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Free Choice Poetry

Katz, Susan. 2012. The President’s Stuck in the Bathtub: Poems about the Presidents. Ill. by Robert Neubecker. New York: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt. ISNB: 978-0-547-18221-6.

Book Review:

I didn’t realize what a challenge it would be to pick a “free poetry book choice” for the last book in this class!  I now have so many favorite authors and types of poetry I enjoy that I had to narrow down many, many choices.  After some reflection, I realized that the children’s poetry books I have most enjoyed were those that involved humor and included interesting facts and information. 

Susan Katz’ The President’s Stuck in the Bathtub fits the bill as a humorous informational book.  The author has written a poem about each president and includes well researched information at the bottom of each page further explaining the facts set forth in the poem.  Using a variety of poetic forms (free verse, concrete, couplets, quatrain, list) Katz keeps the reader entertained with fun and unusual facts about our country’s leaders. 

Who knew that John Adams wanted to be referred to as “His Majesty, the President” (and instead was called “His Rotundity” by his opponents: “Though Adams bewailed this embarrassing fate,/at least his new title carried some weight.”); that Andrew Jackson was a terrible speller; that the term “OK” became popular from Martin Van Buren’s nickname “Old Kinderhook;” and that Gerald Ford’s real name was Leslie Lynch King, Junior? (“Without that change,/one of America’s presidents/would have been a King”). This collection is filled with much more little known facts that will be sure to please young readers (and old ones, too)!

Not all of the poems are winners, however, with some showing awkward word choice and pacing that is a little off.  A few of the poems, too, just weren’t that funny. (This is confirmed by the author in her bio in which she also stated that more research went into this book than all her others put together). 

Access features include a table of contents which shows the poems written in chronological order by president, and a “Presidential Notes and Quotes” section at the back of the book that gives the presidents’ years in office, dates of birth and death, a quote from each and a quick fact about each one. A bibliography would have been beneficial, however, and given the book more accuracy.

Robert Neubecker’s digitally colored ink drawings, which reflect caricature images of the presidents, add visual interest to the collection and complement the sly humor of author’s poems. The illustrations are spread cleverly across the pages, smoothly balancing the text, white space and drawings.

Sharing the Poetry:

Perfect for a President’s Day or election-themed unit, this book could be used to take a break from more serious study of the presidents.  Students could also use one of the poems as a starting point for more research into a president of choice for a short biography assignment.

Selected Poem:

Though it’s a mouthful, I really enjoyed the accomplished and accurate alliteration used by the author in the poem about Warren G. Harding, 1921-23. 

“Would You Repeat That?”

Always an admirer of alliteration,

Harding hardly ever halted his habit of haranguing

crowds by constantly copying compatible consonants.

This pretentious passion for pompous palaver produced

a superfluity of sonorous syllables, sounding spectacular

except that nobody ever knew what he said.

References

Books in Print. n.d. The President’s Stuck in the Bathtub: Poems about the Presidents. http://ezproxy.twu.edu:3959/DetailedView.aspx?hreciid=|34026575|33190329&mc=USA# (accessed May 1, 2014).

Poetry by Kids

Nye, Naomi Shihab. 2000. Salting the Ocean: 100 Poems by Young Poets. Ill. by Ashley Bryan. New York: Greenwillow Books, an imprint of Harper Collins Publishers. ISBN: 978-0-688-16193-4.

Book Review:

After reading so much incredible poetry for the book reviews in this blog, Nye’s collection Salting the Ocean was a bit of a letdown, until I put the purpose of the book into perspective.  Naomi is a poet, novelist and anthologist, and spent a number of years working with children of all ages as a visiting writer-in-the-schools leading poetry workshops all over the country.  She uses the publication of this book as a love-letter honoring the work done by the students she got to know, and in this scenario, the book is successful.

Ashley Bryan’s colorful tempura paint illustrations give the book a southwest feel, and the figures and details in the paintings reflect a diverse, multi-cultural world, much like the poets themselves.  

Nye includes an introduction in three parts, directed to “anyone,” "teachers, librarians, parents and other friends,” and “the poets.” These introductions are so well written and inspiring that they are worth reading on their own.  She writes, “How should we use poetry?...to restore us to feeling, revitalize our own speech, [and to] awaken empathy.”  She reminds us that poetry offers something special in a frenzied world – “where is one true word? Where are three? Where is the burn of speech, the sweet rub of language, the spark that links us?”

