AT THE SEA FLOOR CAFE by Leslie Bulion

Poetry Tag continues with a book review of a new book of poetry connected to yesterday's book review.

Today’s tagline: Poems about animals of the sea

Guest Reviewer: Laura Jackson

Featured Book: Bulion, Leslie. 2011. At the Sea Floor Café; Odd Ocean Critter Poems. Atlanta: Peachtree. ISBN: 978-1- 56145-5652.

Laura writes: The ocean and its creatures have always been a fascination for humans. Explorers have only investigated a small per cent of the oceans, and human curiosity begs for more information. This compilation of poems by Leslie Bulion takes a look at the odd creatures that live under the sea. The eighteen poems explore fish, octopus, squid and other animals, focusing on the obscure and the different like the sea spiders and the coconut octopus. Next to each poem there is a paragraph or two giving interesting information about the creature in the poem. Some of the paragraphs include the pronunciation of the more scientific words which is helpful. The glossary in the back also helps readers understand words they may not have read before. The illustrations support the theme of ocean life, but they do little to reinforce the idea of the odd creatures. The typical drawings do support the idea of the critters described as being different or unique.

What makes this book special is its eclectic style. Each poem is told in a different way: a triolet (eight-lined poem with just two rhyming sounds), free verse, lyrics, and a cinquain. The different rhythms and designs give the reader a broad range of poetry to read and, in the case of beginner writers, to imitate. In the back of the book each poem’s style is explained which gives a young writer an idea of how to write a similar poem.

One of the poems that embodies the idea of the book (odd critters) with diverse poetry is “Dolphin Fashion,” a limerick.

A bottlenose counseled her daughter:
“Put this sponge on your beak underwater.
You can scare out more fish,
Poke sharp stones as you wish,
And your skin’ll stay smooth like it oughter”
(Bulion 19).

The additional paragraph explains how some dolphins near Australia have sponges on their noses. Researchers believe one mother started using the sponge to protect her nose while feeding on the ocean floor. Her babies imitated her, and a tradition began. The unique behavior of these dolphins is told lightheartedly in this limerick while exposing children to a new format for a poem.

Connections
To demonstrate how poetry can be fun, a teacher or librarian can use the poem “Upside Down and All-Around” which is about a snail. The words curve around in a circle, creating the image of a snail. After reading the poem and discussing how the set-up adds to the feel of the poem, students can pair up to write a poem about a favorite animal, twisting the words into the shape of the animal. Students who may not enjoy poetry may like putting the words into a shape, thus engaging them in poetry.



FYI: The publishers have launched a contest to promote this book. Here’s the deal:

***Poetry Drawing!***
Teachers: From March 21st to April 30th
Post your students' best springtime, ocean critter or your class's best poems this year on our Facebook page at Facebook. (You must have a Facebook account in order to post on our wall.)

Step 1: Look for Peachtree Publishers on Facebook
Step 2: Like us on Facebook.
Step 3: Find the Wall and look for the box to Share.
Step 4: Type your student's poem in the Share box and hit Enter to Post.

All poems should have a title and the type of poem in parenthesis. Ex: (cinquain, haiku, free verse...)

Also, please give the student's first name and grade level at the end of each poem. Ex: -John (3rd Grade).

All winners will be randomly drawn from all posted poems. Good Luck!
Tomorrow’s tagline: Poems about animals of the air

[You can still purchase your own copy of PoetryTagTime, an e-book with 30 poems, all connected, by 30 poets, all connected and downloadable right now at Amazon for your Kindle or Kindle app for your computer, iPad or phone. Just 99 cents. Don’t miss it.]

Image credit: Peachtree; PoetryTagTime

Posting (not poem) by Sylvia M. Vardell and students © 2011. All rights reserved.

WHAT’S FOR DINNER by Katherine Hauth

Poetry Tag continues with a book review of a new book of poetry connected to yesterday's book review.

Today’s tagline: Poems about animals and what they eat

Guest Reviewer: Latoya Williams

Featured Book: Hauth, Katherine B. 2011. What's for Dinner?: Quirky, Squirmy Poems from the Animal World. Ill. by David Clark. Massachusetts: Charlesbridge Publishing, Inc. ISBN-13: 978-1570914713.

We have a new digital trailer for this book (and I reviewed it previously on Feb. 4, 2011)

Here’s Latoya’s book trailer.

Tomorrow’s tagline: Poems about animals of the sea

PoetryTagTime
I hope you'll also allow me to plug my new book again, PoetryTagTime, an e-book with 30 poems, by 30 poets, all connected and downloadable right now at Amazon for your Kindle or Kindle app for your computer, iPad or phone. Just 99 cents. Don’t miss it.

This collection of 30 new, unpublished connected poems range from the humorous to serious, about tongues, turtles and toenails, in acrostics, quatrains, and free verse written by 30 of our best children's poets. And the “connections” between poems as the poets voice how their poems are interconnected in this game of poetry tag adds another layer of fun and meaning. You'll be able to share brand-new poems and poetry tips with children all month long for pennies a day!

Even if you don’t own a Kindle, you can download the free Kindle app for a number of devices, including your Windows or Apple computer, iPad, iPhone, BlackBerry, or Android-powered phone. Put the poems on your cell phone and you're ready with a "poem in your pocket," too!

Also, be sure to check out our web site (PoetryTagTime.com) and companion blog (PoetryTagTime.Blogspot) for strategies for sharing each of the 30 poems in the book, rolling out one per day throughout the month of April.

Poetry Friday
And don't forget to join the fun at the Poetry Friday gathering at Madigan Reads!


Image credit: PoetryTagTime;Charlesbridge


Posting (not poem) by Sylvia M. Vardell and students © 2011. All rights reserved.

AROUND THE WORLD ON 80 LEGS by Amy Gibson

Poetry Tag continues with a book review of a new book of poetry connected to yesterday's book review.

