Archive for the 'poetry in the classroom' Category

Poetry in the Classroom - Where in the Wild?

Published by Tricia on January 3, 2009 in poetry in the classroom and life science. 0 Comments

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I discovered this gem of a book during the fall of 2007 while preparing a thematic book list on camouflage. A few weeks later, a copy arrived on my doorstep as a Cybils nominee (and later finalist) in the picture book nonfiction category. The book is Where in the Wild?: Camouflaged Creatures Concealed … and Revealed. In it you will find (as stated on the cover) “ear-tickling poems by David Schwartz and Yael Schy” and “eye-tricking photos by Dwight Kuhn.” I can’t disagree. The book begins with a brief introduction to camouflage and the book itself. Here is an excerpt.

Imagine that you are an animal in the wild trying to avoid a prowling predator. If it can’t find you, it can’t eat you. Now imagine that you are the predator, silently hunting for prey. If you prey does not see you, you can catch it and eat it.
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See if you can find the camouflaged animals photographed in their natural habitats. The poems will give you hints. When you think you have found a hidden animal–or if you give up!–open the flap to see “where in the wild” it really is. Then read on to find out more about these amazing animals and their vanishing acts.

What follows are examples of 10 clever uses of camouflage. On the left side of each spread is a poem describing the animal, and in some cases, its location. The outside of the gatefold on the right contains the picture that must be searched. Readers must be keen observes, as some of these animals are hard to find! In the corner of the gatefold is a small circle that says, “Lift to find me!” When the gatefold is opened, the image appears again, this time with everything grayed out except the animal in question. Often times, the appearance of the hidden animal is so startling that the reader must flip back to the original picture to search it out. In addition to the “answer” to photo puzzle, the inside of the gatefold also contains information on the animals subject.

The poems in the book come in a variety of forms, including haiku and concrete. Here is an example.

Speckled treasures lie
bare upon the pebbled bank
fragile life within

The photograph that accompanies it shows a rocky landscape. Can you guess what is hidden in plain sight?

Overall, this is a lovely book, packed with poetry and information. You can hear a terrific podcast review of the book over at the Just One More Book! site. Once you’ve done that, be sure to download the educator’s guide for the book.

David Schwartz wrote about poetry in nonfiction a while back. You can see some examples of other poems from the book there. I am crazy about nonfiction poetry and think it’s a great source for both reading and writing to learn.

For those of you looking for additional information on camouflage, check out some of these resources.

Poetry in the Classroom - Animals Abound

Published by Tricia on January 2, 2009 in poetry in the classroom and life science. 1 Comment

There are many, many books of animals poetry available. Today I am highlighting one anthology and two books that I particularly enjoy.

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Eric Carle’s Animals, Animals is a collection of 62 poems about more than 70 different kinds of animals, from ant to yak. These poems come from authors and poets as varied as Emily Dickinson, Edward Lear, Eve Merriam, Rudyard Kipling, Benjamin Franklin, Lewis Carroll, Karla Kuskin, Judith Viorst, and many, many others. The poems are accompanied by brightly colored, exuberant illustrations by Eric Carle. This is an excellent source of poems on a variety of animals, in a range of poetic forms. One of my favorites is this gem by Rudyard Kipling.

Commissariat Camels
We haven’t a camelty tune of our own
To help us trollop along.
But every neck is a hairy trombone,
Rtt-ta-ta-ta! is a hairy trombone.
And this is our marching song:
Can’t! Don’t! Shan’t! Won’t!
Pass it along the line!

Here is another poem, this one by Mary Ann Hoberman. The double-page spread that accompanies it is so lovely that you can almost feel the texture of the rhino’s skin.

Rhinocerous
I often wonder whether
The rhinocerous’s leather
Is as bumpy on the inside
As it is upon the skinside.

The book concludes with an index of animals arranged alphabetically, as well as an index of first lines.

