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).