Today’s tagline: More poems about all kinds of animals

Guest Reviewers: Mary Pharaoh and Melisa O’Rear

Featured Book: Gibson, Amy. 2011. Around the world on eighty legs: Animal poems. Ill. by Daniel Salmieri. New York: Scholastic. ISBN 9780439587556

Mary writes: Finally, after much technical difficulty...recorded and edited, added the images and loaded it to a faulty flash drive... twice... the camera battery died on me... this was a challenging assignment. I hope you like it. I am pretty proud of it. Here's my digital trailer.

Melisa writes: In Amy Gibson’s first book of poetry, she takes us skipping across the continents to explore five regions as we learn of the animal inhabitants, when added together, have a total of eighty legs. Gibson’s witty use of wordplay is impressive as she weaves bits of information about each animal throughout the short verses. The watercolor, gouache and colored-pencil illustrations by Daniel Salmieri continue the humor found throughout the brightly colored pages. In addition to the sixty poems featuring popular and lesser-known animals, there is a fantastic “Menagerie of Facts” located in the back. Here readers will find a list of animals in alphabetical order, a small picture of each animal along with one or two interesting facts. This would be a fun and entertaining book for young elementary age children. Here’s a sample poem:

Macaque
(muh-KAK)
by Amy Gibson

Most monkeys
like it hot, but not
the Japanese
macaque.
He lives in snow
where cold winds blow,
for fur runs
down his back.
But coats of fluff
are not enough
when winter is
a doozy.
And so he hurries
when it flurries
into the
Jacuzzi.

Connections
This 2011 poetry book is a great one for cross-curricular connections. I would use this book as an introduction for a science lesson on animals. Prior to beginning the research process on specific animals, this would allow students to see where many animals live as it cleverly categorizes the animals in their native habitats within geographic regions shown on the maps on the end pages. Sharing poems from the book might entice students to research animals that are lesser known. What a fun and fabulous way to broaden students’ learning. After students complete their research, have them write a poem about the animal they studied and display their poems in the library.

Tomorrow’s tagline: Poems about animals and what they eat

[And don’t forget to get your own copy of PoetryTagTime, an e-book with 30 poems, all connected, by 30 poets, and downloadable right now at Amazon for your Kindle or Kindle app for your computer, iPad or phone. Just 99 cents. Spread the word.]

Image credit: PoetryTagTime;AmyGibson

Posting (not poem) by Sylvia M. Vardell and students © 2011. All rights reserved.

Readers Guide for DARK EMPEROR

I’m teaching my graduate course in poetry for children this semester and we have all kinds of projects percolating that I hope to share soon-- including readers’ guides for many different poetry books. Toward that end, I created a mini-example readers’ guide for my students for Joyce Sidman’s Dark Emperor, a Newbery honor book this year. Let me first say that Joyce has several excellent resources for this book available on her own web site. I purposely created my guide before checking hers and there’s a wee bit of overlap, but together, we offer multiple ways to approach this wonderful book.

At Joyce’s web site, you’ll find:

• A readers guide
• Audiofile of her reading select poems
• Links to interviews with Joyce
• And more…

READERS GUIDE: Dark Emperor by Joyce Sidman
By Sylvia Vardell

Sidman, Joyce. 2010. Dark Emperor and Other Poems of the Night. Houghton Mifflin. Recommended age levels 7-12

1. Summary of book
This collection of poems about the forest at night—owls, moths, porcupines-- is the last in the trio of “ecosystem poetry books” that began with Song of the Water Boatman (pond) and continued with Butterfly Eyes (meadow). It also offers a parallel layout with beautiful linoleum prints in a double-page spread for each of 12 poems, alongside an accompanying prose paragraph. This marriage of lyrical poetry, science-focused topics, and beautifully executed art has become a Sidman (and collaborating illustrator) trademark.

2. Review excerpts/awards
*Newbery Honor book

*Booklist Editors’ Choice
*Booklist starred review; “this picture book combines lyrical poetry and compelling art with science concepts”
*School Library Journal; “it invites lingering enjoyment for nature and poetry fans”
*Horn Book Fanfare
*Bulletin Blue Ribbon
*Chicago Public Library Best Book of the Year
*NSTA-CBC Outstanding Science Trade Book
*ALA Notable Book
*Junior Library Guild Selection
*Cybils Poetry Award finalist
*Lee Bennett Hopkins Poetry Award honor book

3. Questions to ask before reading
Invite the children to discuss the following:
*What is an “emperor”? Look at the book’s cover and speculate about the book’s content and the meaning of the word “emperor.”
*Imagine what happens outside your home when you sleep at night. What animals might be active? What noises might be heard?
*Which is easier to write—prose or poetry? Why? This book has both. Why do you think a poetry book might include prose paragraphs, too?

4. Suggestions for reading poems aloud
*“Welcome to the Night”-- invite the whole group or class to read each stanza’s end line (“Welcome to the night”) as a repeated refrain; try this same strategy with “I Am a Baby Porcupette” and with “The Mushrooms Come” (for the repeated title line in each poem)
*“Oak After Dark”-- invite 7 volunteers to read one couplet each; try changing the order of the couplets in repeated readings just for fun
*”Ballad of the Wandering Eft”—Divide the class or whole group into 4 small groups, one to read each of the 4 poem stanzas. Then invite the whole (large) group to sing the repeated stanza in italics as a song to the tune of “On Top of Old Smoky.”

5. Follow up activities (writing, art, science, etc.)
*Art block prints
The illustrator, Rick Allen, created woodblock prints for the pictures in this book. Collaborate with an art teacher or local artist to learn about printmaking; experiment with simple potato prints to create print pictures for a favorite poem.

*Poem writing
Joyce Sidman writes poetry in many different forms. In this book, she includes an “ubi sunt” (“Moon’s Lament”), a medieval poem that “laments the loss of heroic, beautiful things.” Invite the children to work in pairs to try creating their own lamenting ubi sunt poem.