Animal Poems, written by Valerie Worth and illustrated by Steve Jenkins, is a posthumously published collection of 23 poems that highlight Worth’s keen sense of observation. Animals range from small to large and simple to complex. You will find poems about jellyfish, cockroaches, kangaroos, elephants, minnows, and more. They are all accompanied by Jenkins’ amazingly beautiful cut- and torn-paper collages. Here is a snippet of one poem.

Camels
They can afford to be ugly
And ungainly, to stand
About munching and belching
Like smug old maidsRemembering their ancient
Sway, when bearded
Traders sailed them over
The starry sand-waves,

While these first two books cover a range of animals, the third book contains poems that are topically connected. Just Us Two: Poems About Animal Dads, written by Joyce Sidman and illustrated by Susan Swan, looks specifically at animals where dads take responsibility for guarding eggs and raising young. Here is an excerpt from the poem about the Peregrine falcon.

Flying Lesson
This time, Father says,
he will not bring me my dinner.
This time
he will let it fall,
and I must try to catch it.

Flying, Father says,
is like seeing the air.
Not just the blue shimmer,
not just the bright clouds,
but the air itself
as it swells and swirls
around our rocky cliff.

Other animals include the Emperor penguin, giant water bug, Nile crocodile, Arctic wolf, ostrich and more. The book concludes with photographs of the animals and a short section of information on each.

Here are some additional resources you may find useful.

Poetry in the Classroom - Mud, Stone and Fossil Bones

Published by Tricia on December 26, 2008 in poetry in the classroom and earth science. 0 Comments

When I was growing up I had a rock collection. Not your everyday “rocks from the side of the road” collection, but an honest-to-goodness collection of rocks and minerals purchased at rock shows, scavenged from the rock pile at Ward’s Scientific, or presented by family and friends from faraway places. The eruption of Mount St. Helens during my freshman year of high school cemented my fascination for all things geological.

Earth science has always been one of my favorite subjects to teach, and one in which there was a terrific dearth of poetry until the publication of Earthshake: Poems From the Ground Up, written by Lisa Westberg Peters and illustrated by Cathie Felstead.

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Earthshake is a collection of twenty-two poems that introduces geologic concepts through metaphors and word play in a variety of poetic forms. The poems are accompanied by vibrant illustrations that combine brightly colored hues and collage. What I love most about the pieces in this book is the inventiveness with which sometimes difficult concepts are presented. Here are a few short excerpts from some of my favorites.

Instructions for the Earth’s Dishwasher
Please set the
continental plates
gently on the
continental shelves.
No jostling or scraping.

Please stack the
basin right side up.
No tilting or turning
upside-down.
Obituary for a Clam
Clam. Marine.
Age, 10 years.

Died 300 million years ago
in underwater landslide.
Native of the Tethys Sea.
Loving mother of 198 clams.
Recipe for Granite
Melt a chunk of continent.

Heat at a million degrees,
long enough for the world
to spin a trillion times,
long enough for the Milky Way
to make it partway to infinity.

In addition to these gems you will find poems about sedimentary rock, continental drift, minerals, meteors, geysers and more. Three pages of endnotes provide additional information about the concepts in each poem. You can download a Minnesota Storytime guide for the book to further enhance instruction.

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While I haven’t found many other poetry books that focus solely on earth science concepts, there are a few books of nature poetry that include some poems related to these topics. One of my favorites is Footprints on the Roof: Poems About the Earth, written by Marilyn Singer and illustrated by Meilo So. Even though some of the poems in this volume are about the natural world, the vast majority deal with things like natural disasters, volcanoes, caves, fossils and other such topics. Here is a short excerpt from the poem entitled Islands.

Dad likes to talk
about islands–
how they sink
how they rise
How some are bred
by volcanoes
and others built from coral bones

In addition to these poetry books, here are a few other resources that you may find helpful for the study of earth science topics.