Nye’s collection is divided rather arbitrarily into 4 sections, of about 25 poems each:  The Self and the Inner World, Where we Live, Anybody’s Family and The Wide Imagination.  Within these sections, children of various ages and talent write about a variety of subjects: family, animals, emotions, and various objects and activities.  A young man writes that he commonly misspelled all the most commonly misspelled words on a test, “except one./ Loneliness/ was the only one I got right.”  A young woman, wiser than her age would imply, writes “that each person has his own life/when you cup/your hands together and blow into them/the echoes will tell journeys and episodes from this life.”

A high school student writes of the impact that her parents’ expectations have on her in a poem titled “Marbles:”  “My mother has this amazing talent;/she launches her fears to scatter in my room./…Little spies; they warn me of nightmare deadlines/application essay grammar traps/and the tricks of entrance examinations./They have gotten in./I feel them rolling around in my head like marbles.”  This poem shows the author’s growth and maturity as she later writes, “I address these marbles, one by one./They don’t rattle so much anymore.”  The students writing these poems express life as they know it -honestly, humorously and frequently with bitter sweetness – just like our own lives. 

Sharing the Poetry:

Sharing the poems in this collection with students would be a great way to confirm that children of every age can write poetry; and that their thoughts, feelings and emotions are important and worth documenting.  It would be a good addition to a classroom poetry collection to help inspire young poets who might be struggling with feeling they don’t have anything to say.  It confirms that poetry can be written about anything and that words are magical - let them weave a spell!

Selected Poem:

I was moved by one young woman’s untitled poem about the writing process.  It rings so true:

Words

jumbled

in my mind.

Traffic jams

of sentences,

swirling,

and bubbling,

in the cauldron of my mind.

All I can do

is think

and write.

Breathe deeply,

and let your feelings flow

onto the page.

Let your mind fill

with ideas.

Let them bolt

through your pencil,

crashing

with enormous

energy

onto your paper.

Poetry

has her own way of living.

Let her live

in peace.

References:

Children’s Literature Comprehensive Database. n.d. Salting the Ocean: 100 Poems by Young Poets. http://ezproxy.twu.edu:4529/index.php/jbookdetail/jqbookdetail?page=1&pos=0&isbn=978-0-688-16193-4 (accessed April 30, 2014).

Janeczko Collection

Janeczko, Paul B. 2005. A Kick in the Head: an everyday guide to poetic forms. Ill. by Chris Raschka. Cambridge: Candlewick Press. ISBN: 076360662-6.

Book Review:

Paul Janeczko (how do you pronounce his name?) has become a favorite author/anthologist of mine, though there are many other poets who call to me regularly now with their works.  In this collection, which won the Claudia Lewis Award for poetry in 2006, Janeczko provides a short and sweet education on a variety of poetic forms, expressed through 29 poems by various traditional and contemporary poets.

Chris Raschka, who also collaborated on Janeczko’s A Poke in the I, creatively uses fabrics, torn paper collages and splashes of colorful pen and ink in illustrating the various poems in the collection; many illustrations are humorous, but a few also echo the gravity of the subject matter.  One ingenious addition: at the top of each page, Raschka adds clever pictorial clues which signify the number of syllables or lines used in the various poetic forms. 

From Ogden Nash, William Blake and Shakespeare to the more contemporary Gary Soto, Georgia Heard and X.J. Kennedy, Janeczko provides examples of traditional poetic forms like the couplet, tercet, quatrain and haiku to more obscure forms like the double dactyl, triolet, villanelle and pantoum.  Included with each poem is a definition of the form (in curiously tiny print), that describes the number of lines, rhyme scheme or syllable limits. 

There are also poems representing an ode (to Pablo’s shoes); an elegy to a tired little girl (“here lies resting, out of breath,/out of turns, Elizabeth;” and a clerihew, a poem that is made up of two rhyming couplets poking fun at a celebrity: (“Edgar Allan Poe/was passionately fond of roe./He always liked to chew some/When writing anything gruesome”).

Janeckzko discusses in his introduction that poetic rules make writing poems more challenging and more exciting.  “Knowing the rules makes poetry – like sports- more fun for the players and spectators alike.”  In browsing through this collection, it does indeed cause the reader to pause and focus to make sure that the poem examples given follow the rules described.  Does that haiku have 17 syllables, arranged in lines of 5, 7 and 5; does the cinquain have 22 syllables in lines of 2-4-6-8-2?  And what about that pantoum? Can you figure out the scheme?  Can you write one?  There is much fun to be had and information to be gleaned from this clever collection.

