Remember back in April when I mentioned the idea of a traveling trophy to celebrate the March Madness Poetry tournament? Well, after seven long months of procrastinating and one month of trying …
“The Thinkier” has finally come to life!
I’m very pleased with how it turned out. The statue itself is bronze and very well made. The base is real marble. It weighs 8.6 pounds, which is crazy-heavy for its smallish size. To give you a better sense, here’s what it looks like next to a set of familiar kids’ poetry books:
The one downside of the trophy’s quality is that, unfortunately, it’s rather costly to ship overseas, so our March Madness Poetry 2012 champion Stephen Cahill has agreed to forego receiving the physical trophy and will instead settle for showing it off virtually.
For this year, anyways.
I just extended Stephen his official invitation to join the March Madness Poetry 2013 event. He accepted, making him the first of sixty-four authletes (<--I still love this word) vying to become next year's champion. Details for how YOU can sign up for next year's event will be shared in early January. Due to the high expected number of applicants, tournament spots will not be awarded on a first come, first served basis as they were last year. Exact process has not yet been finalized. Stephen will also stop by TKT for an interview in January. If you have any questions you'd like to ask him -- e.g., "How did you spend the #MMPoetry prize money?", "Are you a household name in Ireland now?", "What was it like to meet Bono?" -- submit them via the right sidebar form and I'll ask him. In the meantime, it is up to you to introduce The Thinkier to the rest of the world! Share this post, pin the picture(s), whatever you can do to show people that kids’ poetry is compelling, enjoyable, exciting, and worthy of an award like this.