Poetry in the Classroom - Poetry Aloud

Published by Tricia on December 23, 2008 in poetry in the classroom. 0 Comments

I love reading poetry, but I like it even better when it’s read aloud. I like the sound of the rhyme, the feel of the meter, and the way words swim around inside my head before escaping from my lips. Poetry was spoken aloud long before it was written down. Since poetry comes to us today on the page, we often forget that. Here are some books that have been written expressly to be read aloud by more than one speaker.

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Joyful Noise: Poems for Two Voices, written by Paul Fleischman and illustrated by Eric Beddows, was the recipient of the 1989 Newbery Medal. It could easily have appeared on my post about arthropod poetry, Rulers of Earth, but I was saving it for this entry! The book begins in this way.

The following poems were written to be read aloud by two readers at once, one taking the left-hand part, the other taking the right-hand part. The poems should be read from top to bottom, the two parts meshing in a musical duet. When both readers have lines at the same horizontal level, those lines are to be spoken simultaneously.

From here, readers/speakers must jump right in. As a former member of a crew team, the poem Water Boatmen particularly appeals to me.

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All the poems in this book celebrate the lives of insects, from grasshoppers and honeybees to moths and fireflies. The poems are indeed joyous to recite. I read a few aloud with my middle school students by posting the poems on the overhead (ah, the joys of the pre-technology days) and reading in chorus with them. It was great fun and provided much for us to discuss in a scientific context.

Big Talk: Poems for Four Voices, written by Paul Fleischman and illustrated by Beppe Giacobbe, takes the ideas presented in Joyful Noise and ramps up the volume (and chaos) to four voices. There is no particular theme to these poems, but they are fun and will appeal to a wide range of readers/speakers. In describing the book Fleischman said, “Families used to play games together and make music together. We did both all through my childhood. I wanted to give families something they could perform together—not in Carnegie Hall, but around the table.” You can download an article about the book and learn more about how the poems were inspired. Instead of voices reading columns of information, readers this time find their parts on colored bars, reminiscent of reading music. Don’t fret if you don’t have this skill, as clear instructions for reading are included.

Math Talk: Mathematical Ideas in Poems for Two Voice by Theoni Pappas is a quirky little book that encourages readers/speakers to think about math in a different way. The book begins this way.

Mathematics may not seem to inspire poetry, since it is usually linked with the very logical.Learning takes place via all our senses and by all forms of communication. Mathematical ideas can be learned through art, reading, conversations, lectures. Therefore, why not link mathematical ideas and poetic dialogues?

The book was published in 1991, so I’m guessing it was inspired by the success of Joyful Noise. The poems are not nearly as elegant, but I have enjoyed using them in math class. Here is an excerpt of the poem Infinity.

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These books provide but one way to enjoy spoken poetry. For those of you interested in including more poetry exercises in listening and speaking, check out some of these resources.

Poetry in the Classroom - Through the Year

Published by Tricia on December 22, 2008 in poetry in the classroom. 0 Comments

When I teach measurement, one of the topics that is covered is time. This includes not only the mechanics of telling time, but also discussions of the calendar. Last year I wrote post entitled Month by Month, in which I highlighted books for teaching about days, weeks and months of the year. Some of the books on this list were books of poetry.

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A Child’s Calendar, written by John Updike and illustrated by Trina Schart Hyman, is a Caldecott Honor book in which the poems and pictures are full of life. The illustrations are reflective of the seasonal changes seen in New England, and like the poems, they highlight the weather as well as the activities of childhood throughout the year. Children are the focus of the pages here. Each double-page spread presents a poem and small illustration on one page, with a full page illustration on the facing page. One of my favorite poems is for the month of June. The full page illustration shows two boys tiptoeing through a pond with net and bucket in hand. You can see the frogs hiding in the grass. The illustration on the poem page shows children riding their bikes down a road that is shaded by overhanging trees. Here is the poem.

