Poetry Friday

I haven't done a poetry Friday in a while, but I came across this poem while I was reading the poetry anthology by Naomi Shihab Nye What Have You Lost?

I loved the theme of this anthology, as poetry is a great vehicle for expressing grief. I do, however, think that most of the poems in this collection are way above the heads of juveniles. Oftentimes deeper layers of poems in children's anthologies can get missed by young readers, but the overall theme of the poem is easily understood, or the rhythm and cadence of the poem is pleasing to the ear so even though they might not understand the entire poem, it still holds their interest.

This anthology comes in at a whopping 204 pages and while many of the poems are beautiful, I think they're better suited to an adult audience.

This was one of the more easily understood (though still difficult) poems:


Years of Solitude
from THE FLOOD

To the one who sets a second place at the table anyway.

To the one at the back of the empty bus.

To the ones who name each piece of stained glass projected on a white wall.

To anyone convinced that a monologue is a conversation with the past.

To the one who loses with the deck he marked.

To those who are destined to inherit the meek.

To us.

- Dionisio D. Marinez

Poetry Friday - Happy National Poetry Month!!!

National Poetry Month is my FAVORITE month of the year to be an English teacher. I see so much growth of students in this month and it is so rewarding to see so many kids have their minds, not just changed, but expanded about what this genre really can do for people.

I started poetry month a week early because of Easter Break, so my students have been learning a little bit about poetry already. On Wednesday I had them make a concept map all about their thoughts on poetry. I had them decorate it and make it colorful and I was so impressed with the thoughts they wrote. Most of their concept maps were WAY better and more insightful than mine.

Here's what some of them had to say...

Some poems aren't your type, some poems speak to you. - Margaret B.

April showers bring poetry flowers. - Elizabeth R.

Poetry can be confusing, but at other times it just speaks to you. - Elizabeth R.

Poetry paints the earth in color. - Erin G.

What is up with the red wheelbarrow poem? - Charlie J.

Why can't April be "Uggh Poetry" Month? - Charlie J.

Poetry is the whisper on the breeze. It's always calling. - Saydi A.

Poetry takes a lot of thought to understand. - Jon T.

I didn't like poetry until Mrs. S. introduced it to me. - Jon T. :o)

Verbal painting - Ray C.

Poetry is performance on paper. - Ashley B.

Life on paper - Claire Y.

Poetry is a box of crayons - different colors come with different feelings. - Natasha B.

Poetry is rain in the spring - Pelton S.

Words forged into art. - Sorin K.

Poetry is a voice that calls you to write. - Patrick S.

Poetry is a garden of words. - Julia F.

The lines and how they are spaced interests me. - Eryn V.

Your thinking outside the box, inside the box - Elysse K.

Poetry can make even the ugliest topics pretty. - Ronan P.

A joyride of imagination - Louis W.

Something you can get tangled in - Louis W.

Poetry is like riding a bike: in the beginning it's hard, but when you practice you get better. - Branden E.

I'm still confused a bit about poetry. Does the poet write about what they are feeling or thinking? Is it just something random? I'm confused! - Jackie D.

Want to write a squirrel poem. - Catherine G.


Some of these make me laugh, some of them make me think, and others are just so insightful that you wonder how the mind of a 12-year old came up with it. Don't anyone ever tell me that learning about poetry is a pointless exercise. You want to talk about a pointless exercise, let's get into a debate about 5-paragraph essays* and how pointless THOSE things are compared to the abstract, complex thought that poetry involves. A 6th grader would never come up with the brilliant and insightful thoughts above if I asked them to write a 5-paragraph essay instead of learn about poetry. And I want you to know that not every kid on here is an honor student. These thoughts come from all different ability-levels, not just the straight-A students.


*For the record, I have nothing against essays in general and do teach them. I just hate the cookie-cutter, thoughtless drivel that the 5-paragraph essay structure forces kids to compose. It is nearly impossible to write with any sort of voice when using the 5-paragraph essay model.

Poetry Friday

Since Easter is in April this year, I have started poetry month a little bit early. Normally National Poetry Month is the entire month of April, but since I'm going to miss out on over a week of instruction in April, I couldn't resist starting early.

Yesterday I played this performance by Taylor Mali to try to get them on my side and lure them into the world of poetry:



They absolutely loved it.

