Six Word Resolutions & Goals! A Book Giveaway! And a New Year's Poem For You!

Hiya and HAPPY NEW YEAR!

Before we get to the book giveaway and the poem, I want to share my all-time favorite New Years song with you.  Singing folk songs is one way I learned how to write poetry.  This song is by the wonderful folksinger/songwriter Bruce Phillips, aka Utah Phillips—“The Golden Voice of the Great Southwest—a legend in his own time”.  It’s alternately called Here with You or I Believe if I Lived My Life Again.  One reason I love this tender song is the setting in which we sing it: in a big circle, arms around each other, acappella, exactly at midnight.  My favorite part is the chorus:

I believe if I lived my life again
I'd still be here with you
I believe if I lived my life again
I'd still be here with you

I can’t find an easy download of the music, but the lyrics are here.

Okay…and now, on with our Teaching Authors
New Year contest and book giveaway!

Remember our post (and book giveaway) about setting goals for the new school year?

Remember your own goals?  Well, the six of us at Teaching Authors can’t wait to hear how you’re doing.  And because there are SIX of us, we’d like you to send us a SIX word progress report.   To jog your memory, here's Carmela Martino’s original post about six word memoirs and here is my follow-up post about six word resolutions.

So--how did you do with those fall resolutions?   Who or what hindered you?  Who or what helped you?  Here's the place to 'fess up!  (And remember, we writers also edit—both our writing and our lives.  So if you didn’t quite make that goal, revise it and let us know your new one—in six words or less, of course!)

Here’s my own progress report:
Writing, submitting, teaching—I’m on fire!

What’s yours?  Post it by January 13th and you could win my picture book NEW YEAR AT THE PIER, which Tablet Magazine just named it Best Jewish Picture Book of the Year!  Contest details below.

Wanna Win a Book? Rules:
1) Post one six word progress report on your writing, reading or teaching goal…or your revised goal.
2) Provide your email address or a link to your own blog in your comment so that we can contact you. (U.S. residents only, please.) 
3) Entries must be posted by 11 p.m. Wednesday, January 13, 2010 (Central Standard Time).
4) The winner will be announced by 11 p.m., Friday, January 15, 2010.
Here are the complete rules (scroll down)--g'luck!

And now for the poem...from me to you. (Please imagine that the first stanza below is four lines and all the rest are three lines...this format doesn't allow lines quite that long!)

THIS YEAR

by April Halprin Wayland

Because we lost Fred last year, because I had one last kiss from

Aunt Rose, from Aunt Cissy, from Aunt Polly, from Morrie…

because I want to hold on, hold back, hold them,

because I can’t, because you can’t, because we can’t,

because of this slant of sun on bees buzzing from their white boxes,

because of one spoonful of custard apple, because of this persimmon,

because your guitar, all wood and gut, echoes in rings around these things,

this year

let’s not miss present tense, salty pistachio, soft pianissimo,

let’s not miss sage incense, Native flute, one bite of fruit,

and let’s not miss these arms, these generous arms,

these loving arms, wrapping warm around us

this year.

© April Halprin Wayland

Two things in this New Year: remember to breathe and write with joy.

all drawings by April Halprin Wayland--please credit.