Children Love Poetry

The first graders I teach at the French International School in Washington, DC, love poetry. Every year, I am thrilled to see that no matter what anybody says about memorizing poetry, kids lap it up! And they adore the freedom of expression that it gives them once a poem is learned by heart.

Last week, these 6-year olds joyfully and raucously recited Dorothy Aldis's poem "Everybody Says." It goes like this:

Everybody Says

by Dorothy Aldis

Everybody says

I look just like my mother

Everybody says

I'm the image of Aunt Bee

Everybody says

my nose is like my father's

But I want to look like ME!

Dorothy Aldis (1896-1966) was a children's literature author and poet. 

This is Just to Say…

that I love the poetry of Williams Carlos Williams. Through teaching, I have come to know Williams and his poetry better than I ever did before, and I am in love. Even more, I have been able to transfer some of this passion to my third and fourth grade students. They love this poetry, too.


Although I've been introducing students to Williams' poetry now for years, I have just recently started using a wonderful book about his life to enhance their experience. It is Jen Bryant's A River of Words, The Story of Williams Carlos Williams. This wonderfully illustrated, mixed-media picture book / biography (ill. Melissa Sweet) helps my young students understand a bit more about how Willie broke out of traditional poetry forms to find his own voice. They understand that although he was a medical doctor who delivered babies, set broken arms, and tended to the sick in his community, he was first and foremost a lover of words, of sounds, of images, that he was atuned to everyday, commonplace happenings. He followed his innermost calling by writing poetry throughout his life… as a family doctor! My students particularly love the picture of Willie up in his attic, late at night, with his typewriter, surrounded by pieces of paper filled with interesting words and phrases, tacked up on the walls. They love that from these bits and pieces, he pulls out the one or two or three words and ideas, and distills them into a pithy poem.

Children are natural philosophers, and the Williams' poem "The Red Wheelbarrow" opens up discussions that make them think, and ask "Well, what really depends on what?"

The Red Wheelbarrow

So much depends

upon 

a red wheel

barrow

glazed with rain

water

beside the white 

chickens.

And while studying the following poem, the students and I talk about relationships, complicity between people who know each other well, temptation, pleasure, and trust. 

This is Just to Say

I have eaten

the plums

that were in

the icebox

and which

you were probably

saving

for breakfast

Forgive me

they were delicious

so sweet and 

so cold

After studying and memorizing this poem, the students use it as a model for writing their own "This is Just to Say." Here's one by Sami (8 years old):

I have taken

the soccer ball 

that was on

the field

and which 

you were probably

saving 

for the big game

Forgive me

it was incredible

so bouncy

and so hard

A Blissful Snowstorm

Ten days ago, in Washington, we got snow. It started falling around midnight on Friday night, the first evening of my two-week school break. It was bliss. There's something about magical about a first snow. There's something so quieting about snow (especially if you don't have to go to work the next day). As a friend from Brittany wrote recently when they got an unexpected snowstorm, La neige a suspendu le temps... ce silence blanc me fait penser à toi... I especially like to be tucked away snugly at home, which we were since it was the first day of school vacation. When I go back to teaching on January 4, my students will get a full dose of snow poems. The first graders will learn Snow by Mary Ann Hoberman. For the second graders, we'll learn Dust of Snow by Robert Frost. The third graders will learn The Snowflake by Walter de la Mare. The fourth graders will learn The Frost Pane by David McCord. The fifth graders will learn Stopping by Woods on A Snowy Evening by Robert Frost. I am lucky to be their teacher. I am lucky to be able to immerse myself and them in these wonderful poems.

Here are the poems.



Snow by Mary Ann Hoberman

Snow
Snow
Lots of snow
Everywhere we look and everywhere we go
Snow in the sandbox
Snow on the slide
Snow on the bicycle
Left outside
Snow on the steps
And snow on my feet
Snow on the sidewalk
Snow on the sidewalk
Snow on the sidewalk
Down the street.


Dust of Snow by Robert Frost

The way a crow
Shook down on me
The dust of snow
From a hemlock tree

Has given my heart
A change of mood
And saved some part
Of a day I had rued.


The Snowflake by Walter de la Mare

Before I melt,
Come, look at me!
This lovely icey filigree!
Of a great forest
In one night
I make a wilderness
Of white:
By skyey cold
Of crystals made
All softly, on
Your finger laid.
I pause, that you
My beauty see:
Breathe; and I vanish
Instantly.


