How to use this Page

Last Monday, we shared poems and resources for children ages 0-4. This Monday, we will be focusing on children ages 4-8.

Education Place has useful resources for Poetry Month to use in the classroom. Younger students can cut and color illustrations of a nursery rhyme and then put their pictures in order. Older students can create name poems using the first letters of their names.

Not sure where to start? Check out these poems at A Treasury of Read-Alouds: Poetry for Children.

Did you know Dr. Seuss was an excellent poet? We always knew that his works were playful and fun, but they were also amazing poems. Some of our favorites are:

Green Eggs & Ham

One Fish Two Fish Red Fish Blue Fish

Fox in Socks

Do you have any ideas you’d like to share? Make a comment below!

Jane Yolen read Alice Schertle’s clever cinquain (yesterday) and focused on the birds in Alice’s poem. She then made her selection from her recent book An Egret’s Day to continue our game of Poetry Tag.



Plumes
By Jane Yolen

Its plumes resemble Belgian lace
That ladies wear most anyplace.
However, plumes like these should stay--
No matter what hat-makers pay--
Upon the shoulders of the egret.
My take on this is hardly secret.


Yolen, Jane. 2010. An Egret’s Day. Honesdale, PA: Wordsong/Boyds Mills Press.

Five fun facts about Jane Yolen
*both her parents were writers
*she studied ballet at Balanchine’s School of American Ballet
*she has half a dozen honorary doctoral degrees
*she lives in one-half of a 1902 Arts & Crafts mansion in Scotland during the long summers
*she has written more than 300 books for children and in nearly every genre
[Based on Poetry People; A Practical Guide to Children’s Poets]

Look for these selected poetry books by Yolen:
*With Andrew Fusek Peters, Switching on the Moon; A Very First Book of Bedtime Poems (Candlewick, 2010)
*An Egret’s Day (Wordsong/Boyds Mills Press, 2010)
*Here’s a Little Poem (with Andrew Fusek Peters; Candlewick, 2007)
*How Do Dinosaurs Say Good Night? (Blue Sky Press, 2000)
*Color Me a Rhyme: Nature Poems for Young People (Wordsong/Boyds Mills Press, 2000)
*Once Upon Ice and Other Frozen Poems (Wordsong/Boyds Mills Press, 1997)
*Sacred Places (Harcourt Brace, 1996)

Another day, another tag! Kristine O’Connell George shared two connected poems yesterday and tagged her friend, Alice Schertle. Alice writes, “Thanks to all for a bouquet of fabulous poems. Kris, you made that quivering rabbit come to life for me again. A line in Rabbit II, "flight is habit", made me think of a cinquain I wrote for KEEPERS. It's a different kind of flight, but the fear is there. And, after all, every habit begins with a first time.

Oh, and I've pushed a bit beyond the April poetry month here, but then, if April comes, can May be far behind?

Happy spring! This in spite of the fact that snow lies three feet deep in my back yard.” Here is Alice’s cinquain poem from Keepers.


May is
loud with mother
and father birds hopping
up and down, hollering, "You can
DO it!"


From Keepers by Alice Schertle, Lothrop, Lee & Shepard Books, 1996. Copyright by Alice Schertle, used by permission of the author, who controls all rights.

Five fun facts about Alice Schertle
*her last name rhymes with “turtle”
*she’s a former elementary school teacher
*she moved from California to Massachusetts to experience a new climate
*she can recite many many poems by heart
*she adapted nursery rhymes from Spanish to English in Pio Peep!: Traditional Spanish Nursery Rhymes selected by Alma Flor Ada and Isabel Campoy
[Based on Poetry People; A Practical Guide to Children’s Poets]

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Another of my favorite authors that writes poems, stories, essays, novellas and even the occasional novel - David Huddle is a writer's writer.  Mention the name to writers 40 and over at AWP and they nod knowingly.  Younger writers should as well.

Originally emailed to EWN members on February 14, 2005
Grayscale by David Huddle
2004 by LSU Press, 56 pages
(I always buy David Huddle books as soon as I hear they’re coming out – did so with this one too)

In this, his fifth, collection of poems, David Huddle continues his exploration of family, and memories and how we fit into the world.  As well as he does this throughout the collection, he might best do it in the poem, Myself in Retrospect:

     Last night as I was making what I thought
     was a funny dinner-table remark,
     it happened again – I imagined Lindsey
     and Molly recalling what I’d just said
     years after my death:  Do you remember
     that time dad…

The continuation of the poem has Huddle discussing how oddly comforting this thought is – knowing that even after his death he and his family will be able to joke around the kitchen table.

