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).