*Science observations
Children can work in pairs to create nature poems and prose paragraphs about creatures in their immediate environment based on observing them for a set period of time. Combine them to create a collaborative book.

6. Related web sites/blogs
*Joyce Sidman’s web site
http://www.joycesidman.com/
[Look here for a readers guide that she has created as well as a digital trailer for this book.]

*Nocturnal animals web site
http://nocturnal-animals.com/
[Look here for factual information and photo-images of animals that are most active at night.]

*The Miss Rumphius Effect
http://missrumphiuseffect.blogspot.com/
[Look here for science plus poetry connections and ideas for teaching.]

7. Related books (poetry, nonfiction, fiction)
*Sidman Ecosystem Poetry Trilogy:
Sidman, Joyce. 2005. Song of the Water Boatman and Other Pond Poems. Ill. By Beckie Prange. Boston: Houghton Mifflin.
Sidman, Joyce. 2006. Butterfly Eyes and Other Secrets of the Meadow. Ill. by Beth Krommes. Boston: Houghton Mifflin.
Sidman, Joyce. 2010. Dark Emperor and Other Poems of the Night. Ill. by Rick Allen. Boston: Houghton Mifflin.


*Other collections of nature poetry organized around an ecosystem theme:
Singer, Marilyn. 1989. Turtle in July. New York: Macmillan.
Singer, Marilyn. 2003. Fireflies at Midnight. New York: Atheneum.
Yolen, Jane, comp. 1997. Once Upon Ice and Other Frozen Poems. Honesdale, PA: Wordsong/Boyds Mills Press.
Yolen, Jane. 1998. Snow, Snow: Winter Poems for Children. Honesdale, PA: Wordsong/Boyds Mills Press.

*Nonfiction books about nocturnal animals:
Cooper, Wade. 2008. Night Creatures. Cartwheel.
Fraser, Mary Ann. 1999. Where Are the Night Animals? HarperCollins.
George, Jean Craighead. 1999. Morning, Noon, and Night. HarperCollins.
Weber, Belinda. 2006. The Best Book of Nighttime Animals. Kingfisher.

Meanwhile, stay tuned and I hope to share more information about other student-made poetry resources as National Poetry Month (April) nears.

Image credit: Houghton Mifflin

Posting (not poem) by Sylvia M. Vardell © 2011. All rights reserved.

What’s for Dinner?

New this week is a poetry book destined to be a sure-fire hit with both kids and science teachers! It's What’s for Dinner? Quirky, Squirmy Poems from the Animal World by new poet Katherine Hauth (published by Charlesbridge).

The organizing theme of the book is so appealing: which animals eat which animals (and plants) and how. Delve into more than two dozen animal examples told in short, generally free verse poems accompanied by clever cartoon portraits (by illustrator David Clark) that manage to be both helpful and zany. The collection is bookended by theme poems, “What’s for Dinner” and “Eating Words” with 29 clever, succinct, and highly visual poems in a variety of formats in between. The occasional consonance and rhyme are spot on and scan nicely and unexpected syncopations mix up the rhythms here and there to nice effect.

Seldom has the food chain received such red carpet poetical treatment with unexpected examples of the relationships between predator and prey. Consider the hawk couple whose courtship includes tossing a snake between them or the brown bat that forms a bowl by curving its tail to eat insects like popcorn. Some poems even reveal the connections between multiple participants in the “Food Chain”:















[BTW: This is NOT the illustration for this poem, but I needed to capture the alignment for the poem, so I resorted to making the slide above.]

Kids will love discovering how crows and wolves help each other eat, how slugs stop other creatures from eating them, four ways polar bears catch seals, and my personal favorite, how “hundreds of beetles and moths” live on the back of the sloth, jumping off his back “on the weekly occasion of Sloth’s defecation” to “lay their eggs on his dung/ with its sugar and starch/ that will nourish their young.” Then, they “jump back onto the back of the Sloth” for another week til the process is repeated. The poem ends, “Quite a menagerie,/feeding in harmony” an excellent summary for the entire book! The combination of true and fascinating facts, the focus on EATING, and occasional references to poop and its necessary place in the food chain are all sure to grab young readers.

As an added plus, teachers and librarians will be pleased to find that the poems are examples of symbiosis, mutualism, parasitism, and other science concepts, all briefly explained in a clear and helpful section, “More Words About the Poems.” Other useful backmatter includes an information-rich paragraph to accompany each poem in an extensive “More Words About the Animals,” plus a bibliography of “Where to Learn More About the Animals in This Book.”

As a former sixth grade teacher (where kids enjoy a bit of the macabre, especially based on fact), I would share a poem just before a snack or lunch break—kids would eat that up! :-) And they’ll definitely want to do more research to see “is that really true?” Follow up with more related poetry, such as:

• Bulion, Leslie. 2006. Hey There, Stink Bug! Watertown, MA: Charlesbridge.
• Florian, Douglas. 1998. Insectlopedia: Poems and Paintings. San Diego: Harcourt.
• Florian, Douglas. 1996. On the Wing: Bird Poems and Paintings. San Diego: Harcourt.
• George, Kristine O’Connell. 2004. Hummingbird Nest: A Journal of Poems. Orlando: Harcourt.
• Harley, Avis. 2001. Leap into Poetry: More ABCs of Poetry. Honesdale, PA: Boyds Mills Press.
• Lewis, J. Patrick, 1998. The Little Buggers. New York: Dial.
  
• Sidman, Joyce. 2006. Butterfly Eyes and Other Secrets of the Meadow. Boston: Houghton Mifflin.
  
• Sidman, Joyce. 2005. Song of the Water Boatman and Other Pond Poems. Ill. By Beckie Prange. Boston: Houghton Mifflin.
• Sidman, Joyce. 2010. Ubiquitous: Celebrating Nature’s Survivors. Ill. by Becky Prange. Boston: Houghton Mifflin.
• Singer, Marilyn. 1989. Turtle in July. New York: Macmillan.

