Weekly Geeks: Reading Poetry with Children

“Whatever you do, find ways to read poetry. Eat it, drink it, enjoy it, and share it.”
~Eve Merriam

Did you know that April is National Poetry Month? I find it hard to call myself a "writer" but that is what I am at the core, and even more specifically, I am a writer of poetry. Sadly, poetry is terribly misunderstood because most of us read so much incomprehensible poetry when we were in school and learned to dislike it. During this month, I'll be tossing out poetry suggestions every now and then. For now, here is a repost from last year about poetry for children:

Before I list my favorite books written specifically for children, let me emphasize that you don't have to stick with "kids' poetry" when reading to your children. In other words, some poets write specifically for a younger audience--much of Jack Prelutsky, for example. But poetry doesn't have to rhyme and be about cute kitties or dog poop to appeal to children (although rhyming bodily functions certainly can heighten a child's appreciation of poetry).

Along those lines, I highly recommend A Treasury of Poetry for Young People. This contains poems selected with a younger audience (5th grade and up) in mind by some of the best-known poets: Carl Sandburg, Robert Frost, Emily Dickinson, Edgar Allen Poe, Walt Whitman and Henry Wadsworth Longfellow. There is a two or three page introduction of each author before his/her section of poetry. The illustrations are simple and beautiful. Notes at the bottom of each page give a very brief commentary on each poem. For example, at the end of the familiar Frost poem "The Road Not Taken," the note simply states: "We all know the feel of a cool autumn day, when we can shuffle our feet through fallen leaves and kick up the smells of the season. This is a poem about such a walk, about coming to a fork in the path, and about making choices in our lives."

For a wider variety of poets, I recommend the Poetry for Young People Series. These books are also published by Sterling Publishing, like the one above, but each books features a different poet. Scholastic often has these titles in their monthly sale fliers for home or school. Featured authors include: Robert Browning, Langston Hughes, Edna St. Vincent Millay, and all the ones mentioned above.

One more collection I really love for kids: The Oxford Illustrated Book of American Children's Poems, edited by Donald Hall. This one takes a chronological approach to American poetry, beginning with the Native American cradle song, "Chant to the Fire-Fly" and ending with the contemporary poetry of Sandra Cisneros and Janet S. Wong. I love the diversity offered in this collection: poetry isn't all written by white guys and reclusive women. And one of my personal favorites is included here: Nikki Giovanni's "Knoxville, Tennessee." Even if you don't live around these parts, you and your children can surely relate to Giovanni's ode to the pure bliss of summertime.

Of course, you can get out your old copy of The Norton Anthology of Poetry and just pick out age-appropriate poems from some of the world's best poets of all time. What? You don't have an old Norton's Anthology? Run to your nearest used bookstore or Goodwill and pick one up. Please. You never know when you might need to read T.S. Eliot's "The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock":

I grow old. . . . I grow old . . .
I shall wear the bottoms of my trouser rolled.
Shall I part my hair behind? Do I dare to eat a peach?
I shall wear white flannel trousers, and walk upon the beach.
I have heard the mermaids singing, each to each.
I do not think they will sing to me.

But I digress. Moving on to poetry written specifically for children, I must present my four favorites: Shel Silverstein, Jack Prelutsky, Eve Merriam, and Valerie Worth. Does anyone not know Shel Silverstein's works? Silverstein, who died in 1999, is the king of children's poetry. His website is great fun, and you can read all about his works there. You local library will have every book; better yet, buy at least a couple. No family library can possibly be complete with A Light in the Attic or Where the Sidewalk Ends. If your kids hear the word "poetry" and cover their ears, try reading "Sarah Cynthia Sylvia Stout Would Not Take the Garbage Out' to them. They will want to hear more.

Jack Prelutsky also has a gift for luring children in with the absurd. He knows how to engage children with the silly, absurd, and irresistibly disgusting:

Slime, slime,
Savory slime,
you're luscious and succulent
any old time,
there's hardly a thing
that is nearly as grand
as a dollop of slime
in the palm of my hand.

Prelutsky also has a great website, where you can read all about him and his books and get teaching ideas, too.

The poet Eve Merriam loved language--loved the sound of words alone and in combination with other words. When I read her poetry, I imagine how carefully she chose each word. From her widely anthologized "Lullaby":

Purple as a king's cape
Purple as a grape.
Purple for the evening
When daylight is leaving.
Soft and purry,
Gentle and furry,
Velvet evening-time.

I have a cassette tape of Merriam reading some of her poetry; when my oldest was little, this was one of his favorites. Check out your local library or amazon.com for poetry by Eve Merriam, including You Be Good and I'll Be Night and A Sky Full of Poems.