June

The sun is rich
And gladly pays
In golden hours,
Silver days,

And long green weeks
The never end.
School’s out. The time
Is ours to spend.

There’s Little League,
Hopscotch, the creek,
And, after supper
Hide-and-seek.

The live-long light
Is like a dream,
And freckles come
Like flies to cream.

Turtle in July, written by Marilyn Singer and illustrated by Jerry Pinkney, is divided into four seasonal sections, each highlighting the bullhead (catfish). What follows are three poems, each on a different animal. The subjects of the poems range from domestic animals, likes cats and dogs), to the beaver, bear, deer, dragonfly, barn owl, and more. Here is the poem that lends itself to the book’s title.

Heavy
Heavy hot
Heavy hot hangs
Thick
Sticky
Icky
But I lie
Nose high
Cool pool
No fool
A turtle in July

Thirteen Moons on Turtle’s Back: A Native American Year of Moons, written by Joseph Bruchac and Jonathan London and illustrated by Thomas Locker, is a collection of poems corresponding to the thirteen moons recognized by some Native American people. It begins with an Abenaki man teaching his grandson that “There are always thirteen (scales) on Old Turtle’s back and there are always thirteen moons in each year.” Each moon has its own name and its own story. In the authors’ note at the end of the book, readers learn that not all Native American people talk about twelve or thirteen moons, largely because they observe the seasonal changes where they live, so places like the far north and desert southwest have very different seasons. They also make it clear that even among Native American nations that speak of moons, they may not all use the same name for that moon. Each of the thirteen moons contains a reference to the Native American nation from which the name and story comes. Here is an excerpt of one of the moon poems.

Moose-Calling Moon
(Ninth Moon - Micmac)

In this season when leaves
begin to turn color,
we go down to the lakes
and with birch-bark horns
make that sound which echoes
through the spruce trees,
the call of a moose
looking for a mate:
Mooo-ahhh-ahhh
Mooo-ahhh-ahhh.

This book has been an important one to include when teaching about the calendar, as I want students to understand that there are many ways to view and count the passage of time.

While the selections here focus on collections of poems about the months of the year, I want to also add one book that is a single poem to this list.

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Calendar, written by Myra Cohn Livingston and illustrated by Will Hillenbrand, is a book based on a poem first in 1959 in a volume entitled Wide Awake and Other Poems. The mixed-media illustrations are vibrant and gorgeous. Each month gets a two-page spread (except December, which gets seven pages so that Santa can slide down the chimney at the end) that highlights and extends the sparse yet luminous lines of poetry. A pigtailed girl is depicted engaged in each monthly activity, such as enjoying a nighttime picnic on the 4th of July, to holding hands with a parent while waiting for the school bus in September.

Here is the beginning of the poem.

January shivers,
February shines,
March blows off
the winter ice,
April makes the
mornings nice,
May is hopscotch lines.

For those of you looking for additional resources for studying the calendar in your classroom, try these sites.

  • Scholastic has some ideas for calendar math activities.
  • At Mrs. Meacham’s Classroom Snapshots you can get a range of ideas for a calendar wall, calendar binders and much more.
  • The Center for Innovation in Education has a chapter on opening activities (calendar focus) that you can download.
  • NASA has a calendar lesson that focuses on solar and lunar calendars as well as the day and the month and their relations to the rotation period of the Earth and the orbital period of the Moon.
  • Ask Dr. Math has an FAQ on the calendar and days of the week.
  • Education World has a lesson plan that looks at a variety of calendars, including Gregorian, Jewish, Chinese and more.
  • If you are interested in history, you can learn about calendars through the ages.
  • The Calendar Zone site shares links to a variety of calendars, including cultural, celestial, geographic and more.

Poetry in the Classroom - Reaching for the Moon

Published by Tricia on December 19, 2008 in poetry in the classroom and space science. 2 Comments

I’ve always been a stargazer and long enamored of the heavens. When I was growing up, the gentleman who lived across the street had a telescope that I would often gaze through. I was allowed to sit outside late into the evening (never on a school night!) and watch the skies.