P.S. I'm teaching my graduate course in poetry for children again this spring and one of my students is developing a digital trailer for this book-- which I hope to share soon. So stay tuned for more...

Don't forget to join the throng at Poetry Friday hosted by Dori Reads.

Image credit: 

Charlesbridge

Posting by Sylvia M. Vardell © 2011. All rights reserved.

Thanks for Pumpkin Butterfly

It was lovely to catch up with poet Heidi Mordhorst at last week's Poetry Party and NCTE conference. Not only did she have a wonderful poem in our Dear One collection for Lee Bennett Hopkins, but she came to the session and spoke briefly, too, representing so many of the "new" poets whom Lee has mentored in recent years. (If you'd like to be eligible to receive a free copy of Dear One, just post a comment here about your favorite NCTE Award poet or poetry collection. Two winners will be chosen at random each day. Today’s winners are Jo Ann Macken and Tricia Stohr-Hunt. Please email me at svardell at twu dot edu with your mailing information.)

Heidi has a new collection of her own poetry out this fall and I'd like to toot her horn a bit, because it's one of my favorites out this year. It's Pumpkin Butterfly; Poems from the Other Side of Nature, a collection of "nature" poems that begin with fall, so it's perfect to buy and share right now and to follow the ongoing rhythm of the school year for kids. There are 23 poems in a variety of poetic forms and structures, many in free verse that is lilting and rhythmic. Her poems celebrate fall leaves and compost, squirrels and raccoons, ice and snow, sore throats and jumping shadows, fresh fruit and cherry blossoms, thunderous skies and nighttime dark. There's even a terrific tribute to Charles Darwin's "guest list" for a "garden party."

Her use of language is lovely, full of metaphor and sensory moments. Kids will surely respond to the specificity of her examples and details-- evoking vivid images and emotions. Watercolor illustrations by Jenny Reynish create an inviting backdrop for the poetry, suggesting a tiny bit of action without overwhelming or derailing the poem.

Here's just one example, a poem that turns the tables on children's usual fears of the dark and personifies night in interesting ways.

Night Luck

by Heidi Mordhorst

Night is deep in a dark box

deep in a cushion of down

nestled in tissue

tied with ribbons

Night is asleep in the dark

Night wakes with curious paws

wakes in a furry fog

wrestles the tissue

nibbles the ribbons

Night is awake in the dark

Night tumbles in velvet directions

tumbles along to your bed

sniffing your wishes

wagging your worries

Night is a friend in the dark

Mordhorst, Heidi. 2009. Pumpkin Butterfly; Poems from the Other Side of Nature. Honesdale PA: Wordsong/Boyds Mills Press, p. 20.

The poem has a gentle repetition of key words-- especially in the last line of each stanza. Invite kids to join in on those lines (in bold) and talk with them about how they might personify "night" or draw a picture together with chalk on black paper to illustrate the poem.

For more poetry thoughts, join the Poetry Friday gathering hosted by my TWU-bud, Becky at Becky’s Book Reviews.

Posting (not poem) by Sylvia M. Vardell c 2009. All rights reserved.

Image credit: Wordsongpoetry.com

Capstone poetry

I feel like I must be the last person on the planet to discover that Capstone Press has a whole series of poetry books designed to feature subject matter content. Cool! I've long been a fan of linking poetry and nonfiction. Here's what I wrote in my book, Poetry Aloud Here,

"Pairing nonfiction and poetry may seem like an unlikely partnership at first, but these two different genres can complement one another by showing children how writers approach the same topic in very different and distinctive ways. In addition, children will see that you can learn a lot of information from BOTH a poem and a work of nonfiction.... Poems can also serve to initiate a topic or enrich and extend it. The length is less intimidating to children overwhelmed by longer prose and streams of new vocabulary. Although poetry may also present new words and concepts, this shorter appearance provides a motivating advantage.... Look for poetry anthologies organized by subject matter, when possible, since they help make the content connection obvious.

Poetry breaks across the curriculum can serve to:
• Jumpstart or introduce a lesson or topic
• Provide examples of terminology or concepts
• Provide a transition between activities
• Provide a stretching (poetry) break
• Provide closure
• Extend the topic further"

Capstone has collaborated with the up-and-coming poet Laura Purdie Salas to create an emerging series of poetry books that focus on a variety of appealing and curriculum-worthy topics for kids including these in 2009:

Always Got My Feet: Poems about Transportation
A Fuzzy-Fast Blur: Poems about Pets
Lettuce Introduce You: Poems about Food
and
Chatter, Sing, Roar, Buzz: Poems about the Rain Forest, the book I have in hand.

Two things grab you as soon as you open this picture book-- it's highly visual with full color, full page (sometimes double-page) photographs for every poem and secondly, the design showcases the poems equally effectively in a large, appealing font spread nicely across the page. Eye catching and easy to read. Add to that, the photos are well chosen and well matched to the poems (although the image focus could be a bit sharper IMO) and the poems manage to be both clearly descriptive and well written and representative of a variety of poetic forms.

This collection focuses on the rain forest with 16 poems about the wildlife, the landscape, the people, the crops, etc. It's teacher-friendly, while still having appeal for reading (and performing) out loud or sharing during poetry time-- as well as in science lessons. Kids will love reading about the stealth of the jaguar, the slow life of the sloth, the tired lemur and capybara mamas, the playfulness of chimps and bearded pigs, the "small can be powerful" message from the leaf-cutter ant, as well as encountering poison blue frogs and cuddly tent bats, among other topics. [Combine this book with Francisco X. Alarcón's Animals Poems of the Iguazú / Animalario del Iguazú (Children’s Book Press, 2008) for a double dose of rain forest perspectives.] The diversity of rain forests is enticingly introduced here-- I just wish they had included a map to locate the sites referenced in the poems. Overall, this example collection convinces me that Capstone and Laura are definitely on to something. Here's just a taste:

Treetop Scientist
by Laura Purdie Salas

My lab is high among the trees
I scramble up and down with ease
I climb to work, and this is why:
I'm doing science in the sky

Boots are sturdy, helmet's tough
I'm in the field, I'm living rough
I dangle free, enjoy the breeze
Because I'm high among the trees

Salas, Laura Purdie. 2009. Chatter, Sing, Roar, Buzz; Poems about the Rain Forest. Mankato, MN: Capstone Press, p. 20.

