Illustration by Thea Green, 13, for the story “Penny’s Journey”, Published November/December 2005 A Note from William Rubel I came back from Kenya to my home in Santa Cruz, California, to find that spring had finally arrived. We had had such a wet—and for us, cold—winter! I hope that all of you are enjoying a lovely spring. My garden is lush with foliage and alive with flowers. But it is not a normal city garden. It is a wild garden, a garden of wild plants. I pull out all the grasses, but otherwise I let the wild plants grow—“weeds,” as some call them. Water a weed garden, and nature presents you with a paradise! Wherever you live, even in the most built-up parts of a built-up city, you will find beautiful flowering “weeds.” For this weekend’s photography project, I’d like you to go out to your garden, if you have one, and also to take a walk in your neighborhood. At this time of year you will find flowering weeds wherever there is dirt—including in sidewalk cracks. Use your phone or camera to draw out the beauty in the dandelion and in the other wild plants you find. Perhaps your day looking at urban weeds will convince you to let them into your garden as I have! If you take a photograph that you feel is especially good, please submit it to Stone Soup so Emma can consider it for publication. Thank you! I’d like to say something about the poem “Some Days,” which you will find as the last entry in this newsletter. The poem asks questions about something that is really, really important. It is a poem that explores a question that those of you who have not yet reached university will be able to study when you are there: How is identity constructed? You are a girl. You love pink. Why? Were you born loving pink, or do you love it because ever since your mother’s baby shower—which means before you were even born—everyone around you associated you, a girl, with the love of pink. We can all agree that a dragon is a fiction—a made-up creature. In her poem, Olivia seems to ask whether our identity as boys, girls, men, and women might not also be something of a fiction, like the dragon. Thank you, Olivia, for making us think. Until next week, Focus on poetry for the final days of National Poetry Month! To celebrate National Poetry Month, we are offering a discount on the wonderful Stone Soup Book of Poetry, a collection of 120 poems published in Stone Soup between 1988 and 2011. Pick up print copies at 25% off, and eBook editions at half price in the Stone Soup Online Store through April 2019. And, for more poetry ideas, don’t forget to visit the Academy of American Poets’ website—in particular, check our their “Dear Poet” initiative. Just click on their logo below: Highlights from the past week online Don’t miss the latest content from our Book Reviewers and Young Bloggers at Stonesoup.com. New blogger Oishee Sinharay urges us to take animal abuse seriously: “When people abuse animals, they often forget that animals, no matter what kind, are living, thinking, beings.” Read more here, but be aware it is an upsetting topic. On Thursday, we published a piece by Abigail Herrington that goes over some interesting traditions that people in Poland have to mark springtime. Read Abigail’s post to find out about Śmigus-Dyngus or “Wet Monday,” and the Drowning and Burning of Marzanna. From Stone Soup, March 2019 Some Days By Olivia Cadham, 11 Some days I am a girl. On these days I like to giggle and play with toys. I wear bright blue clothes and shirts with cats on them. When I feel like a girl, my feelings change. I feel kind and happy. I like being a girl. But . . . There is a downside. My heart is bigger than on other days. It becomes too big for my body. This causes my feelings to mix together, and that results in emotional drama. This doesn’t make me want to be a girl. So . . . Some days I am a boy. On these days I like to be silly and play rough. I wear darker clothes, like blue, black, or red. When I’m a boy, I feel like my body fits me better. Sometimes it’s as if God intended me to physically be a boy, but changed his mind at the last second. I like being a boy. But . . . Sometimes I feel like I’m too awkward to be a boy. I’m not a very sporty person, and I don’t like jokes. This causes me to appear abnormal and too “sensitive.” This doesn’t make me want to be a boy. So . . . Some days I am a dragon. On these days I like to stomp through the hallways and growl under my breath. I wear light clothing on these days so, being a Dutch Angel Dragon, my fur doesn’t overheat. When I’m a dragon, I like to use pronouns like it, they, them, and their. But . . . Dragging around invisible wings, horns, and a tail all day gets exhausting really fast. I get agitated, and sometimes chirp swears (or something rude) in my language. Even though no one can understand, it is not a good feeling to be cursing, even if it’s an accident. This doesn’t make me want to be a dragon. So . . . It’s really quite simple. I make another choice . . . to be Olivia, who is currently a dragon (roar!!!). Read more reflective poetry on our website, Stonesoup.com. Stone Soup’s advisors: Abby Austin, Mike Axelrod, Annabelle Baird, Jem Burch, Evelyn Chen, Juliet Fraser, Zoe Hall, Montanna Harling, Alicia & Joe Havilland, Lara Katz, Rebecca Kilroy, Christine Leishman, Julie Minnis, Jessica Opolko, Tara Prakash, Denise Prata, Logan Roberts, Emily Tarco, Rebecca Ramos Velasquez, Susan Wilky
