About the Author

JonArno Lawson

Born in Hamilton, Ontario and raised nearby in Dundas, JonArno Lawson's most formative experiences as a child occurred in Florida which he visited for an extended stay at the age of eight. Happy to be missing almost an entire year of school, he filled his days at the beach digging holes and collecting shells and coconuts, travelling in glass-bottomed boats and touring nature parks that featured free-roaming monkeys and parrots. He wore a ship captain's hat at all times, and a green pouch in which he kept dozens of ticket stubs, a musket ball, brass souvenir coins that bore the faces of various American presidents, and other treasures which he hoards to this day. JonArno is a two-time winner of the Lion and the Unicorn Award for Excellence in North American Children's Poetry, for Black Stars in a White Night Sky in 2007 and again in 2009 for A Voweller's Bestiary. In 2011 his poetry collection Think Again was short-listed for the Ruth and Sylvia Schwartz Children's Book Award. JonArno lives in Toronto with his wife Amy Freedman and his children Sophie, Ashey and Joseph, all of whom assist the author with phrases, topics and sometimes even complete lines for use in his poems.

Books by this Author
But It's So Silly

But It's So Silly

A Cross-cultural Collage of Nonsense, Play and Poetry
More Info
Down in the Bottom of the Bottom of the Box

The Truth

There is an important truth;
that seems both consistent and constant to me:
The truth is that the truth is never
What anybody wants it to be.

close this panel
Sidewalk Flowers

Sidewalk Flowers

by JonArno Lawson
illustrated by Sydney Smith
also available: Hardcover
More Info
The Hobo's Crowbar

Under a Billboard at Bathurst and Eglinton

Under a billboard at Bathurst and Eglinton
Using nothing but my eyes
I bought some clouds?
Because they were big and self-sufficient

but I bought them too for protection?
Since a friend of mine
Once safely walked this same street
under similar clouds

They passed over the same sidewalks she passed over
But the past can't be touched, and you can't touch clouds
And there's something wrong inside me
and the clouds might solve it . . .

I bought them also because they're grey without being depressing?
And slow, but not in a way that makes me impatient
Because having nowhere to be or go
Doesn't stop them from being or going

They travel like jokes
So I accept them as natural
See how they activate my wit
without taking credit

Because they ask nothing
And pull me gently away from
the great loneliness
to which no one gets accustomed

but the clouds.

He Just Happened, She Occurred

She implied, he inferred
She decided, he concurred
He was frightened, she was stirred
She got well, he was cured

She was voice, he was word
He encouraged, she deterred
He was tree, she was bird
She made obvious, he obscured

She objected, he observed
She subjected, he served
He upset, she unnerved
He just happened, she occurred.

Nine Extra Thoughts (No Extra Cost)

Why, at this point, would anyone want to make history? Humans have been making history for 10,000 years?the time has come to make something else.


The problem troubled people most often face is recognizing when there isn't a problem.

If talking stops working stop talking.

If you're really beyond it, there's no reason to behave as if you're above it.


If you can't join them, judge them.

It's easy to see through people, much harder to look carefully into them.


close this panel
Show editions
close this panel

User Activity

more >
Contacting facebook
Please wait...