Jabberwalking

by Juan Felipe Herrera Narrated by Juan Felipe Herrera

Overview

U.S. Poet Laureate Juan Felipe Herrera is sharing secrets: how to turn your wonder at the world around you into weird, wild, incandescent poetry.

Can you walk and talk at the same time? How about Jabber Walk? Can you write and draw and walk and journal all at the same time? If not, you're in luck: exuberant, blue-cheesy cilantro man Juan Felipe Herrera, Poet Laureate of the United States, is here to teach you everything he knows about being a real-life, bonified, jabberwalking poet! Jabberwalkers write and speak for themselves and others no matter where their feet may take them - to jabberwalk is to be a poet on the move. And there's no stopping once you're a Jabberwalker, writing fast, fast, fast, scribble-poem-burbles-on-the-run. Scribble what you see! Scribble what you hear! It's all out there - vámonos!

Editorial Reviews

The New York Times Book Review - Julie Fogliano

…a bursting, bubbling, brain-bending adventure into poetry by the former poet laureate Juan Felipe Herrera…Interspersed with fun but useful techniques to turn your "burbles" into "Jabber poems," Jabberwalking is a riotous explosion of a how-to book. Herrera flings open the door, inviting even the most reluctant poets to join him.

Publishers Weekly

★ 01/01/2018
Using the made-up words of Carroll’s “Jabberwocky” as a jumping-off point, former U.S. poet laureate Herrera shows children how riotous verbal exuberance births poetry: “whatever pours out of your bubbly burrito head down to your paper pad thing or liquid screen.” He’s full of bold techniques for releasing the poems inside his readers (“Scribble what you see/ Scribble what you hear/ Scribble out the electric Jabber worms crawling out of your head & eyes”), and his own free verse zigs, zags, and leaps, punc­tuated with scribbled drawings, playful grammar and spelling, and detours into interplanetary surrealism (“It’s me! Zandunga García! From Bunion Junction!”). Along the way, he remembers his farm-worker parents, speaks of being a poet of color in the U.S., and declares that what matters most is “to make all life so beautiful your heart becomes a diamond galaxy.” Most of all, he wants readers to understand that they can be writers, right now: “Let’s go! ¡Vámanos! Slide on your Jabber Booots!” Poetry manuals can make students roll their eyes, but this one may open their hearts. Ages 10–up. Agent: Kendra Marcus, Bookstop Literary. (Mar.)

From the Publisher

JABBERWALKING (Candlewick, 144 pp., $22.99; ages 10 and up) is a bursting, bubbling, brain-bending adventure into poetry by the former poet laureate Juan Felipe Herrera…Interspersed with fun but useful techniques to turn your ‘burbles’ into ‘Jabber poems,’ ‘Jabberwalking’ is a riotous explosion of a how-to book. Herrera flings open the door, inviting even the most reluctant poets to join him.
—The New York Times Book Review

Using the made-up words of Carroll’s “Jabberwocky” as a jumping-off point, former U.S. poet laureate Herrera shows children how riotous verbal exuberance births poetry...Poetry manuals can make students roll their eyes, but this one may open their hearts.
—Publishers Weekly (starred review)

Herrera provides space for budding poets to learn how to write and encourages them to practice using the first secret of this collection: “You do not have to know where you are going! Or what you are saying!” Deeply personal and profoundly unique, this is a highly recommended purchase for every young adult yearning to be heard.
—School Library Journal (starred review)

In the right hands, all the wacky assignments and Herrera's autobiographical "Jabber Notebook" entries will ultimately spawn incandescent thinkers who will leap to the "flamey / Stars!"—or so Herrera hopes. An uncommon DIY for exuberant rule breakers.
—Kirkus Reviews

Including several biographical vignettes (some recalling encouragement from his mother) and frequent black-line cartoons, this book may be the best opportunity most of us will ever have to experiencing a Herrera presentation. And although the casual preteen browser may be left confused, in the hands of a gifted educator, this book has the potential to inspire and encourage young writers.
—Booklist

In a loose and jazzy style (and with a nod to Lewis Carroll), the former U.S. Poet Laureate offers instructions for “Jabberwalking,” or writing poetry while in motion...An enticing explosion of paint colors on the book jacket and a lot of white space on the large square pages will help sell this to teens who might not think of themselves as poets.
—The Horn Book