Throughout the rest of the collection, Huddle remembers things about his days as a child, about older generations of family members while looking at their photos, and occasionally looks into his future. 

Huddle seems to have challenged himself within this collection – looking for the ability to create shapes on the page while maintaining the skills he’s shown in the past for finding just the right words and no more than that.  Within the collection, there are poems that are perfect squares, perfect triangles, serpentine walls, circles, etc.  No matter the shape though, the poem reads as if it were put on the page in a straightforward manner.

While these shapes create interesting appearances on the various pages, it is still Huddle’s writing that will keep the reader coming back to this and his other poetry collections.  He brings a certain nostalgia to his work – looking back, as he does, on his life and those of his family.  He gives the reader something to think about in regards to their own families, and that just adds to the joy of reading his words.

4.5 stars

Did you see Marilyn Singer’s “crow” poem yesterday? She tagged Kristine O’Connell George who is up today with two “rabbit” poems. She makes this connection:

“Since owls might be considered “evil” from a rabbit’s point of view (as well as a crow’s!), I’m sending Rabbit I. and Rabbit II.” Here is that clever pair of poems.





































Copyright Kristine O’Connell George. “Rabbit I. and Rabbit II. Originally appeared in I Am Writing A Poem About… A Game of Poetry. Edited by Myra Cohn Livingston. Margaret K. McElderry Books, 1997.

Five fun facts about Kristine O’Connell George
*she grew up in a family with three brothers
*she lives in the California mountains
*she is six feet tall
*she won the Lee Bennett Hopkins “promising poet” award in 1997 for her first book, The Great Frog Race and Other Poems
*her Web site was voted an American Library Association “Great Web Site for Kids”
[Based on Poetry People; A Practical Guide to Children’s Poets]

Look for these selected poetry books by George:
*Old Elm Speaks: Tree Poems (Clarion, 1998)
*Little Dog Poems (Clarion, 1999)
*Toasting Marshmallows: Camping Poems (Clarion, 2001)
*Little Dog and Duncan (Clarion, 2002)

I give this one classic status as it shows my absolute incompetence.  I just couldn't get into this collection.  Why is that incompetent (well, besides the "logic" employed in the review)?  It was a finalist for the Pulitzer that year and a Chicago Tribune Book-of-the-Year.  Way to go Dan!

Originally sent via email to EWN members on December 8, 2002
Elegy for the Southern Drawl by Rodney Jones
1999 by Houghton-Mifflin, 112 pages
(I bought this from the Berkeley Borders in MI)

Rodney Jones sixth collection of poetry, Elegy for the Southern Drawl, is broken up into five sections.  The middle section is the title poem by itself and it is a ten page effort broken up into 12 sections.

Within the collection, Jones writes about many different topics including football, DDT, owls, and his penis.  His skill level is apparent as he writes in various forms, and does so with seeming ease.  As somebody who isn’t well versed in poetry, or the big name poets of the past, I had the feeling that Jones was having his way with words in poems that he recalled some of those names of the past.

Seeing his recalling of Whitman, Williams, Pound, Keats, Singer, et al, and doing so in different forms and structures led me to believe he was showing his ability to write of them within their own styles.  I would have to do further research of these writers and their works to verify this however.

The problems that I had with this collection were, I believe, my prior lack of reading or studying poetry.  The collection seems to be written for those who have done so.  I’ve read most of the poems at least two times and still had no idea what Jones was doing in many of them.  While I believe the title poem is about language and the various uses of it - there are still two or three sections that made no sense at all to me.

In terms of looking at how a poet can use different forms, and write lines and sections that flow off the tongue with incredible sound, this was a great experience.  In terms of being really happy that I read a collection because of what the writer was saying, this was pretty frustrating.

3.5 stars

Poetry Tag continues for Poetry Friday this week (and every day in April). Yesterday, Joyce Sidman shared a “bird” poem and then she tagged Marilyn Singer. Marilyn shares a bird poem of her own with this note, “Sticking with both Joyce's bird theme and the idea of flocking, here's a poem about my favorite bird--- rather different from the lovely, seed-eating goldfinches. It's from THE COMPANY OF CROWS and it's spoken by ‘The Father’ (crow).” Here is the page from the book used with permission of the poet and the illustrator:































From The Company of Crows by Marilyn Singer, illustrated by Linda Saport (Clarion, 2002). Used with permission of the poet and the illustrator.