One last poet who might be less familiar but who also takes great care in crafting poetry: Valerie Worth. In the wonderful All the Small Poems and Fourteen More, Worth turns every day things--animal, vegetable and mineral--into exquisite works of art. This is a fantastic collection for teaching personification, metaphor and simile, and for emphasizing the power of observation and the craft of language.

The sun
is a leaping fire
too hot
to go near,
But it will still
lie down
in warm yellow squares
on the floor
lie a flat
quilt, where
the cat can curl
and purr.

This is just a tiny taste of the wonderful feast that is the world of poetry. Surf the internet and shuffle through the library bookshelves. If you had a bad experience with poetry in your own schooling, try again--with your child. I promise, you'll both find something you love.

(For more posts on Children's Book Day and National Poetry Month, check out Dewey's Weekly Geeks.)

Sunday Scribblings: Lost

This week's theme at Sunday Scribblings: lost. Here's my take on the prompt.

The Lost One

comes back to her
in the month of his thirty-eighth
birthday, sometime in April
when the tiny white crosses
of the dogwoods had glowed
ghost-like at dusk
and she had felt him coming

too early for more
than a minute's worth
of breath and a sprinkling
of holy water, his name. Gasp
of the nun, sign of the cross.
Emptyhanded

she had returned to her kitchen,
rubbed the windows clean of streaks
to better watch her three boys outside
who never thought to ask
where
or why
or even to notice the swell of her belly
gone back to ribs

and now he would be years older
than she was then, a sweet balding man
who, whistling, comes
through the front door with a kiss
on the cheek and a single daffodil.

—Sarah Cummins Small, copyright 2009

Sunday Scribblings: Regrets (or Not)

Today's theme at Sunday Scribblings is "regrets," but my take here is "no regrets."

Letter to the Man I Didn't Marry

Today I ran three yellow lights,
which in some states signal the driver
to clear the intersection and in others to proceed
with caution.
I did neither,
as I'm sure you recall.
I hear
you've been asking about me.

My baby knocks more insistently
these days, especially after I eat
what's bad for me:
chips or chocolate, late night
bowls of sweetened cereal.
(You disapprove, I know. I remember
the angle of your head.)
Maybe she will look
like me.
Maybe she will be a he. My breasts
grew larger while I napped.
When I opened my eyes, my son
was there to kiss my cheek
with his tiny chapped lips.

From the front porch swing
I watched the librarian fly by on her bike
like the wicked witch and the irises rise
inch by inch.
I am itching
to get my hands in the soil,
to smell the dirt caked thick and dark
beneath my nails.
You were wrong, you know.
You never could have been the one
to heal me.

~Sarah Cummins Small, copyright 1999

For more Sunday Scribblings, click on the link above.

Sunday Scribbling: Guide

"My children, listen to me. Listen to your father's instruction. Pay attention and grow wise, for I am giving you good guidance. Don't turn away from my teaching." (Proverbs 4:1-2)

This week's Sunday Scribbling theme is "guide." My father came instantly to mind. My father has guided me and my four older brothers—and now his 9 grandchildren and 2 great-grandchildren—throughout our whole lives. He is a gentle, soft-spoken presence: funny and brilliant, encouraging and forgiving. His life has been a constant pursuit of knowledge, and in the course of seeking knowledge, he has acquired tremendous wisdom. He continuously strives to walk in the paths of righteousness, without ever being self-righteous. He is a brilliant scientist and historian who has a heart for Christ.

"My child, listen to me and do as I say, and you will have a long, good life. I will teach you wisdom's ways and lead you in straight paths. If you live a life guided by wisdom, you wn't limp or stumble as you run. Carry out my instructions; don't forsake them. Guard them, for they will lead you to a fulfilled life." (Proverbs 4:10-13)

On Monday my parents, who are in their 80s, are flying to Scotland and Ireland for a 10-day tour. My parents have traveled extensively throughout the second half of their lives; astonishingly, they've never been to Ireland, although my father's grandfather came from there as a boy.

My father has spent his life either growing fruit or doing groundbreaking research in fruit breeding and nursery production. Before him rest five generations of Cummins apple growers. My brothers are the seventh generation, and two have orchards: Stephen has Indian Creek and James has Bittersweet, both in or near Ithaca, NY. Stephen and my Dad also run Cummins Nursery.

I wrote this poem about my father many years ago, and I still love it. This is my most vivid memory of my father: peeling apples.