The Frost Pane by David McCord

What's the good of breathing
On the window pane
In summer?
You can't make a frost
On the window pane
In summer.
You can't write a
Nalphabet
You can't draw a
Nelephant:
You can't make a smudge
With your nose
In summer.

Lots of good, breathing
On the window pane
In winter.
You can make a frost
On the window pane
In winter.
A white frost, a light frost
A quick frost, a thick frost
A write-me-out-a-picture frost
Across the pane
In winter.


Stopping By Woods On A Snowy Evening by Robert Frost

Whose woods these are, I think I know.
His house is in the village though;
He will not see me stopping here
To watch his woods fill up with snow.

My little horse must think it queer
To stop without a farmhouse near
Between the woods and frozen lake
The darkest evening of the year.

He gives his harness bells a shake
To ask if there is some mistake
The only other sound's the sweep
Of easy wind and downy flake.

The woods are lovely, dark and deep,
But I have promises to keep,
And miles to go before I sleep,
And miles to go before I sleep.

It all began with poetry

In the picture above: Walter Dean Myers, Ralph Fletcher, Rebecca Kai Dotlich, Lee Bennett Hopkins, Jane Yolen, J. Patrick Lewis, Georgia Heard, Sylvia Vartell, Janet Wong.


I'm blogging from the NCTE Annual Conference in Philadelphia where for me, things have begun with a bang, a poetry bang. I have become connected to that genre late in life, thanks mainly to my teaching (see April 2009 blogpost), consequently, I feel I have much to catch up on. But back to the poetry bang. I was undecided as to what session to attend with when a "Poetry Party" listed as an early Friday morning session caught my eye. If anyone reading this went to that party and is wondering who I am: well, I was the lady in the burnt orange coat rolling in the aisle. What is it about poets? They are witty. They are pithy. They are droll. They make words come alive. They are irreverent. They are, dare I say, eccentric... and this poetry shindig was proof. The Poetry Party was celebrating poet Lee Bennett Hopkins about whom, I am ashamed to admit, I knew far too little (incredible but true). He was to receive the 2009 NCTE Award for Excellence in Poetry for Children. Bobbi Katz I know, Georgia Heard, ditto. Jane Yolen, Dean Walter Myers, Douglas Florian, Mary Ann Hoberman, Paul Janeczko, all these folks and their poetry have become familiar to me. How, o how, could Lee Bennett Hopkins have been such a stranger? Fortunately, that gap has now been filled: he is forevermore before me. (Jane Yolen read an hilarious riff on "The Raven" that she had composed for the occasion.) I heard delightful stories about Lee: "Have you heard?" is how he starts his telephone calls and conversations with his dearest associates, for here is a man who loves to gossip. To all those lucky friends of his, he begins his letters and emails with "Dear One." Several of the poets and collaborators speaking there to celebrate his accomplishments admitted that they thought "Dear One" was reserved just for them. But this man has many dear ones. Yes, he was lovingly ribbed and playfully teased by his colleagues and friends who obviously adore him. I learned that he's infamous for his red pen and editing slashing, that he banishes the ands, buts, and any superfluous words from poems he edits. At this, his 40th NCTE convention, some wondered why he was receiving this award so late. Sylvia Vartell (whose blog Poetry for Children is a must for all poetry lovers) compiled a book with poems by friends (all poets) of Lee called "Dear One" and all the party attendees received a copy. We also heard the poets read their own poems celebrating, teasing, loving Lee. Was I glad I choose to attend! I walked out of the session happy, feeling light-hearted, young, encouraged, delighted. Happiness comes in wonderful little packages. This package contained a gift: that of revival, envigoration, balm, hope, encouragement, humor.

End of Summer

The weather is stiffling hot in Washington DC. After eight weeks off from teaching, I must go back to school on Monday. No complaints, just an ambiguous feeling of wanting this humid mugginess to end while, at the same time, wanting summer to last forever. Crickets chirp loudly and incessantly outside my study window, tempting me to believe that summer will never end. These two poems remind me otherwise.

End of Time

Late August heat,

before the dregs

of a Gulf hurricane

drags its rain

and a chill Canadian breeze

over us,

has the crickets singing

end of time songs.

by Kathleen M. Tenpas

End of Summer

The little songs of summer are all gone today.

The little insect instruments are all packed away:

The bumblebee's snare drum, the grasshopper's guitar,

The katydid's banjo, the cricket's violin,

The dragonfly's cello have ceased their merry din.

Oh, where is the orchestra? From harpist down to drummer

They've all disappeared with the passing of the summer.

by Rowena Bennett