Five fun facts about Marilyn Singer
*a trip to the Brooklyn Botanic Garden prompted her to focus on writing for young people
*she loves ballroom dancing
*her first book of poetry for children was Turtle in July (Macmillan, 1989)
*she has also written nonfiction, picture books, fairy tales, YA novels, and mysteries
*she and co-host, Barbara Genco launched the annual ALSC Poetry Blast of poets reading from their works in 2003
[Based on Poetry People; A Practical Guide to Children’s Poets]

Look for these selected poetry books by Singer:
*Turtle in July (Macmillan, 1989)

Things should be deep into AWP now - maybe a quick post from Denver, maybe not, depends on internet availability.  Even if not, here's another celebration of National Poetry Month!

Originally sent via email to EWN members on May 28, 2003
The Determined Days by Philip Stephens
2000 by Overlook, 92 pages
(I bought this one on the advice of Elwood Reid – a genuinely smart man when it comes to literature – not to mention damn good writer)

Philip Stephens writes poems both in a manner, and about subjects, that one does not see often.  He writes about the disenchanted, those who perform hard labor, if they have jobs at all, and those who most often get avoided by others on a day to day basis.

Those speaking to us in his poems include – two homeless men playing chess in a library until their discussion of missionary homes gets too loud, a couple trying to check into a motel late at night, suffering the pornography watching of the motel clerk, and a little girl who social workers have nearly given up one, she no longer acts in any other manner than the one people want her to after years of being abused, on film, by her step-father - she learned how to be what the other person wanted so well that they can't reach her.

The manner that these individuals speak to the reader is the same manner they speak to each other.  Stephens uses dialogue in his poetry, even more than narrative.  The conversations go back and forth, from stanza to stanza, with something as simple as starting the stanza from the left, or halfway across the page to ensure the reader knows when the point of view has changed.

What Stephens does best is show his readers how people in such scenarios get through each day, when all they have to look forward to is another day of the same.

From the opening Ditch Digging, comes the following:

 Quite senselessly, we pick some earth apart,
 And put it back, almost like before.
 Nothing changes.  Nothing.  Nothing more
 Except when day ends.  Rome might tell a joke,
 And we'll drink coffee, chew, or have a smoke,
 Turning our backs on the little sinking scar
 Of broken dirt that leads to where we are.

Ditch Digging, the first poem in the collection, and Climbing, the final poem from which the following comes:

 'Well, boys, it's Friday,' Smith's compelled to say,
 But Rome calls down, 'Know what that means'  One day
 Closer to Monday.'

    'That's the fucking shits,'
 Smith says.  We laugh at him;  he turns and spits.

are two of a few poems about a groups of ditch diggers named Hondo, Hawk, Smith, Sandoval and Rome.  They embody most of what Stephens is writing about and with his placement of these two particular poems, at the beginning and end of his collection give the reader enough cause to read this collection straight through.  At 92 pages, it is a quick, but powerful read.  One that those from all straights of life should look into.

4 stars

Next up in our game of Poetry Tag is Joyce Sidman. She connects with yesterday’s poem by April Halprin Wayland and writes, “I LOVED April's poem for its evocative sense both of wide open sky and the closeness of snuggling in a car with people you love. So, I am choosing a poem from BUTTERFLY EYES called ‘Always Together’, which is about goldfinches, who flock together the year 'round. In this grey time of year they cheer my heart!" Here’s the page right out of the book, shared with permission of the poet and the publisher.






















From: Butterfly Eyes and Other Secrets of the Meadow by Joyce Sidman. Illustrated by Beth Krommes. Used by permission of Houghton Mifflin Harcourt. Copyright (c) 2006 by Joyce Sidman. All rights reserved.

Five fun facts about Joyce Sidman
*she’s a middle sister of three sisters
*she has a degree in German
*she started writing poetry in high school, encouraged by a sympathetic teacher
*she has a free poem bookmark on her Web site
*she loves dogs (and the world of nature altogether)
[Taken from Poetry People; A Practical Guide to Children’s Poets]

Look for these selected poetry books Sidman:
*Eureka! Poems about Inventors (Millbrook, 2002)
*Song of the Water Boatman and Other Pond Poems (Houghton Mifflin, 2005)
*Butterfly Eyes and Other Secrets of the Meadow (Houghton Mifflin, 2006)
*Meow Ruff: A Story in Concrete Poetry (Houghton Mifflin, 2006)
*This is Just to Say (

Our streak of poets-with-three-names continues as Joan Bransfield Graham (below) tags April Halprin Wayland. April writes, “Joan’s marvelous shower poem mentions ‘a private cloud.’ My husband is from Albuquerque and we go there often. When we first visited, the city left me cold—we drove mile after mile past strip malls, 7-11s and auto shops— it felt as if Albuquerque had grown without plan or much attention to beauty. I’ll never forget the day we rented a convertible and I lay down in the back seat. The extraordinary beauty of the sky took my breath away. It changed my sense of that city forever.” Here’s April’s beautiful poem.