The author provides oodles of inspiration for students to write their own nonsense word, free-verse poetry.
—Learning Magazine

School Library Journal

★ 04/01/2018
Gr 7 Up—Poets are Jabber Walkers "with eyes of flame" in Herrera's latest for young adults. Applying this extended metaphor from Lewis Carroll's "Jabberwocky," Herrera, former Poet Laureate of the United States, empowers teens to move with their feet and their voices, using written words to break down walls erected by themselves and others. Divided into 15 instructional chapters, Herrera details the life of a Jabber Walker, offering practical guidance to speak one's truth through poetry. The poet is a master at enticing readers, asking them to read quickly or stop and slow down with an inspired use of vocabulary and alliterative combinations ("screechy, scratchy, crackly clouds"); this is further encouraged by black-and-white illustrations, a smart use of white space, and text in varying sizes. "Jabber Notebook" prose entries provide glimpses into Herrera's life: the day his father died, and how he started walking downtown like his Papá Felipe; the first school teacher who believed in him; and being forced to only speak English in school ("Does that happen to you?" he asks readers). Herrera provides space for budding poets to learn how to write and encourages them to practice using the first secret of this collection: "You do not have to know where you are going! Or what you are saying!" VERDICT Deeply personal and profoundly unique, this is a highly recommended purchase for every young adult yearning to be heard.—Rachel Zuffa, Racine Public Library, WI

MAY 2018 - AudioFile

Herrera is at once a wise teacher and an anxious new U.S. poet laureate. The listener must write a poem, he thinks. Herrera is eager to help while he walks his dog, Lotus, and heads to DC’s Library of Congress. This is no passive listen—it’s an experience! There are sound effects as you learn to jabberwalk. Herrera’s excitement guides the jabberwalking—gathering inspiration and making scribbles and burbles. The listener’s poem will be brilliant—but the process is what this book is all about. Herrera stops his instruction for short remembrances of his childhood. The narration is less a book than a 1.5-hour spoken-word performance/writing lesson/kick in the pants to get writing. Take Herrera’s advice and listen during a jabberwalk of creative inspiration. M.P.P. © AudioFile 2018, Portland, Maine

Kirkus Review

2017-12-11
In the spirit of Alice's madcap adventure down the rabbit hole, this stream-of-consciousness, metafictive exploration of the poetic process dips in and out of imagined reality as easily as the Cheshire Cat winks in and out of sight. Herrera, a former United States Poet Laureate, launches with an exhortation to "Slide on your Jabber Booots!" Taking writing pad in hand, "You have to move fast!" if "Your burbles are going to become a / Seismic & Crazy Epic Poem!" Herrera's rules for Jabberwalking-poets-in-waiting are simple: 1) "You do not have to know where you are going! / Or what you are saying!" 2) "move!" 3) "SCRIBBLE your burbles, your words of things…Jabber!" In this topsy-turvy vision, the brain is really a burrito that spews cosmos-changing revelations to anyone paying attention. "After four hours of nonstop Jabberwriting… / YOU! In four hours—will have an… / ALMOST-BOOK!" The challenge is to interpret the resulting scribbled "burbles," but fear not, the challenge isn't really a challenge because no one is expected to "understand" or "decipher." A Jabberwalker's sole directive is to create something that's not a "typical poem!" Between looking for the narrator's dog, Lotus, flying to the Library of Congress, landing on the word planet Pluto, and meeting a couple of Jabberbloggers, Jabberwalkers everywhere will have hopped, flown, and leapt through shape-changing exultations that have freed their "Mind-Brains." In the right hands, all the wacky assignments and Herrera's autobiographical "Jabber Notebook" entries will ultimately spawn incandescent thinkers who will leap to the "flamey / Stars!"—or so Herrera hopes.An uncommon DIY for exuberant rule breakers. (Nonfiction. 12-16)

Product Details

BN ID:	2940173489975
Publisher:	Brilliance Audio
Publication date:	03/13/2018
Edition description:	Unabridged
Age Range:	8 - 11 Years

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