Finally, I love how this book connects further with nonfiction by modeling the attributes of quality nonfiction in providing helpful backmatter: a section entitled "The Language of Poetry" that explains poetry terms and forms relevant in this collection (e.g., "diamonte"-- describing the form and noting which poems in this particular book are diamonte poems), a "Glossary" of unusual vocabulary found in the poems (e.g., "liana" [lee AHN uh]-- a thick vine of the rainforest), "Read More" with recommendations of related books, "Internet Sites" with a "Facthound" that will "fetch" the relevant sites from the Capstone site, an "Index of Poems," and in small print, photo credits and a note to parents, teachers, and librarians. I for one really appreciate the backmatter in books. These tools make the book even more versatile for a variety of purposes and audiences.

Each picture book is designed to be at a reading level for first-to-second graders. The Capstone brochure indicates the "interest level" at preK-2, but I would argue that these would be interesting to kids beyond second grade, too. That's the terrific thing about poetry, IMO, it is so much LESS age-bound than other genres, especially when you read a good poem aloud. Who can say what age a poem was intended for? It's for ME!

Capstone's backlist titles from this "A+ Series" include (from 2008):
And Then There Were Eight: Poems about Space
Do Buses Eat Kids?: Poems About School
Flashy, Clashy, and Oh-So-Splashy: Poems about Color
Seed Sower, Hat Thrower: Poems about Weather
Shrinking Days, Frosty Nights: Poems about Fall
Tiny Dreams, Sprouting Tall: Poems about the United States

I want to look for these titles next, don't you?

FYI: Laura blogged about the writing process for these 10 poetry collections. Check it out!

Join the rest of the Poetry Friday gathering hosted by Andromeda Jazmon today at A Wrung Sponge.

Posting (not poem) by Sylvia M. Vardell © 2009. All rights reserved.

Image credit: search.barnesandnoble.com

Happy birthday, Constance Levy

May is a terrific month for poet birthdays:
2 Bobbi Katz
5 J. Patrick Lewis
6 Kristine O’Connell George; José-Luis Orozco
7 Michael Rosen
8 Constance Levy
12 Edward Lear
17 Eloise Greenfield
25 Joyce Carol Thomas

We can celebrate their work all month long! And today, in particular, I’d love to highlight the lyrical and often subtle work of Contance Levy. I’ll share a bit of info about her excerpted from my book, Poetry People. Levy is a former teacher and a frequent speaker at schools and educational conferences. She has won many honors including Bank Street College’s Children’s Book of the Year, Boston Globe Horn Book Honor Award, American Booksellers Pick of the List, several National Council of Teachers of English Notable Book in Language Arts citations, New York Library’s Select 100 Titles for Children’s Books and the Lee Bennett Hopkins Award for the best poetry book of the year for Splash! Poems of our Watery World.

Many of Levy’s poems use “nature” as a theme and depict everything from butterflies to weeds with a sense of wonder and playfulness. Her poetry collections include:

I’m Going to Pet a Worm Today and Other Poems (McElderry 1991)
A Tree Place and Other Poems (McElderry 1994)
When Whales Exhale and Other Poems (McElderry 1996)
A Crack in the Clouds And Other Poems (McElderry 1998)
Splash!: Poems of Our Watery World (Orchard 2002)

So many of Levy’s poems link beautifully with picture books of fiction and nonfiction. Their directness and effective use of first person or question/answer format invite engagement and interaction. For example, her collection, A Crack in the Clouds, includes a gamut of “cloud” poems that convey the awe and adventure experienced by Lindbergh in the first transatlantic flight in Flight: The Journey of Charles Lindbergh by Robert Burleigh (Philomel 1991). Gather other factual books about flight and airplanes (such as Seymour Simon’s The Paper Airplane Book, Puffin 1976) and invite the children to create displays of clouds, paper planes, and matching poems.

For younger children, take a step outside to look at real clouds and share the classic picture book, It Looked Like Spilt Milk by Charles Shaw (HarperCollins, 1988). Read aloud some of Levy’s cloud poems and then have students tear white paper into corresponding cloud images and mount them on blue paper—imitating the illustrations of Shaw’s book.

The poems in her award winning collection, Splash! Poems of our Watery World, offer a similar smorgasbord of poems, but this time the topic is water in its many forms. Two of the poems, “Flood Line” and “River Games” describe the river as a living thing, almost with a personality. Tie these together with Jane Kurtz’s picture book poems, River Friendly, River Wild (Simon & Schuster 2000) about a young girl’s ordeal during North Dakota’s Red River Valley Flood in 1997. Or children may enjoy connecting Levy’s “water” poems with the concrete poetry about water in Joan Bransfield Graham’s Splish Splash (Houghton Mifflin 2001). They can try creating their own water, flood, or river poems on shaped paper. Here’s one sample poem to demonstrate Levy’s gift for sound, image, and rhythm:

Ocean Rhythms
by Constance Levy

Wave after wave,
Each wave
a beat
each beat
repeating
each stretch
receding.
This Earth's old wild heart
beating.