I loved exploring the solar system with kids when I was teaching, though I know many teachers who don’t feel this way. They think the topic is too abstract and difficult to make “concrete.” Not so! Not only does NASA provide a wealth of free resources, but there are many wonderful books (Seymour Simon’s work comes to mind here) for use in the classroom. There are even some terrific poetry books on the subject.

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Blast Off! Poems About Space, compiled by Lee Bennett Hopkins and illustrated by Melissa Sweet, is an easy to read anthology containing 20 poems by various poets, including Jane Yolen, Bobbi Katz, J. Patrick Lewis, Ashley Bryan, Lee Bennett Hopkins and others. Since this book is in an easy-reader format, the poems are accessible for young children. Here is an excerpt.

The Moon
by Lillian M. Fisher

The moon has no light
of its own.
It’s cold and dark
and dead as stone,
But it catches light
from the burning sun
And shows itself
When each day is done.

Comets, Stars, the Moon, and Mars, written and illustrated by Douglas Florian, is a witty, stylish look at the solar system. With illustrations painted in gouache on brown paper bags, readers are treated to a visual feast that includes die-cut, circular peepholes that allow glimpses of heavenly bodies from adjacent pages. The poems are typical Florian, containing made up words, like super-dupiter and Jupiterrific, clever rhymes, and fanciful imagery. Here is an excerpt.

the moon

A NEW moon isn’t really new,
It’s merely somewhat dark to view.

A CRESCENT moon may seem to smile,
Gladly back after a while.

A HALF moon is half-dark, half light.
At sunset look due south to sight.

A FULL moon is a sight to see,
Circular in geometry.

After full, the moon will wane
Night by night, then start again.

The book ends with a galactic glossary that provides a bit of information on each body or topic covered, and also includes a selected bibliography for further reading.Space Songs, written by Myra Cohn Livingston and illustrated by Leonard Everett Fisher, contains 13 poems that not only discuss the science of the heavens, but also express their vastness and just how astonishing they are. On black pages accompanied by paintings of the poem’s topic, the solar system comes to life in word and image. Here is an excerpt. (Forgive the formatting on this one. It is a lovely crescent shape in the book!)

Moon
Moon remembers.

Marooned in shadowed night,

while powder plastered
on her pockmarked face,
scarred with craters,
filled with waterless seas,

she thinks back
to the Eagle,
to the flight
of men from Earth,
of rocks sent back in space,
and one
faint
footprint
in the Sea of Tranquility.

Together these three books provide a range of language-rich poems for use in teaching about the solar system. Imagine the fun you could have simply discussing the three poems shared here. All three poets wrote about the same body, yet came up with such different results. What might your young poets write? Try brainstorming some ideas for what they might like to write about the moon and compose a class poem. Then let them take these ideas even farther to write some of their own moon poetry.For those of you looking for some additional materials for the study of space, check out these resources.

Poetry in the Classroom - A Wreath for Emmett Till

Published by Tricia on December 18, 2008 in poetry in the classroom, history and African American. 0 Comments

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After participating in the writing of a crown sonnet this year, I’ve been thinking a lot about the discipline, skill and sheer force of will that must have been required of Marilyn Nelson to write A Wreath for Emmett Till. This narrative poem, describing the events and emotion surrounding the lynching of Emmett Till in 1955, is written in the form of a heroic crown of sonnets. Let’s step back for a minute and think about what that means. A sonnet is a 14 line poem written in iambic pentameter. A crown of sonnets is a sequence of A sequence of sonnets in which the last line of each sonnet is the first line of the following sonnet. In addition, the first line of the first sonnet also serves as the last line of the last sonnet. A heroic crown is a sequence of 15 sonnets, written in the same manner as a crown of sonnets. The difference is that in the heroic crown the last sonnet is composed entirely of the first lines of the previous 14 sonnets. One of the things that makes this heroic crown such an achievement is the the last sonnet is also an acrostic poem, in which the first letters of each line spell out the phrase “RIP Emmett L. Till.”One of the sonnets in this crown is written from the perspective of the tree witnessing the lynching, and echoes some of the sentiments expressed in Paul Laurence Dunbar’s poem The Haunted Oak.

