If you read two of my books: “Good Luck Gold and ``” and “Suitcase Full of Seaweed and More” and listen to this podcast on Mindful, Happy Kids, you’ll know more about me than my friends from kindergarten. In fact, I should tell people I meet to read these books and we’ll save a lot of getting to know you time. These collections of poems both have poems that were previously written with added backstory and writing prompts. The subject matter is all over the map.
Janet is a Yale law school graduate gone poet so that she didn’t turn into a “mean person”. She wanted to work with kids but knew that she couldn’t be a teacher so she went to a bookstore with a child and ended up with what most of us do, an armload full of books. The rest is herstory.
Her father is Chinese and her mother is Korean.
Right now there is more Asian hate because of the pandemic than since her childhood. She fears for her physical safety and that of her 86-year-old father. It's very hard right now to be Asian American.
Works with kids for past three decades. “When things don’t make sense, that’s the time to write.” Starting a new program, Think Poetry where they will be helping classes of kids publish their poetry books. Validates that what they have to say is important, especially for the reluctant reader/writer.
Poetry 101, 201, 401 teaching adults to participate in writing poetry books. Need more books with greater diversity. She works with Sylvia Vardell on many of her projects.
Poetry Power Fridays for different age groups, activities, writing prompts and poems.
Good Morning for principals and other administrators so that they can start the day with a poem.
“Hop to It” anthology of movement (you can lister to one of the poems on the podcast). Janet loves eating and writing about food!
Decided to deal with a lack of poetry presses by starting Pomelo Press about ten years ago.
Have to listen to the podcast to hear her very interesting bucket list.
Here's a link to her website:
Here's a link to Pomelo Press, her and Sylvia's press:
https://pomelobooks.com/
And, a link to the podcast on Mindful, Happy Kids:
Interview with Dr. Elisabeth Paige