Then I also performed an "edited for content" version of his poem "What Teachers Make" today in class. At this point I can say that they've been lured even more into this intoxicating world of poetry after my treatise on why you need to recite poems that you connect with.

So many kids make the transformation from haters to lovers of poetry in this month. They're like Jack in the book Love That Dog by Sharon Creech. Jack begins his story hating poetry, moves into the understanding phase, and then eventually loves it. So many of my own students go through this same journey. This is the month I look most forward to teaching in the school year.

Poetry Friday

This poem is from the beautiful book compiled by Lee Bennett Hopkins called Lives: Poems About Famous Americans.

I read this poem to my class last week because Langston Hughes is my favorite poet and I love how accessible this poem is. In fact, it's so accessible, that I was checking journals today and a student wrote in her journal after I read this poem to the class that I had changed her mind - she really does like poetry. I absolutely love when that happens!

Dreamer

He let us kiss
the April rain.

He shared his
hope
and pride
and
pain.

He wrote
of life
with an ebon pen
and the world
was never
the same
again.

He syncopated beats
of Harlem-blues.

O!
The might
of Langston Hughes

“Bring me all your dreams, ”
he said.

And though he died…

He
is
not
dead.

-Lee Bennett Hopkins

Poetry Friday

Mother to Son

Well, son, I’ll tell you:
Life for me ain’t been no crystal stair.
It’s had tacks in it,
And splinters,
And boards torn up,
And places with no carpet on the floor –
Bare.
But all the time
I’se been a-climbin’ on,
And reachin’ landin’s,
And turnin’ corners,
And sometimes goin’ in the dark
Where there ain’t been no light.
So boy, don’t you turn back.
Don’t you set down on the steps
‘Cause you finds it’s kinder hard.
Don’t you fall now –
For I’se still goin’, honey,
I’se still climbin’,
And life for me ain’t been no crystal stair.

-Langston Hughes

Poetry Friday

Thought this poem was appropriate for my blog:

Travel

The railroad track is miles away,
And the day is loud with voices speaking,
Yet there isn’t a train goes by all day
But I hear its whistle shrieking.

All night there isn’t a train goes by,
Though the night is still for sleep and dreaming,
But I see its cinders red on the sky,
And hear its engine steaming.

My heart is warm with the friends I make,
And better friends I’ll not be knowing;
Yet there isn’t a train I wouldn’t take,
No matter where it’s going.

– Edna St. Vincent Millay

Poetry Friday

The poem I chose today comes from the book Poems in Black & White by Kate Miller. I read this book last year when I was checking out masses of poetry books from the library to give my students lots of choices for choosing a poem to memorize and recite in class.

Lots of kids really liked the poems in this book because the drawings really brought them to life. And despite the fact that everything is in black and white, it is rife with vivid images - mental and physical. Lovers of meaningful, literary kid poetry should check this book out.

The Cow

Because
she wears
a bristly map
of milkweed white
and midnight black

it seems
as though
she’s
strong enough
to carry continents
upon her back

with oceans
in between

and islands on her
knees.

-Kate Miller

i carry it in my heart

About a year and a half ago while lying in bed, I leaned up against my husband's chest to cuddle with him as I had done many times before. But on this particular night, things went a little bit differently. For some strange reason, I actually stopped to listen intently to his heart beating. I had heard his heart beating previous to this occasion, but it had always been more like background music. This time, I made sure to actually listen to the song lyrics. And it was at that point I realized I had never listened the words before. Wanting to make sure I heard right, I leaned in even more and discovered the sound I was hearing was an irregular hearbeat. A few weeks later I mentioned something to his younger sister who's a nursing student and she got out her stethoscope to listen more accurately. There was immediately a look of concern and she said, "You really should see a doctor about this."

Today was the culmination of that fateful comment. I'm sitting here typing this entry in an empty house while my husband sleeps peacefully (I hope) at U of M Hospital. He had a catheter ablation performed today to eradicate the pathway in his heart that was creating his arrhythmia. Everything went well and his doctor is pleased with the results. I can't tell you how relieved this makes me. As long as I live I don't think I'll ever forget that feeling of dread I felt when we were shuffled into the consultation room to talk to the doctor after the procedure. My logical mind told me, "Beth, this is a routine procedure. Everything is fine." But then my irrational mind took one look at the comfy couch and chairs along with the low, warm lighting that decorated this consultation room and all I could think was, "I wonder how many times doctors have had to deliver bad news in here..."