********************

Dad, Peeling Apples

The color of wheat
bread speckled
like the skin of a Golden Delicious,
freckles on top of freckles
and tiny nicks
from his knife, dots of blood
turned to brown scabs.
My father’s hands

have never changed. Every night
a different apple
skinned naked,
split and seeded without him
ever looking down, loving the fit
of apple
in the left hand, brown-handled
knife in the right.
He licks the tip of his finger
where the juice runs clear
and skewers a slice

for me, which I take
regardless
of whether I want
an apple or whether
the flesh has begun to brown
around the edges. When he is done,
knife set down and fingers wiped
clean against the legs
of his beige corduroys, I will take
the leathered back
of his hand to my cheek
and hold it there, begging
his weathered roots to spread
their soil-caked fingers
long and strong
as deep as the generations will go.

(By Sarah Cummins Small. Copyright 2000. First published in The Yalobusha Review.)

Happy Spring!!

March 20, 2008

In fitting with Spring as a time of celebration and new birth, my newborn great-nephew Justus came through yesterday's surgery quite well. I know his Mama and Daddy are eager for the day when they can take him home, probably in about 10 days.

So today is the first day of spring, and the sun is shining and flowers fairly bursting. A good day to get outside and breathe. And now a word from one of my favorite poets, e.e. cummings:

when faces called flowers float out of the ground

when faces called flowers float out of the ground
and breathing is wishing and wishing is having-
but keeping is downward and doubting and never
-it's april (yes,april;my darling)it's spring!
yes the pretty birds frolic as spry as can fly
yes the little fish gambol as glad as can be
yes the little fish gambol as glad as can be
(yes the mountains are dancing together)
when every leaf opens without any sound
and wishing is having and having is giving-
but keeping is doting and nothing and nonsense
-alive;we're alive,dear:it's(kiss me now)spring!
now the pretty birds hover so she and so he
now the little fish quiver so you and so i
(now the mountains are dancing, the mountains)
when more than was lost has been found has been found
and having is giving and giving is living-
but keeping is darkness and winter and cringing
-it's spring(all our night becomes day)o,it's spring!
all the pretty birds dive to the heart of the sky
all the little fish climb through the mind of the sea
(all the mountains are dancing;are dancing)

Closet Classics: Gerard Manley Hopkins

May 24, 2007

Years—dare I say decades?—ago, in the early days of MTV, there was a segment that came on at noon called Closet Classics. (Perhaps this is still part of the MTV line-up, but I haven’t watched MTV in over 15 years.) I was in college then, and there were several of us who, disdaining pop music, would gather in our dorm’s lobby religiously to get our daily dose of Closet Classics.

The 18th century writer Charles Caleb Colton wrote: “Books, like friends, should be few and well chosen. Like friends, too, we should return to them again and again for, like true friends, they will never fail us—never cease to instruct—never cloy.” Immersing myself in American Lit classics these past few weeks, I’ve been re-reading many writers with whom I was, as a student and English major, once more intimately acquainted. I read much poetry and many short stories in high school and college. I rarely read poetry now, which is odd since I am, primarily, a writer of poetry. And I rarely read short stories now, which is also strange because some of my best literary friends are short stories.

And so my summer resolution is to read more classic literature, from poetry to short stories to novels to plays. And when I remember, at noon, sporadically, I will post a Closet Classic, like this…


Spring

by Gerard Manley Hopkins

Nothing is so beautiful as Spring—
When weeds, in wheels, shoot long and lovely and lush ;
Thrush’s eggs look little low heavens, and thrush
Through the echoing timber does so rinse and wring
The ear, it strikes like lightnings to hear him sing ;
The glassy peartree leaves and blooms, they brush
The descending blue ; that blue is all in a rush
With richness; the racing lambs too have fair their fling.

What is all this juice and all this joy ?
A strain of the earth’s sweet being in the beginning
In Eden garden.—Have, get, before it cloy,

Before it cloud, Christ, lord, and sour with sinning,
Innocent mind and Mayday in girl and boy,
Most, O maid’s child, thy choice and worthy the winning.


About the Writer:
Gerard Manley Hopkins (July 28, 1844 – June 8, 1889), a Jesuit priest, was an English poet. Hopkins is famous for defying conventional poetry of his day. At this time, most English poetry embraced a particular rhythmic structure, with the stressed syllables falling in the same place on each repetition. Most of us remember this from high school English class, when we thought we would die from trying to figure out the mysteries of iambic pentameter.

Hopkins called his own rhythmic structure “sprung rhythm,” which he saw as a way to escape the constraints of conventional rhythm. Hopkins said that poetry written in only conventional meter often becomes "same and tame." In this way, Hopkins can be seen as anticipating much of free verse.

Hopkins is also loved for his use of language, particularly in his gentle use of alliteration. I love the language in the middle stanza: juice and joy, being and beginning, Eden and garden. Added richness comes from Hopkins’ extensive use of assonance, onomatopoeia and rhyme, both at the end of lines and internally as in: Hopkins was a poet who tasted the words, speaking them and perfecting them before he put the word on paper.