Pierced by the screams of a shortened childhood,
my heartwood has been scarred for fifty years
by what I heard, with hundreds of green ears.
That jackal laughter. Two hundred years I stood
listening to small struggles to find food,
to the songs of creature life, which disappears
and comes again, to the music of the spheres.
Two hundred years of deaths I understood.
Then slaughter axed one quiet summer night,
shivering the deep silence of the stars.
A running boy, five men in close pursuit.
One dark, five pale faces in the moonlight.
Noise, silence, back-slaps. One match, five cigars.
Emmett Till’s name still catches in the throat.

The poems in this crown are not easy to read. They are unsettling, shocking, and sad, but this is an important event in the history of our nation that needs to be told again and again. The book ends with a short biography of Emmett Till, extensive notes on the 15 sonnets, and an artist’s note. The tempera illustrations by Philippe Lardy quietly reflect the themes and moods of the sonnets. Most of the books I have highlighted to date have all been for the elementary classroom. This one is most appropriates for grades 8-12. This is an amazing piece of poetry that will lend itself to interdisciplinary study in both English and social studies.

Here are some additional resources for introducing this work and the events surrounding it in the classroom.

Poetry in the Classroom - Between Cultures: Part 2

Published by Tricia on December 17, 2008 in poetry in the classroom and diversity. 1 Comment

In September of 2007, the number of Limited English Proficient students receiving services in the state of Virginia numbered 84,344. I see many of these kids in the classrooms I visit, and often wonder how we can help their teachers and classmates develop a bit more empathy for their struggles to adjust to a new language and culture. Reading poetry can be an exellent vehicle for this.

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My Name is Jorge On Both Sides of the River, written by Jane Medina and illustrated by Fabricio Vanden Broeck, is a collection of 27 poems written in Spanish and English. They are written from Jorge’s point of view and describe his experiences adjusting life in the United States. The poems are sometimes heartbreaking, but they are always honest. The first poem in the book describes the problems he has when others cannot pronounce his name.

My Name Is Jorge
My name is Jorge.
I know that my name is Jorge.
But everyone calls me
George.

George.
What an ugly sound!
Like a sneeze!
GEORGE!

And the worst of all
is that
this morning
a girl called me
“George”
and I turned my head.
I don’t want to turn
into a sneeze!

Many of the poems in this book are set in school and describe how inadequate Jorge feels. Here are excerpts from two especially sad poems.

Why Am I Dumb?

Why am I dumb?
In my country
I was smart.
All tens!
Never even an eight!

Now I’m here.
They give me
C’s or D’s or F’s
–like fives
or fours . . .
or ones.

Sneaky
I hid the paper
inside a
big, wavy stack of papers
on my teacher’s desk.

I want her to see it
–but not till after school.

I’m scared
that it’s not good enough.

This is a must-read book in classrooms of all kinds, but especially those with immigrant children. I can’t think of a better way to open the door to understanding than with these poems.

A Movie in My Pillow/Una pelicula en mi almohada, written by Jorge Argueta and illustrated by Elizabeth Gómez, is a collection of 21 poems written in Spanish and English that describe the author’s childhood in El Salvador and his experiences of being an immigrant in San Francisco’s Mission District. Jorge comes from a war torn country and is uprooted for a new home with only his father to accompany him. He describes his leaving in this way.