From: http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/ocean-rhythms/

Constance Levy offers more nature poems in A Tree Place and Other Poems (McElderry 1994) and I’m Going to Pet a Worm Today and Other Poems (McElderry 1991). Her style compares nicely with Kristine O’Connell in her poetry collection, Old Elm Speaks: Tree Poems (Clarion 1998) or Aileen Fisher’s Sing of the Earth and Sky: Poems about Our Planet and the Wonders Beyond (Boyds Mills Press 2003). For a fun follow up activity, share “Birdseed Song” from I’m Going to Pet a Worm Today and provide materials for making small, individual bird feeders. For example, spread peanut butter on the outside of a pine cone and then roll it in birdseed and hang it outdoors on a string as a homemade bird feeder. Be sure to look for her work in many anthologies as well as in her own, small delicate collections.

Image credits:www.pabook.libraries.psu.edu;www.sbfonline.com;search.barnesandnoble.com;www.myspace.com

Posting (not poem) by Sylvia M. Vardell © 2009. All rights reserved.

Earth Day poetry

Today is Earth Day, so I thought it would be appropriate to consider a collection of poetry that celebrates the earth and its creatures. It’s not hard to do, since so many poets have chosen this topic over the years. Poetry for children, in particular, celebrates the animal world over and over again.

One new poetry book worth sharing is Deborah Ruddell’s picture book poem collection, A Whiff of Pine, A Hint of Skunk, illustrated by Joan Rankin. It’s a playful look at the forest and its wildlife through the seasons of the year in 22 poems that run the gamut from light and punny to thoughtful and contemplative. A helpful table of contents lays it all out, from the opening, “Eau de Forest: A Woodsy Cologne” to “Woodchuck’s Wake-up Morning.” Many are from the point of view of the animal—an instant mini-lesson for young people—and the sense of SMELL (“a hint of skunk!”) is almost pungent throughout, another great opportunity to guide kids in sensory description.

The illustrations by South African artist Joan Rankin bring the book to life beginning with the end pages showing ALL the creatures from the poems gathered in a forest setting. Kids will love checking the scene for each animal before or after reading the poetry. The watercolor scenes are strategically positioned on each page and reflect a pleasing assortment of size and placement that adds visual variety. She also manages to add a lightness to the overall tone of the book, particularly in the facial expressions of the animals (and children) pictured.

The collection is strong on visual appeal, as well as in regular rhyme and inviting imagery. The poems lend themselves nicely to reading aloud and choral reading, too. Here’s just one sample poem. Three groups (or 3 pairs or 3 volunteers) could present this poem with each group reading two lines in succession. Group 1 reads the first two lines, Group 2 reads the third and fourth lines, and Group 3 reads the final two lines. Try it!

Spring Welcome
by Deborah Ruddell

A million arms in woody sleeves
wave a zillion brand-new leaves,
inviting wrens to be their guests,
the orioles to build their nests,
and calling all the chickadees
to stay and raise their families.

Ruddell, Deborah. 2009. A Whiff of Pine, A Hint of Skunk. Illustrated by Joan Rankin. New York: Simon & Schuster.

Check out Deborah’s Web site for more info, particularly for audio clips of poems from her last book, Today at the Bluebird Café, available for download. They’re particularly fun since they’re read aloud in children’s voices—by two of her granddaughters!

For another look at the seasons of the year through animals and wildlife, look for one of my all-time favorite poetry collections by Marilyn Singer, Turtle in July, illustrated by the incomparable Jerry Pinkney (Macmillan, 1989). Invite the kids to gather or write their own “calendar” of animal and nature poems to reflect their own eco-setting.

Here are just a handful of other collections of nature-themed poetry:
*Bruchac, Joseph. 1995. The Earth Under Sky Bear's Feet: Native American Poems of the Land. New York: Philomel Books.
*Brenner, Barbara. 1994. The Earth is Painted Green: A Garden of Poems about Our Planet. New York: Scholastic.
*Nicholls, Judith. 2003. The Sun in Me: Poems About the Planet. Barefoot Books.
*Yolen, Jane. 2000. Color Me a Rhyme: Nature Poems for Young People. Honesdale, PA: Wordsong/Boyds Mills Press.

Image credit: books.simonandschuster.com

Posting (not poem) by Sylvia M. Vardell © 2009. All rights reserved.

Emily Dickinson on hurricanes

I recently decided to keep a book of poetry in my purse for those moments when you find yourself waiting with nothing to do. Since I’ve been trying to lighten the load in my bag (due to shoulder issues), I was pleased to find a tiny volume of a handful of Emily Dickinson’s poems (one of my favorite of the classic poets) at Half Price Books. It’s been fun to read and think through a poem here and there. Waiting with a poem is a pleasurable way to pass a few minutes—sort of a mental yoga—and I highly recommend it. And it’s been interesting to revisit some old favorites and even discover some Dickinson gems that I had missed along the way.

For example, I had no idea that she had written about a storm—what some people claim might have been a hurricane.







There came a wind like a bugle;
It quivered through the grass,
And a green chill upon the heat
So ominous did pass
We barred the windows and the doors
As from an emerald ghost;
The doom’s electric moccasin
That very instant passed.
On a strange mob of panting trees,
And fences fled away,
And rivers where the houses ran
Those looked that lived—that Day—
The bell within the steeple wild
The flying tidings whirled.
How much can come
And much can go,
And yet abide the world!

From Moore, Geoffrey. Ed. 1986. Great American Poets: Emily Dickinson. New York: Clarkson N. Potter Publishers, p. 54.

We here in Texas are coping with the “emerald ghost” of Hurricane Ike this weekend, so this poem goes out to my friends and colleagues and all those in the Houston-Galveston area. Hang in there!

Picture credit: www.sciam.com

Going Barefoot for National Garden Month

Among all the other month-long celebrations, April is also National Garden Month with people planting and pruning all around me. Since we moved into this home last December, we are working to get the landscaping renewed and refreshed—watering and fertilizing and planting perennials. We put in a whole new lawn in the backyard where a large shade tree had killed all the grass (and we’re cutting the tree back a bit, too, of course). One of my favorite parts of this process is walking barefoot on the new, soft, cool lawn (of St. Augustine grass).