So of course when he came in and said that everything went fine, I had to hold back my tears of relief for fear of looking like a blubbering idiot.

Other than the fact that his procedure ended at 3:00 and he didn't get a room until 9:15, I have nothing but good things to say about the staff at the U of M Cardiovascular Center. The doctors, nurses, nurse practitioners... they were all competent, caring, and congenial. Given the grandiosity of the U of M Medical campus, I was amazed at how personable everyone has been thus far. I feared we'd feel like nothing but a number, but as a whole, everyone made us feel like we matter (with the exception of the room debacle, but I'm just going to try to let that go).

Despite the success of today's procedure, I'm still having a hard time letting go of my irrational fears long enough to go to sleep. I worry that the morning will bring some unexpected twist of fate that no one had anticipated and that, in reality, the procedure wasn't as successful as they initially thought. Of course this is a ridiculous thought and should be shoved out of my mind, but I can't help thinking it.

So I'm going to shut this computer down, turn off the lights, and fall into a light, turbulent sleep hoping that no results, cardiac or otherwise, get overturned in the morning.


In honor of my husband, I thought today's poem by E.E. Cummings was appropriate:

i carry your heart with me (i carry it in
my heart) i am never without it (anywhere
i go you go, my dear; and whatever is done
by only me is your doing, my darling)
i fear
no fate (for you are my fate, my sweet) i want
no world (for beautiful you are my world, my true)
and it's you are whatever a moon has always meant
and whatever a sun will always sing is you

here is the deepest secret nobody knows
(here is the root of the root and the bud of the bud
and the sky of the sky of a tree called life; which grows
higher than the soul can hope or mind can hide)
and this is the wonder that's keeping the stars apart

i carry your heart (i carry it in my heart)

Poetry Friday

The Pasture

I'm going out the clean the pasture spring;
I'll only stop to rake the leaves away
(And wait to watch the water clear, I may):
I sha'n't be gone long. -- You come too.

I'm going to fetch the little calf
That's standing by the mother. It's so young
It totters when she licks it with her tongue.
I sha'n't be gone long. -- You come too.

- Robert Frost

Much love to Sharon Creech for making this poem a staple in my classroom! :o)

Poetry Friday

A Prayer for the Twenty-First Century

May the road be free for the journey,
May it lead where it promised it would,
May the stars that gave ancient bearing
Be seen, still be understood.
May every aircraft fly safely,
May every traveler be found,
May sailors in crossing the ocean
Not hear the cries of the drowned.

May gardens be wild, like jungles,
May nature never be tamed,
May dangers create of us heroes,
May fears always have names.
May the mountains stand to remind us
Of what it means to be young,
May we be outlived by our daughters,
May we be outlived by our sons.

May the bombs rust away in the bunkers,
And the doomsday clock not be rewound,
May the solitary scientists working,
Remember the holes in the ground.
May the knife remain in the holder,
May the bullet stay in the gun,
May those who live in the shadows
Be seen by those in the sun.

- John Marsden

Poetry Friday

I don't just do "Poetry Friday" here on my blog. I also read a poem to my 6th graders every Friday in English class. Since today was the last day of school before Christmas break, I wanted to read a Christmas poem. Instead of reading a poem though, I played them a song. It's on Garth Brooks' Sevens album and manages to make me cry every single time I hear it. It's rife with emotion and human drama.

I had them write the story of this song in their journals and then we discussed it together as a class. I'm happy that most of them got the meaning and found it as moving as I did.