When We Left El Salvador
When we left El Salvador
to come to the United States
Papá and I left in a hurry
one early morning in December

We left without saying goodbye
to relatives, friends, or neighbors
I didn’t say goodbye to Neto
my best friend

I didn’t say goodbye to Koki
my happy talking parakeet
I didn’t say goodbye to
Miss Sha-Sha-She-Sha
my very dear doggie

When we left El Salvador
in a bus I couldn’t stop crying
because I had left my mama
my little brothers
and my grandma behind.

As Jorge begins to adjust, he describes his life and his new neighborhood, while often making comparisons to home. Here is an excerpt of a poem about the Mission District.

Neighborhood of Sun
I live in San Francisco
in the Mission District
Neighborhood of sun
of colors and flavors

Avocadoes and mangoes
papayas and watermelons
Here my friend Tomás
laughs louder with the sun

Here in my neighborhood
you can taste
a soup of languages
in the wind

The beautiful imagery and stories in the poems are echoed in the vibrant illustrations. The poems in this volume are exuberant and loving, yet still full of the uncertainty that faces many immigrants.

If you are looking for some additional resources to help you expand on the ideas presented here, check out these sites.

  • You can find other book ideas in this thematic book list on contemporary immigration.
  • Here is an elementary lesson plan focused on the poems and art in A Movie in My Pillow.
  • La Bloga is a blog about Chicana Chicano Literature, Chicana Chicano Writers, Children’s Literature, News, Views, and reviews. Be sure to check out the children’s literature section.
  • Los Bloguitos is a blog for children who speak or are learning Spanish. It contains songs, poems, cuentos, dichos and riddles.
  • Over at La Bloga, author René Colato Laínez wrote a six-part series entitled Living to Tell the Story: The Authentic Latino Immigrant Experience in Picture Books. Be sure to read each post. Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4, Part 5, Part 6
  • The Houston Public Library has a collection of songs, poems and rhymes in Spanish and English.

Poetry in the Classroom - Between Cultures: Part 1

Published by Tricia on December 16, 2008 in poetry in the classroom and diversity. 1 Comment

I was looking over the posts I’ve written so far and suddenly realized that while there has been a great diversity of subject matter represented (I think), there has been little representation of other peoples and cultures. So, it’s high time I remedy that. Today I share two books that present life between cultures.

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A Suitcase of Seaweed and Other Poems, written and “decorated” by Janet Wong, is a collection of 36 poems that celebrates all aspects of her heritage. Divided into three sections, Korean poems, Chinese poems and American poems, the poems are preceded by an introduction that describes the author’s experiences with this part of her culture. For example, the Korean poems section begins, “My mother is Korean.” The Chinese section begins, “My father is Chinese.” If that isn’t enough to place the author squarely between cultures, she tells us in the American poems section that she is American, having been born in Los Angeles. The introductions are themselves poetic, and only hint at the beauty of the poems to come. Many of the poems revolve around family and food. Here is one of my favorites.

Albert J. Bell
Forty years of friendship
with my grandfather,
and still Uncle Al cannot eat
with chopsticks.

Forty years of friendship
with Uncle Al,
and still my grandfather forgets
to offer him a fork.

To explore more poetry in this book you can read the story behind the poem GongGong and Susie and hear Janet Wong read it at her web site.

Many of the poems in this collection compare the “old ways” to the “new ways.” This is a lovely book that will help readers get a sense of what it might be like to be a bit Korean, Chinese and American all in one. Those who read the book from start to finish will also get the message that comes through loudest of all–just how much pride the author feels in all these parts of her heritage.

My Chinatown: One Year of Poems, by Kam Mak, is a lushly illustrated book that follows a young boy as he adjusts to his new life in the Chinatown of his new American city. The pictures are so beautiful and finely detailed that in some instances readers may be fooled into thinking they are looking at a photograph. The heartache and longing for home the boy endures can be felt in every poem. These poems are also filled with stories of family and food. Here is the poem that begins the fall section of the book.

In the fish tank,
the carp are crowded
nose to tail, scale to scale.
In plastic tubs on the sidewalk,
eels slither, frogs scramble.
My mother points out the fish she wants.
He waves his tail gently
and looks straight at me.