One of my professors in college, a poet himself, loved Gerard Manley Hopkins, and it wasn’t unusual for Dr. Magness to quote a line from Hopkins in Bible class or during a communion meditation at church. Amazingly, none of Hopkins' poetry was published during his lifetime. His work finally appeared in 1918 when it was published by his friend and fellow poet Robert Bridges.

More works by Gerard Manley Hopkins here.

American Life in Poetry Favorites

December 15, 2006

I love the weekly column American Life in Poetry, whose sole mission is "to create a vigorous presence for poetry in our culture." No doubt the most common complaint about poetry is that it is too complicated--too untouchable. I truly believe that some poets set out to create obtuse poetry, burdening their language with obscure imagery and symbolism that only the author understands. The poems in the ALP column are selected by Ted Kooser, U.S. Poet Laureate 2004-2006. Kooser's goal is to select poems that represent every day life in America--poems that are profound in their simplicity. Below are a few of my favorites from the past few months of columns:

Bread Soup: An Old Icelandic Recipe
by Bill Holm

Start with the square heavy loaf
steamed a whole day in a hot spring
until the coarse rye, sugar, yeast
grow dense as a black hole of bread.
Let it age and dry a little,
then soak the old loaf for a day
in warm water flavored
with raisins and lemon slices.
Boil it until it is thick as molasses.
Pour it in a flat white bowl.
Ladle a good dollop of whipped cream
to melt in its brown belly.
This soup is alive as any animal,
and the yeast and cream and rye
will sing inside you after eating
for a long time.

Reprinted from "Playing the Black Piano," Milkweed Editions, 2004, by permission of the author. Copyright (c) 2004 by Bill Holm.


August Morning
by Albert Garcia

It's ripe, the melon
by our sink. Yellow,
bee-bitten, soft, it perfumes
the house too sweetly.
At five I wake, the air
mournful in its quiet.
My wife's eyes swim calmly
under their lids, her mouth and jaw
relaxed, different.
What is happening in the silence
of this house? Curtains
hang heavily from their rods.
Ficus leaves tremble
at my footsteps. Yet
the colors outside are perfect--
orange geranium, blue lobelia.
I wander from room to room
like a man in a museum:
wife, children, books, flowers,
melon. Such still air. Soon
the mid-morning breeze will float in
like tepid water, then hot.
How do I start this day,
I who am unsure
of how my life has happened
or how to proceed
amid this warm and steady sweetness?

Poem copyright (c) by Albert Garcia from his latest book "Skunk Talk" (Bear Starr Press, 2005) and originally published in "Poetry East," No. 44.


In November
by Lisel Mueller

Outside the house the wind is howling
and the trees are creaking horribly.
This is an old story
with its old beginning,
as I lay me down to sleep.
But when I wake up, sunlight
has taken over the room.
You have already made the coffee
and the radio brings us music
from a confident age. In the paper
bad news is set in distant places.
Whatever was bound to happen
in my story did not happen.
But I know there are rules that cannot be broken.
Perhaps a name was changed.
A small mistake. Perhaps
a woman I do not know
is facing the day with the heavy heart
that, by all rights, should have been mine.

Reprinted from "Alive Together: New and Selected Poems," Louisiana State University Press, 1996, by permission of the author. Poem copyright (c) 1996 by Lisel Mueller.



No Children, No Pets
by Sue Ellen Thompson

I bring the cat's body home from the vet's
in a running-shoe box held shut
with elastic bands. Then I clean
the corners where she has eaten and
slept, scrubbing the hard bits of food
from the baseboard, dumping the litter
and blasting the pan with a hose. The plastic
dishes I hide in the basement, the pee-
soaked towel I put in the trash. I put
the catnip mouse in the box and I put
the box away, too, in a deep
dirt drawer in the earth.

When the death-energy leaves me,
I go to the room where my daughter slept
in nursery school, grammar school, high school,
I lie on her milky bedspread and think
of the day I left her at college, how nothing
could keep me from gouging the melted candle-wax
out from between her floorboards,
or taking a razor blade to the decal
that said to the firemen, "Break
this window first." I close my eyes now
and enter a place that's clearly
expecting me, swaddled in loss
and then losing that, too, as I move
from room to bone-white room
in the house of the rest of my life.

Reprinted from "Nimrod International Journal: The Healing Arts," Vol. 49, No. 2, Spring-Summer, 2006, by permission of the author. Copyright (c) 2006 by Sue Ellen Thompson, whose latest book is "The Golden Hour," Autumn House Press, 2006.