Oh Dirty River by Helen Lehndorf

The town where I grew up


was small, ugly and smelledlike burning blood.



Most of the dads and


a lot of the mums andheaps of the big brothers and sisters

worked at the Freezing Works.



Thousands of cows and sheep


and even a few hundred pigs

would get trucked in, slaughtered,chopped up and packaged
in cling film each day.



The burning-blood smell

came from the incineratorwhere

Children's Poets Laureates

Most of us think of THE Poet Laureate as the one that represents our country. For the U.S., that is Natasha Trethewey who was recently appointed to serve a second term as U.S. Poet Laureate Consultant in Poetry.
But many U.S. states and cities have also been designating laureates on a local level.

I'm pleased that there have also been more appointments for children�s poets laureate. Here are three recent appointments.

Children�s Poet Laureate for Wales named at National Urdd Eisteddfod" from Wales Online

�Former Urdd Eisteddfod chair Aneirin Karadog has been named as Wales� next Children�s Poet Laureate. Mr. Karadog said, �The role involves working with young people during their formative years, when the imagination is so alive.... One of the appealing factors is a chance to re-light my own imagination through theirs.��

"UK�s first black children�s laureate: new history curriculum could alienate pupils� from The Guardian (UK)
�Ted Hughes, then poet laureate, and his friend and fellow author Michael Morpurgo devised the laureateship�first awarded in 1999 to illustrator Quentin Blake�to mark a lifetime�s contribution to children�s literature and highlight the importance of children�s books. Previous children�s laureates include Jacqueline Wilson, Anne Fine, Michael Rosen, Anthony Browne and Morpurgo.... Blackman is the eighth children�s laureate, inheriting the role from the Gruffalo author Julia Donaldson.�


From The Los Angeles Times "Poetry Foundation names Kenn Nesbitt its children�s poet laureate

�The Poetry Foundation announced Tuesday that Revenge of the Lunch Ladies author Kenn Nesbitt will be its next children�s poet laureate, a position the foundation created in 2006 to recognize that �children have a natural receptivity to poetry and are its most appreciative audience.�... This honor is not related to the U.S. poet laureate, who is named by the Library of Congress. Nor is it connected to regional poets laureate, such as Eloise Klein Healy in Los Angeles or Juan Felipe Herrera, California�s poet laureate. Nesbitt succeeds J. Patrick Lewis as the fourth poet to hold the position. His numerous books for children�all of them full of child-appropriate silliness�include The Tighty-Whitey Spider, My Hippo Has the Hiccups, and My Foot Fell Asleep. In an interview with outgoing laureate Lewis, Nesbitt listed influences including Lewis Carroll, MAD magazine, and �that greatest of all children�s poets, Anonymous.��

Palmy by Jennifer Compton

Some injudicious thoughts about this city. Nothing else
can be written.



I perch in my flat on top of the Square at that dullest
hour before dawn,

wreathed in Happy by Clinique For Men from Farmers in the
Plaza.

I lurk in the mirrored department of luxury and when the
girls go off

to mend their hair and drink tea I spray at random. I love
perfume

but don't want to smell the same night

Some Last Things by Sam Rasnake

So many words to say now he'll never say though

he feels their weight in silence, though he needs

their meanings, he knows he won't find them,



still they bite at his tongue � what he once questioned

he knows for fact, what he once believed, he's long since

forgotten or dreamed away � if you whisper your truths,



they'll disappear, he'd say, so he never whispers them �

and when he

Untitled (If You Have Linen Women) by Robin Hyde

If you have linen
women, raspberry women


Red and thick of the mouth, with dock-leaf women
(Little light foxy spores � mind them, such women,)
If you have green grape women, flour-bin women,
Amber-in-forest, wild-mint-scented women,
Trey-bit in church or drudging kit-bag women,
Little sad bedraggled wind-has-weazened-one women,
White bean women, perhaps anemone women.
And harp-like facing the