Tag Archives: Sheila Murray-Nellis

Holes: A Pocket Poem by Sheila Murray-Nellis

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I’m filling all the holes with sea.
I’ve dug deep down
–come dig with me!

So begins the Pocket Poem called Holes, by Sheila Murray-Nellis. Holes is a rhyming poem about the fun of digging holes in the sand and the action of the waves on the holes. It is also a poem about digging deeper in life and the joy of breaking down barriers.

At least that’s what it means to me.

The poem is printed on the solid side of hand marbled paper. The cover shows two children digging a hole in the sand and the inside cover is printed with a crashing wave.

Since the inside pages are pastel, write me a note in the comment section below if you have a color preference and I will try to honor your request.





Mouse Poems

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Mouse Poems Pocket Poem

A spoonful of poems

Mouse Poems began as a little book of poems written by the little mouse in Fiona, the Theater Mouse, a book that is also for sale. There are six poems in Mouse Poems. Each poem is separated by a marbled page. A child can look at the swirls in the marbled colors on the page and imagine what is going on in the poem.

When I was little, I really enjoyed looking at swirling colors like these. It’s similar to the experience children have of watching the shapes in clouds or in the splashes of waves. Although there are no defined pictures, there are suggestions and the child can create his or her own ideas of what may be happening on the page.

You can read a couple of examples from this pocket poem book on this page: Mouse Poems





Pocket Poem #1: Lamb

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This is my first pocket poem, ready to go. The poem is about a lamb that we bottle fed when my sons were small. It is also about joy and naming.

 

Pocket Poem with Eyeglasses

This photo gives you an idea of the relative size of a pocket poem.

 





 

 

 

 

 

 

Each Lamb Pocket Poem is printed on hand marbled paper. The pages are hand sewn and the cover is glued on.

The cover photo is of my son Aaron herding the young lambs in the meadow. At the time, we had about seventy ewes on the Laurentian farm in the province of Quebec where we lived. We were raising the sheep to milk and to make cheese, though we also sold the fattened lambs for meat and the sheared fleece once a year.

Sometimes in the winter, a lamb would be born in the barn during a cold snap. The little newborn lamb would be in danger of freezing, especially if he were born to an inexperienced mother who didn’t lick him quickly enough. These were the lambs we would bring inside to be warmed by our wood stove.

The children were delighted to wake in the morning to the sound of baaing coming from an over-sized cardboard box in the kitchen. We took turns feeding the little one from the bottle that happened to be the right size for the lamb-sized artificial nipple — a green beer bottle.

The poem I wrote as a reflection of the experience I have titled simply “Lamb.” I hope you enjoy it.

I had to reformat the original poem to fit on such small pages and still be readable, but I don’t think it did the poem any harm. Perhaps it even improved it.

The pocket poem has 15 pages of text interspersed with 18 pages of marbling and a few blank pages.

A Pocket Poem for You

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Pocket Poem with Eyeglasses

This photo gives you an idea of the relative size of a pocket poem.

Welcome to Pocket Poem!

A website to introduce Pocket Poem

What is a Pocket Poem?

A Pocket Poem is a pocket-sized book with a poem inside. A Pocket Poem is my way to bring poems into the open. Because each Pocket Poem has only one poem or a few very short poems in it, you can read a pocket poem quickly. You won’t feel intimidated by the poem because it is short and, besides, it’s in such a small book. And you’re bigger than it is.

When I tell people I am a poet, I am usually met with that glassed over look. Most people either say they don’t like poems, or they don’t understand poems, or they simply just do not read poems.

I got this idea to make Pocket Poems as a way to get poems out into the public. I like the look of them. They’re small. They’re handy. Even small children can have fun flipping through them because a pocket poem is probably the tiniest book they have ever read.

And because of its size and length, you cannot be afraid of a Pocket Poem. You can laugh at it if you want to, but fear? Never!

So here are my first Pocket Poems. I think they’re kind of cute.

I could be accused of not taking my poems seriously enough by presenting them in this way, but what the heck. People aren’t reading many poems these days anyway. Who knows? Maybe you will take a chance on a cute little book with a fancy cover.

A Pocket Poem can even be thought of as useful as you can stick one into an envelope. They are very easy to share. A Pocket Poem can be a way to connect you to someone who lives far away or even just down the street. They could even connect you to strangers if you want to leave one or two behind somewhere.

If you find a Pocket Poem at a bus stop or in a rest room in your travels, please leave a comment in the guestbook below to let me know. This may be a fun way to see if my Pocket Poems are actually alive and kicking out there in the world!

I hope to hear from you!