(Copyright © by April Halprin Wayland. Used by permission of the author, who controls all rights)

Five fun facts about April Halprin Wayland
*she’s a former farmer and folk musician
*she has worked as a Hollywood nanny
*she has a cat named Snot and a turtle named Roadkill
*she likes to doodle and draw and you can see her creations on her Web site
*she recorded some of her stories and poetry on CD/downloadable MP3


Look for these selected books by Wayland:
*New Year at the Pier (Penguin, 2009)
*Girl Coming in for a Landing: A Novel in Poems (Knopf, 2002)
*It’s Not My Turn to Look for Grandma (Knopf, 1995)
*The Night Horse (Scholastic, 1991)

Please understand that by EWN Classic I certainly do NOT mean it's a classic review.  Not by a longshot - some of these older reviews induce enough cringing to hurt my shoulders.  No, it's intended to re-highlight a fantastic collection of poetry during National Poetry Month.  As I'll be at AWP and probably not reading a full collection each day and posting about it, I'm trying to figure out the means of having posts appear daily while I'm gone, and if successful, they'll be similar to this - retro posts/re-posts of reviews written in the past of collections I really loved.

Originally sent to EWN members via email on December 18, 2002
After the Lost War by Andrew Hudgins
1990 by Houghton-Mifflin, 134 pages
(I still remember buying this one from Shaman Drum in  Ann Arbor, MI)

In After the Lost War, Andrew Hudgins has taken on the persona of the poet, Sidney Lanier.  Through his acknowledgements and preface, Hudgins shares with his readers that he has read all of Lanier’s writings, as well as biographies about him.  He has taken this information and allowed it to flow through his mind long enough to allow him to write a series of poems that, to paraphrase Hudgins, allows him to live his life through that of Lanier’s.

The book is broken up into four sections:  The Civil War, the period of time afterwards, the years Lanier was the Flauto Primo for the Peabody Orchestra in Baltimore, and the last years of his life, when he was physically unable to play his flute.   Hudgins introduces each section with a small bit of prose, allowing the reader some of his knowledge about that portion of Lanier’s life

Hudgins uses repetition of small events or attributes of Lanier’s life to give the reader a steady view of his life.  An example is the constant reminder of Lanier’s health.  Sidney had never been the healthiest of individuals and after suffering through the rigors of war was captured and held prisoner, in an area with brutal conditions, at Fort Lookout in Maryland for three months.  This poor health is brought into the various stages of Lanier’s life.  It is this poor health that is the cause of many of Lanier’s actions in life including leaving his family for a period of time to live in Texas

Tag! Time for another poet to be IT! Lee Bennett Hopkins (see below) has tagged Joan Bransfield Graham who writes, “Lee mentions ‘showers,’ and so I'll share my ‘Shower’ poem from my book of shaped water poems, SPLISH SPLASH (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt). Please read down, starting on the left.” Here is the page from the book, used with permission:
























© Joan Bransfield Graham
Illustration credit: © Steve Scott, illustrator, Splish Splash, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

Joan also shares, “At a school visit I did once, each First Grade class wore hats to go with poems in SPLISH SPLASH. All the children in one class wore shower caps, had towels around their necks, and there was a yellow rubber duck. We had a parade, marching through the playground, led by the principal in his Mad Hatter hat. When we came to a stop, over the PA (public address) system they played "Splish Splash I Was Taking a Bath," and everyone started dancing. Now that's celebrating poetry! The theme for this year's National Summer Reading program is MAKE A SPLASH @ YOUR LIBRARY: READ!”

Five fun facts about Joan Bransfield Graham
*she was born on Halloween
*she lived one summer with a Spanish family on the island of Majorca
*she is married to a former FBI agent
*she now lives near the Pacific Ocean
*she loves photography and has taken many notable photographs

[Taken from Poetry People; A Practical Guide to Children’s Poets]


Look for th