Belleau Wood

Oh, the snowflakes fell in silence
Over Belleau Wood that night
For a Christmas truce had been declared
By both sides of the fight
As we lay there in our trenches
The silence broke in two
By a German soldier singing
A song that we all knew

Though I did not know the language
The song was “Silent Night”
Then I heard my buddy whisper,
“All is calm and all is bright”
Then the fear and doubt surrounded me
‘Cause I’d die if I was wrong
But I stood up in my trench
And I began to sing along

Then across the frozen battlefield
Another’s voice joined in
Until one by one each man became
A singer of the hymn

Then I thought that I was dreaming
For right there in my sight
Stood the German soldier
‘Neath the falling flakes of white
And he raised his hand and smiled at me
As if he seemed to say
Here’s hoping we both live
To see us find a better way

Then the devil’s clock struck midnight
And the skies lit up again
And the battlefield where heaven stood
Was blown to hell again

But for just one fleeting moment
The answer seemed so clear
Heaven’s not beyond the clouds
It’s just beyond the fear

No, heaven’s not beyond the clouds
It’s for us to find it here

- Garth Brooks

If you've never actually heard the song before, this video shows a moving reenactment: (the song starts at 2:07)

Poetry Friday

Washing The Dog

She dives in the river.
She swims in the lake.

She celebrates snow
from the very first flake.

She plunges through puddles
that lie in her path.

My puppy loves water
(except in a bath).

I tried with a washtub.
I sprayed with a hose.

But most of the water
went right up my nose.

And when we were done,
it was easy to see,
the only one getting a shower was me.

- Dave Crawley

Poetry Friday

Things

Went to the corner
Walked to the store
Bought me some candy
Ain’t got it no more
Ain’t got it no more

Went to the beach
Played on the shore
Built me a sandhouse
Ain’t got it no more
Ain’t got it no more

Went to the kitchen
Lay down on the floor
Made me a poem
Still got it
Still got it

-Eloise Greenfield

Poetry Friday

Because My Students Asked Me

what i would want them to do
at my funeral, i told them:

write & perform a collective poem
in which each of you says a line
about what i was like as a teacher,
about how i made you reach for stars
until you became them,
about how much you loved
to pretend
you hated me.

You mean even after you die
you're going to make us do work?

- Taylor Mali

Poetry Friday

The Question Mark

Poor Thing. Poor crippled measure
of punctuation. Who would know,
who could imagine you used to be
an exclamation point?
What force bent you over?
Age, time and the vices
of this century?
Did you not once evoke,
call out and stress?
But you got weary of it all
got wise, and turned like this.

-Gevorg Emin

Poetry Friday

The Pen

Take a pen in your uncertain fingers.
Trust, and be assured
That the whole world is a sky-blue butterfly
And words are the nets to capture it.

-Muhammed al-Ghuzzi

Poetry Friday

The Meaning of Simplicity

I hide behind simple things so you'll find me;
if you don't find me, you'll find the things,
you'll touch what my hand has touched,
our hand-prints will merge.

The August moon glitters in the kitchen
like a tin-plated pot (it gets that way
because of what I'm saying to you),
it lights up the empty house and
the house's kneeling silence --
always the silence remains kneeling.

Every word is a doorway
to a meeting, one often canceled,
and that's when a word is true:
when it insists on the meeting.

- Yannis Ritsos

Poetry Friday

"Do You Have Any Advice For Those of Us Just Starting Out?"

Give up sitting dutifully at your desk. Leave
your house or apartment. Go out into the world.

It's all right to carry a notebook but a cheap
one is best, with pages the color of weak tea
and on the front a kitten or a space ship.

Avoid any enclosed space where more than
three people are wearing turtlenecks. Beware
any snow-covered chalet with deer tracks
across the muffled tennis courts.

Not surprisingly, libraries are a good place to write.
And the perfect place in a library is near an aisle
where a child a year or two old is playing as his
mother browses the ranks of the dead.

Often he will pull books from the bottom shelf.
The title, the author's name, the brooding photo
on the flap mean nothing. Red book on black, gray
book on brown, he builds a tower. And the higher
it gets, the wider he grins.

You who asked for advice, listen: When the tower
falls, be like that child. Laugh so loud everybody
in the world frowns and says, "Shhhh."

Then start again.

-Ron Koertge

Poetry Friday

This poem cracks me up because it's kind of making a satire out of the most famous poems of William Carlos Williams "The Red Wheelbarrow" and "This is Just to Say"

An Apology

Forgive me
for backing over
and smashing
your red wheelbarrow.

It was raining
and the rear wiper
does not work on
my new plum-colored SUV.

I am also sorry
about the white
chickens.

- F.J. Bergmann

Poetry Friday

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

-William Carlos Williams