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Halloween Is Coming! Bring on the Poetry!

I have heard so many people say “I hate poetry”! To quote Erasure “It doesn’t have to be like that”. There are AWESOME poems out there to make you sit up and take notice– words brought to life on the page, spoken or sometimes sung to you, or by you, or with someone else. Some are long, others short. Some will rhyme, and others don’t. Maybe you’ll find one to scare you, or make you laugh, or inspire you to create something of your own. Here are a few of my favorites. Some I’ve shared with my kids, and others they haven’t yet grown into. But with poetry alive in our home, they’ll get to experience them here (and maybe at school– you don’t have to hate it just because you learned it at school) and I hope you will take a chance on a few of them, too.

The Bat by Theodore Roethke

I first remember reading this poem in Cricket magazine when I was about nine years old. It was accompanied by a terrifying black and white pencil illustration. I’ve never forgotten it. I can still picture that page in my head and it still creeps me out.

Jabberwocky by Lewis Carroll

One of the great things about this poem is that most of the words don’t make any sense. So when someone complains to you that it makes no sense, you can tell them it’s really not supposed to. It evokes a intense visual response– with a line like “the Jabberwock, with eyes of flame”, how could it not? And it’s fantastic to read aloud, especially with someone else. In spite of, or maybe because of, the complete nonsense of the vocabulary, my son could recite it (and did, with glee) when he was four years old.

The Loch Ness Monster’s Song by Edwin Morgan.

I had a hard time finding the text of this online, and when I did, I was surprised at how it looked (I didn’t like how it was presented, so there is no link). I first encountered this in a book of children’s poetry meant for reading aloud, called A Foot in the Mouth (edited by Paul Janeczko and illustrated by Chris Raschka), and I remembered it as looking different in terms of spacing and placement of words on the page. When I looked back, it was amazing to see what a difference page design made in my ability to read and enjoy this poem, so go find the book. It is a relatively new one. The Song of the Loch Ness Monster is a “sound poem”, meant to be read out loud, but you will spend a lot of time tripping over your tongue as you attempt to do so. Again, complete (if enjoyable) nonsense, but any adult who attempts to read it to a child is guaranteed to cause giggles. Luckily, Morgan recorded it (link) so you can hear the way the poem is intended to sound, and it does sound very much like the song one might expect from this watery cryptid.

The Highwayman by Alfred Noyes

Okay, The Highwayman is a really long one and it is found sometimes in high school English textbooks. And it does have some challenging vocabulary, and it does take place well into the past. But it’s also a tremendous ghost story with tragedy and romance. I was sold on it after Loreena McKennit recorded it to unearthly music on her album Book of Secrets. Here’s a video illustrating the song. It was also the inspiration for a racy romance novel called The Landlord’s Black-Eyed Daughter, but that’s neither here nor there.

Little Orphant Annie by James Whitcomb Riley

Yes, absolutely, I have recommended this poem more than once. It is delightful and scary, and Riley’s true love for all children shines here. This is another to read aloud, and it too is fairly simple to remember if you do it enough. Riley wrote in dialect but he used simple language, and he sure knew how to tell a story. Sadly, there isn’t a good in-print copy of this poem (Joel Schick’s The Gobble-uns’ll Git You Ef You Don’t Watch Out is out of print), but if you whisper it around a campfire, you won’t really need one. Anne Hills put the poem to music in this video. It appears on her 2007 album Ef You Don’t Watch Out. It does not look like it’s easily available through Amazon but she does have a MySpace page– here is a link to the song there. (I’m psyched that she has recorded an entire album of Riley’s poems. Indiana fourth grade teachers, take note.)

The Tyger by William Blake

I first encountered this poem in the 1975 edition of Rose, Where Did You Get That Red? by Kenneth Koch. I might have been five or six at the time, and I read it over and over. It does have a companion poem, The Lamb, but The Tyger was the one I read again and again. The vision of the tyger “burning bright/through the forests of the night” is powerful, a spark for the imagination to illuminate the darkness (Amelia Atwater-Rhodes’ first YA vampire novel, In The Forests Of The Night, clearly referenced this). This could be a really frightening read-aloud for some kids, so step with care… but hey, it’s Halloween soon.

The Hearse Song by Anonymous

Also known as “The worms crawl in”. Yes, it is completely gross and morbid, and I am not the world’s biggest fan of this one. But kids seem to love it. It is rooted in folklore and the oral tradition, and a version can be found in Alvin Schwartz’s Scary Stories to Tell In The Dark.

Check one (or more) of these out as a Halloween treat. Tell me if you like it. And if you have other suggestions, let me know!

Posted on September 25, 2012 by Kirsten, Reply

Mo Willems on Raising a Reader

I love Mo Willems. His books are unique, even when they are part of a series. When I went to my library and asked for books like the Elephant and Piggie easy readers, which are massive favorites in this house, the librarian couldn’t find any. Write faster, Mr. Willems, please!

I was fortunate enough to get to hear him speak this past spring. Not only is he a fantastic writer, but he’s a great speaker and a funny guy, who managed to teach an entire auditorium of people how to animate a pigeon using a strip of paper and a pencil.

And so, as school starts and reading becomes a requirement, try to keep in mind that raising a reader means creating joy about reading, and playing with words, and check out his tips for raising a reader.

Posted on August 17, 2012 by Kirsten, Reply

Maurice Sendak, 1928-2012

It wasn’t just because I learned of the death of the great illustrator and author Maurice Sendak yesterday that I was thinking of Where the Wild Things Are. I have a little boy who sometimes acts very much like Max in his wolf suit, and even runs around at home in a dragon costume. Yesterday afternoon at the park he really was a Wild Thing, and when we got home I sent him to his room. Eventually, he came out, ate dinner, and hugged me. All Wild Things need to know that they’ll be fed and loved.

I had it off the shelf this morning, because I volunteered to be a guest reader in his classroom this afternoon, and my daughter asked me to read it. We read it through and then went back and looked at the pictures, which tell the story more than anything else. We read “That night a forest grew in Max’s room…” and we turned the pages, looking at the room as the walls fell away to the forest and the night sky. When I read this book to children, I always ask them if they think his room really became a forest. She said yes. For children aged 4, 5, and 6, much of the time this is a real journey. Sometimes it’s a scary one, and sometimes it’s liberating, and sometimes a little of both. In the safety of storyhour when you tell kids to roar their terrible roars and gnash their terrible teeth, it can be fun to get carried away (not for everyone, some kids are truly frightened). It’s one I love to read out loud. It’s a story that’s so much a part of the inner being and outside actions of so many kids.

Here’s a snippet I found online, courtesy of FridayReads, that expresses so well the way kids engage with Where the Wild Things Are. When most of us think of books, even picture books, we think of reading- the written word, or, if we’re reading out loud, the verbal experience. Sendak’s work can’t be fully appreciated with just a reading, though, or even through the incredible artwork that tells so much of the story wordlessly. For some kids, it’s an immersive, emotional book- something they live, not just something they read, as with the child in this story Sendak shared with Terry Gross at NPR:

Sendakquote