Sharing the Poetry:

The benefits of this collection for a classroom are plentiful.  Children can see examples of poetic forms to jump start their own efforts.  Many of the poems are fun to hear and read out loud, and the illustrations make browsing a pleasure.  Students could make their own book of poems containing some of these poetic forms and illustrate them by their own drawings or copy-right free images from Google as backgrounds. 

Selected Poem:

I was particularly fond of April Halprin Wayland’s clever and humorous version of Shakespeare’s Sonnet Number Twelve, which appears on a facing page from the original sonnet on page 29:

When I do count the clock that tells the time

And see my whole day gone and all its light;

When I sort out this sonnet’s classic rhyme

And try to comprehend with all my might;

When it occurs to me that I’ll be teased

By fellow students after they have heard

My sonnet said upon these trembling knees

My fervent wish?  That I’m disguised (with a beard).

Then of my wisdom do I question make.

What was I thinking when I said I’d try

For Drama Club – was I not yet awake?

Now I must climb from this black hole hereby;

For nothing ‘gainst Mr. J can make defense

Save bribes, to brave him when he hears me hence.

References:

Books in Print. n.d. A Kick in the Head. http://ezproxy.twu.edu:3959/DetailedView.aspx?hreciid=|24632407|10503665&mc=USA# (accessed April 30, 2014).

Performance Poetry

Greenfield, Eloise. 2006. The Friendly Four. Ill. by Jan Spivey Gilchrist. New York: Harper Collins Children’s Books. ISBN: 978-0-06-000760-7.

Book Review:

Award-winning children’s author, Eloise Greenfield (Coretta Scott King Award and NCTE Award for Excellence in Poetry, to name a few), adds a poetry book designed for choral reading to her body of work in The Friendly Four, illustrated with creativity, movement and color by Jan Spivey Gilchrist.

Four children -Drum, Doreen, Louis and Rae – gravitate together for one summer of play, imagination and friendship, easing their loneliness and finding joy in their fellowship.  Drum says, “Didn’t I call this summer a bummer?” And his three new friends reply “Not anymore, not anymore.”  Using a combination of verse poetry and rhyming schemes, Greenfield gives unique voices to each of her characters.  The book is written with different colored type to differentiate the voices of each child, and to make it easier to read chorally. 

As each of the children meet, they bring more creativity and imagination to their play, and as a group, engage in telling tall tales, playing board games, fun at the playground and even constructing a town named “Goodsummer” to play in with a bank, a movie theatre, a school, a pet shop and a library.  When the town is completed they have a parade: “We turned the music way up loud/to show you that we’re happy and proud/of all the work we did to build our town./Now watch as we march around…”

Not a TV or video game is found in Gilchrist’s realistic watercolors which bring additional life to the characters in the book and provide visual interest in the action portrayed by the author’s words.  The book and illustrations remind the older reader of bygone days when summer meant playing outside all day long. 

Sharing the Poetry:

This book would provide a great poetry break near the end of the school year to remind the students or story time visitors of the coming months of fun.  It is also a good introduction to verse poetry for younger children.  Choosing four children to read, or dividing the room into four groups would both work well.  The children in the book are early elementary age, and the dialogue reflects that, so teachers/librarians need to keep that in mind when they choose this title.

Selected Poem:

Near the end of summer, Rae has to leave on a plane to go back home.  In the last poem in the book, “Goodbye to Goodsummer,” the remaining three friends reflect on their time together:

Goodbye to Goodsummer

Drum:                             The summer started out with one,

Dorene:                          and now there are four, and even though

                                      one of us is far away,

Drum, Dorene, Louis:    we’re still together.

                                      We’ll find some fall, winter

                                      and spring things to laugh about,

Louis:                             and our town will wait for us.

Drum, Dorene, Louis:    So, goodbye for now, Goodsummer.

                                      We’ll see you next year.

References

Books in Print. n.d. The Friendly Four. http://ezproxy.twu.edu:3959/DetailedView.aspx?hreciid=|16314793|10204039&mc=USA# (accessed April 21, 2014).

Children’s Literature Comprehensive Database. n.d. The Friendly Four. http://ezproxy.twu.edu:4529/index.php/jbookdetail/jqbookdetail?page=1&pos=1&isbn=9780060007591 (accessed April 21, 2014).