantern

With terrible teeth

And the children know

I am fooling.

~ Carl Sandburg

Photo: karola g/pexels

Ocean Poem

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It’s the last hurrah of summer. I rarely share my poetry online, but … here I am.

Ocean

Foam, waves, tripple around my feet
now gloriously raw from the pebbles and shell bits.
White bubbling sea patterns
rushing up cold to catch me
in their beckoning game,
spitting up dares from amidst green breakers
and blended from a cerulean horizon.
Yes, I’m red-raw, but come `round me,
I see you so little, my friend.

© Jeanne Balsam

National Poetry Month – April 30th

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It’s the end of April and the end of National Poetry Month. I felt we were overdue for a love poem.

PERMANENTLY

One day the Nouns were clustered in the street.
An Adjective walked by, with her dark beauty.
The Nouns were struck, moved, changed.
The next day a Verb drove up, and created the Sentence.

Each Sentence says one thing – for example, “Although it was a dark, rainy day when the Adjective walked by, I shall remember the pure and sweet expression on her face until the day I perish from the green, effective earth.”

Or, “Will you please close the window, Andrew?”

Or, for example, “Thank you, the pink pot of flowers on the window sill has changed color recently to a light yellow, due to the heat from the boiler factory which exists nearby.”

In the springtime, the Sentences and the Nouns lay silently on the grass.
A lonely conjunction here and there would call, “And! But!”
But the Adjective did not emerge.

As the adjective is lost in the sentence,
So I am lost in your eyes, ears, nose, and throat –
You have enchanted me with a single kiss
Which can never be undone
Until the destruction of language.

– Kenneth Koch