Going barefoot is such a treat in childhood—freeing and often forbidden (unless you can't afford shoes-- which is another story). A new poetry collection celebrates those barefoot feelings and experiences: Barefoot; Poems for Naked Feet by Stefi Weisburd, illustrated by Lori McElrath-Eslick (Honesdale, PA: Wordsong/Boyds Mills Press, 2008). It includes 27 poems in a variety of forms with appealing watercolor illustrations expanding each one. Many of the poems address the fun, obvious aspects of feet at play, in babyhood, in shoes, jumping, dancing, walking, at the beach, in the pool, plus footrubs, pedicures, and even Mehndi painting. What a fun example of a topic that children can explore in concrete ways from multiple perspectives.

Here’s just a sampling:

Shoe Tattoo
by Stefi Weisburd

Tight shoes,
ribbed socks,
leave lines
embossed.
Streams and hills,
fields of wheat.
A tiny landscape
on my feet!

From: Barefoot; Poems for Naked Feet by Stefi Weisburd, illustrated by Lori McElrath-Eslick. Honesdale, PA: Wordsong/Boyds Mills Press, 2008, p. 27.

This is Stefi’s first book for young people, although she has published much notable poetry for adults. Watch for more from this fresh voice.

For more poetry about body parts and movement:
Adoff, Arnold. 1979. I am the Running Girl. New York: Harper & Row.
Brown, Calef. 2000. Dutch Sneakers and Flea Keepers: 14 More Stories. Boston: Houghton Mifflin.
Cole, Joanna, comp. 1989. Anna Banana: 101 Jump-Rope Rhymes. Illus. by Alan Tiegreen. New York: HarperTrophy.
Creech, Sharon. 2004. Heartbeat. New York: HarperCollins.
Dotlich, Rebecca Kai. 2003. In the Spin of Things: Poetry of Motion. Honesdale, PA: Wordsong/Boyds Mills Press.
Grimes, Nikki. 2000. Shoe Magic. New York: Orchard Books.
Mayo, Margaret. 2002. Wiggle Waggle Fun: Stories and Rhymes for the Very Very Young. Cambridge, MA: Candlewick.
McCord, David. 1999. Every Time I Climb a Tree. New York: Little Brown.
Sierra, Judy. 2005. Schoolyard Rhymes: Kids’ Own Rhymes for Rope Skipping, Hand Clapping, Ball Bouncing, and Just Plain Fun. New York: Knopf.
Wolf, Allan. 2003. The Blood-Hungry Spleen and Other Poems About Our Parts. Ill. by Greg Clark. Cambridge, MA: Candlewick.
Wong, Janet. 2007. Twist: Yoga Poems. McElderry.

Try going barefoot again this month!

Picture credit: BestWebBuys

The Monarch’s Progress and Avis Harley

Avis Harley has a new book of poetry out this spring: The Monarch’s Progress; Poems with Wings (Honesdale, PA: Wordsong/Boyds Mills Press). Once again, she approaches a nature topic through a variety of poetic forms, including haiku, alphabet poems, acrostics, sonnets, cinquains, limericks, and more—all about the monarch butterfly. Plus, there are interesting endnotes that correspond to each poem. Here’s my favorite, the final poem:

Before
by Avis Harley

The butterfly was there
before any human art was made.
Before cathedrals rose in prayer,
the butterfly was there.
Before pyramids pierced the air
or Great Wall stones were laid,
the butterfly was there.
Before any human, art was made.

From Harley, Avis. 2008. The Monarch’s Progress; Poems with Wings. Honesdale, PA: Wordsong/Boyds Mills Press. p. 27

*Invite kids to join in on the repeated line as you read it aloud.
*Pair with the Orbis Pictus award winning nonfiction picture book, An Extraordinary Life: The Story of a Monarch Butterfly by Laurence Pringle and Bob Marstall
And for more about Avis Harley and her work, check out Poetry People. Here’s an excerpt:
Avis Harley’s poetry writing is characterized by its diversity and experimentation. She enjoys trying poetry in all its different formats and is adept at demonstrating poetic form for children. Her first collection Fly With Poetry: An ABC of Poetry (Wordsong/Boyds Mills Press 2000) includes twenty-seven original short poems, generally one for each letter of the alphabet such as acrostics, blank verse, cinquain, etc. In addition, a brief definition of the form is provided as a caption at the bottom of each page. Fourteen additional poetic forms are shared in the back of the book. This is a tremendous resource for children who want to try their own hands at creating poetry. Harley’s poem examples are brief, vivid, and clear.

Harley has a second volume of poetry organized around the same alphabet theme, Leap Into Poetry (Wordsong/Boyds Mills Press 2001). In this book, she provides 26 poems about insects, each demonstrating another poetic form or literary term, such as "jargon" or "karanamala." Once again, each term is also defined in a single line across the bottom of the page.

Avis Harley used color photographs as the centerpiece for her book Sea Stars: Saltwater Poems (Wordsong/Boyds Mills Press 2006) illustrated by Margaret Butschler. Each of these 27 poems was inspired by a photograph of a sea creature, and again Harley incorporates a variety of poetic forms–including rhyming couplets, haiku, tanka, and nursery rhyme parody. The poems are brief, well-crafted and clever, full of wordplay and accompanied by exquisite images. Brief endnotes provide additional information about each sea creature.

For playing with form and language, Avis Harley is a poet to watch!