Stone Soup Magazine for young readers, writers, and artists
Reaching Marginalized Communities
About our Spring 2019 Fundraiser Help Stone Soup Expand its Reach Our spring 2019 fundraising drive is focused on raising additional funds to support our programs and partnerships reaching out to kids living in challenging circumstances. All the money raised through this appeal will be devoted to finding new ways to seek out and support the harder-to-reach Stone Soup readers and contributors of today and tomorrow. We want to encourage participation in the world of Stone Soup by children in less privileged circumstances. We are already working on a few initiatives that contribute to this broader goal, and your donations will help us to continue and expand those projects. Reaching a Wider Contributor Base Via Public Libraries We charge a small fee for submissions to Stone Soup, which covers the costs to us of using an online submissions management system and contributes to the staff time it takes to carefully read and assess every single submission that comes in to us–which is what we do. Our individual subscribers have free submissions whilst they are subscribers, and the submission fee is not a barrier to our core readership. However, for many families, a personal subscription to Stone Soup is not affordable, and the submission fee is off-putting or just plain impossible for children living in less privileged circumstances. To help us find and reach a wider audience we want to extend the free submissions benefit to Public Libraries, so that all children who use their local library’s Stone Soup subscription to submit their work to us will be able to do so free of charge. We hope and believe that this public access will help us to help less advantaged young people send us their work, free of any submission fees, for consideration by our Editor. Donate to widen Stone Soup’s reach As well as asking for cash support, we are also devoting all the money raised from sales of a vintage copy of Stone Soup Magazine to this campaign. In a recent re-organization we found a box of 60 copies of a very special issue from our archives–the “Special Navajo Issue” from March/April 1989. The 1989 special issue was comprised solely of short stories, poetry, and artwork by children living on Navajo reservations. Looking at this issue again, we felt it was an inspiring example of the kind of work Stone Soup has done and can do to bring often unheard children’s voices into the open. We have put those issues on sale in our online store, and have committed to putting all proceeds from its sale towards our current efforts to reach marginalized communities. With this money, we can work on more initiatives like our extension of free submissions to Public Libraries. We have 60 copies of the magazine available in our online store, at $15 per copy, and if we sell them all we’ll raise $900 from that alone. You can find and place your order for the issue in our online store. Help us support the writers of tomorrow
Polish Traditions for Spring
Spring! The time for new beginnings, beautiful flowers, the burning of effigies made in the image of the Slavic goddess of winter and a national holiday devoted to splashing each other with water, well at least in Poland. Śmigus-Dyngus or “Wet Monday” Śmigus-Dyngus is holiday in which people participate in giant water fights. The holiday is celebrated on the Monday that immediately follows Easter. In the past it was only young men and women who would do the water fight. The young men would whack the legs of the young women and pour water over the girl’s head as a way of showing affection. A bit odd, isn’t it? Now the water fight is welcome to everyone, young and old, male or female. The origins of this holiday actually come from two holidays: Śmigus, and Dyngus. Śmigus was a holiday that involved the whacking of people’s legs with palm fronds and willows. Dyngus was a holiday that involved drenching people in water to cleanse them of their sins. The holidays eventually were combined to form the joint holiday Śmigus-Dyngus. The water is supposed to evoke rains for a good harvest next year. Happiness and health are themes commonly attributed to Śmigus-Dyngus. The Drowning and Burning of Marzanna Marzanna is the Slavic goddess of winter. In Poland, people make effigies of the goddess which they proceed to burn, then drown. This symbolizes the departure of winter and the readiness for spring. This ritual is usually done around March 21st or around Spring Equinox. It is very important to throw all parts of the effigies into the river. Not an ash or accessory is spared. There is also sometimes singing or reciting of old verses such as “Marzanna, Marzanna, swim across the seas. Let flowers bloom, and fields turn green.” This tradition is interesting and, dare I say, a little morbid. Conclusion Poland has some very interesting traditions for spring. Smigus-Dyngus is the holiday in which people are drenched in water. It’s celebrated on the Monday after Easter and I, personally, think that a giant water fight with all of my town would be very fun. The other tradition I talked about was the drowning and burning of Marzanna. Marzanna is the Slavic goddess of winter and effigies are made in her image then burned to signify the ending of winter. Poland would be very fun to visit in the spring.