That night I say I’m sick
so I won’t have to eat him.

This book begins in winter with a poem that starts, “Back home in Hong Kong,/it’s New Year.” It ends with winter again, and a New Year’s Day poem that begins this way.

New Year’s Day!
Noodles for breakfast,
sweet rice cakes.
A red envelope stuffed with money
in my pocket.
And lions in the street outside.

After struggling to adjust, this last poem is happy and triumphant.

Both of these books will give readers a glimpse of life in Asian communities that moves well beyond stereotypes.

If you are interested in more information about this topic, check out some of these resources.

Poetry in the Classroom - The City Life

Published by Tricia on December 15, 2008 in poetry in the classroom, geography and social studies. 1 Comment

I read (and write) a lot of poetry about animals and nature, but I am also quite fond of poems about the city. Good poems about the city capture the sights, sounds and smells and catapult me back my days walking the streets of New York City. Life in the big city is vastly different from the rural area where I grew up, and for many students, life in the big city may be just as foreign. Two books I like to use for capturing the spirit of the city are Mural on Second Avenue and Other City Poems, written by Lilian Moore and illustrated by Roma Karas and Sky Scrape/City Scape: Poems of City Life, with poems selected by Jane Yolen and illustrated by Ken Condon.

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Mural on Second Avenue is a collection of 17 poems that celebrates the city through the seasons and at different times of day. Accompanied by vibrant oil illustrations, the city, as seen through the eyes of a young boy, comes to life. Whether it’s looking out the window, walking through the neighborhood, or playing in the park, the poems in this book exude the energy of the city and its inhabitants. There are poems here about building skyscrapers, going around corners, window reflections, pigeons, a mural (lending itself to the title of the book), bridges and more. One of my favorites is this poem about the skyline.

Roofscape
The lines are
straight
and
many-cornered–
plunging,
rising high.From my window
I can see
how roofs
design a sky.

Sky Scrape/City Scape is an anthology of poems selected by Jane Yolen. The 25 poems contained inside come from notables like Langston Hughes, Myra Cohn Livingston, Jane Yolen, Carl Sandburg, Lee Bennett Hopkins and many others. The illustrations show crowded streets, fire escapes, graffitied walls, buildings tall, a garbage dump, and much more. This collection of poems is full of life and almost as energetic as the city itself. Many of the poems on a double-page spread are connected thematically, like the series of poems on skyscrapers or those on street cleaning. Here is an excerpt from a poem by Norma Farber.

Manhattan Lullaby
Lulled by rumble, babble, beep,
let these little children sleep;
let these city girls and boys
dream a music in the noise,
hear a tune their city plucks
up from buses, up from trucks
up from engines wailing fire!
up ten stories high, and higher,

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One more book I recommend including in this set is the updated classic by Gwendolyn Brooks, Bronzeville Boys and Girls. Originally published in 1956, this new version is beautifully illustrated by Faith Ringgold. Each poem in this collection of 34 contains the name of a child. This child is either the subject of the poem or the person delivering it. Set in a Chicago neighborhood, these short poems highlight the highs and lows of life in the city, particularly big cities where many are poor. Even though most of the poems are light-hearted, a few are sad. An element of social consciousness is also evident in this collection. Here are a few examples.

Robert, Who is Often a Stranger to Himself
Do you ever look in the looking-glass
And see a stranger there?
A child you know and do not know,
Wearing what you wear?Michael Is Afraid of the Storm
Lightning is angry in the night,
Thunder spanks our house.
Rain is hating our old elm—
It punishes the boughs.
Now, I am next to nine years old,
And crying’s not for me.
But if I touch my mother’s hand,
Perhaps no one will see.

Together, these three books provide varied glimpses of life in the city and what children living there may experience.

If you want to do some poetry writing about the city but can’t get there, here are some resources to inspire you.