Picture credit: Amazon

Juanita Havill and GROW

Time to plug my TLA poetry panel again. Coming to Texas next week: Juanita Havill. In 1986, Juanita Havill introduced readers to a young African-American girl named Jamaica in her first published picture book, Jamaica's Find. She was a hit! Over a dozen years later, together with sometime-friend Brianna, brother Ossie, and assorted teachers and classmates, Jamaica has continued to entertain readers in at least six picture book stories. Juanita Havill has authored at least 10 other picture books, as well as three novels for young readers. Her work has been recognized with several Child Study Children's Book Awards from Bank Street College, Children's Choices citations, and the Ezra Jack Keats New Writer award. Her previous poetry collection, I Heard It from Alice Zucchini, and Other Poems about the Garden, (Chronicle Books, 2005) was described as a “a bountiful harvest of lyrical poems” by School Library Journal, with “flawless rhythms and storytelling narratives.” Her newest work, Grow, A Novel in Verse, continues the garden theme in a verse novel about a girl struggling with who she will be and become, nurtured by a neighbor who works to create a garden in a public space. As they plant and weed and tend the garden, neighborhood relationships evolve and grow, too. Here’s a sample poem:

Bolting Lettuce
by Juanita Havill

Some of the big early tomatoes
are red,
round, and juicy.
Radishes picked
and crunched,
their spicy cool
oozing
in my mouth.
If we give it
half a chance,
the lettuce
will bolt.
(Berneetha’s word.)
When she tells me
about bolting,
I think I feel
what the lettuce feels.
People have finally quit
pulling the leaves off
here and there,
cutting me down to size.
They let me have my head,
let me grow, grow, grow
into what
I’ve been wanting
to be all along—
a flower.

From Grow, A Novel in Verse (Peachtree, 2008; p. 123-124)

Check out my previous posting on April 29, 2007 for Children’s Poetry for National Garden Month for more poetry books about gardens and gardening.

For even more poetry connections, go to the Poetry Friday Round Up hosted by Cloudscome at A Wrung Sponge.

Picture credit: Amazon

Do Rabbits Have Christmas?

I’m happy to report that poet Aileen Fisher is having a comeback! A selection of 15 of her poems originally published in 8 different poetry books from as long ago as 1946, have been gathered in this lovely picture book collection, Do Rabbits Have Christmas, with a forward by Karla Kuskin. The delicate illustrations by nature artist Sarah Fox-Davies are the perfect accompaniment, placed just so for each poem, whether as a small cameo image or a double-page spread. Her careful, naturalistic renderings of the animals, in particular, keep the images from veering into preciousness. And Fisher’s language is ever fresh and crisp, providing glimpses of moments with an intimate first person voice in lines that rhyme effortlessly. The subject is unabashedly Christmas, full of anticipation, wonder, speculation, and delight, with a focus on the weather, the woods, and small animals-- the mouse, the kitten, the chickadee, the rabbit. Whether your view includes a snowy landscape or not (it's 73 degrees here in Texas today!), the poetry evokes a thoughtful quietness and sparkly spirit that is irresistible. Here’s just a taste.

Before Christmas
by Aileen Fisher

We sing, and plan,
and watch the date,
and write some cards…
and wait and wait.

We look for presents
at the store
and make some, too…
and wait some more.

We wrap our gifts
and tie them straight,
and frost some cookies
on a plate,
and buy a tree
to decorate,
but most of all
we wait… and wait.

From Fisher, Aileen. 2007. Do Rabbits Have Christmas? Illustrated by Sarah Fox-Davies. Henry Holt.

Pair this book with Valerie Worth’s out of print gem, if you can find it, At Christmastime (HarperCollins, 1992) illustrated by Antonio Frasconi.

And for more on award winning poet Aileen Fisher, check out my previous Sept. 9, 2006 posting, in honor of her birthday.

Join the rest of the Poetry Friday gathering at AmoXcalli.

Picture credit: www.overstock.com

Children’s Poetry for National Garden Month

It’s spring time and April is also “National Garden Month.” Finding poetry for children on the topic of gardens is one way to celebrate the outdoors and help kids re-connect with the earth, plants, and growing things. Here are a handful of poetry books on the topic.


*Alarcon, Francisco X. 1997. Laughing Tomatoes and Other Spring Poems/Jitomates Risuenos y Otros Poemas de Primavera. San Francisco, CA: Children’s Book Press.
*Bruchac, Joseph. 1995. The Earth Under Sky Bear's Feet: Native American Poems of the Land. New York: Philomel Books.
*Brenner, Barbara. 1994. The Earth is Painted Green: A Garden of Poems about Our Planet. New York: Scholastic.
*Florian, Douglas. 2006. Handsprings. New York: Greenwillow.
*Havill, Juanita. 2006. I Heard It from Alice Zucchini: Poems About the Garden. San Francisco: Chronicle Books.
*Nicholls, Judith. 2003. The Sun in Me: Poems About the Planet. Barefoot Books.
*Shannon, George. 2006. Busy in the Garden. New York: Greenwillow.
*Wong, Janet. 2000. Night Garden: Poems from the World of Dreams. New York: Margaret K. McElderry (for a fun twist!).
*Yolen, Jane. 2000. Color Me a Rhyme: Nature Poems for Young People. Honesdale, PA: Wordsong/Boyds Mills Press.

And of course sharing garden poetry provides an invitation to children to DO some planting. As a classroom teacher, I found that planting seeds and seedlings and taking care of them was so rewarding for children. They enjoyed the physicality, as well as the responsibility, of the experience. Some schools even have garden plots for children to tend (and beautify the campus). Invite children to try out their green thumbs. Here’s a poem that does just that. Children can echo the lines or chant along.

Dig In
by George Shannon

Dig a little.
Dig a lot.
Dig a brand-new garden spot.

Plat a little.
Plant a lot.
Plant the seeds and bulbs you bought.

Wait a little.
Wait a lot.
Wait much longer than you thought.

Pick a little.
Pick a lot.
Share the best bouquet you’ve got!

From: Shannon, George. 2006. Busy in the Garden. New York: Greenwillow, p. 10

Match up garden poetry with many of Lois Ehlert’s wonderful graphic and rhyming picture books, including Growing Vegetable Soup (Harcourt Brace, 1987) and Planting a Rainbow (Harcourt Brace, 1988).

Picture credit: www.victoriana.ws