Spine Label Poetry

Instead of posting a favorite poetry book, I thought it would be fun to encourage you all to write your own poems. How? By using the spines of books you have at your house. Anything will do. Visit 100 Scope Notes for inspiration. 

Be wild and crazy, but most importantly just have a good time.
 

How do you do it? Just grab some books off your bookshelf and see if you can put together a poem. See what you can create. Take a picture and email it to me (lcapizzo (at) scarboroughlibrary(dot)org) and I'll post it on this blog.

Happy writing.

A Poke in the I, selected by Paul B. Janeczko

Concrete poetry are very, very different from regular poems because the visual appearance of the poem matches the subject. 

I

NEED

CONTACT

LENSES

like i need a poke in the eye

by John Hegley

Paul Janeczko is a poetry anthologist extraordinaire. He's also from Maine. He has put together a collection of poems using the concrete -- or shape-- appearance. A Poke in the Eye: a collection of concrete poems is a handsome collection with illustrations done by Chris Raschka, a Caldecott winner for illustrating the Hello, Goodbye Window. Raschka's abstract paintings lend a playfulness to these fun poems. Raschka says, "Concrete poetry is the yoga of words. Like feeling your breath and your bones, you begin to notice what words and sentences actually look like."

Pick this up to share with your family. You'll be glad you did.

Forget-Me-Nots: poems to learn by heart

I was made to memorize poems when I was in school, but, unfortunately, remember only one of them,  Charge of the Light Brigade by Alfred Lord Tennyson, and then only the third stanza at that!

Cannon to right of them,
Cannon to left of them,
Cannon in front of them
   Volleyed and thundered;
Stormed at with shot and shell,
Boldly they rode and well,
Into the jaws of Death,
Into the mouth of hell
   Rode the six hundred.

 
Forget-Me-Nots: poems to learn by Heart, selected by former Children's Poet Laureate and National Book Award Winner, Mary Ann Hoberman, is a collection of poems suitable for memorizing. Poets include Robert Louis Stevenson, Ogden Nash, Elizabeth Coatsworth, Emily Dickinson, Robert Frost, Douglas Florian, and more.

Fog by Carl Sandburg

The fog comes

on little cat feet.

It sits looking

over harbor and city

on silent haunches

and then moves on.

Next time you visit the Scarborough Public Library, ask Marilyn to recite a poem. She has a wealth of them

stored in her memory.

Valerie Worth

Valerie Worth (b.1933- d.1994) was the author of many poetry books for children. I have always loved the simplicity of Worth's free verse poems.

crows

when the high

snows lie worn

to rags along

the muddy furrows,

and the frozen

sky frays, dropping

gray and sodden

to the ground,

the sleek crows

appear, flying

low across the

threadbare meadow

to jeer at

winter's ruin

with their jubilant

Thaw! Thaw! Thaw!

Accompanying each poem is a pencil sketch by Natalie Babbitt, who is also an amazing author. Babbitt's images are perfect companions to the poems.

Worth's poetry encourages observation. You can see that in the poem back yard.

back yard

Sun in the back yard,

Grows lazy,

Dozing on the porch steps

All morning,

Getting up and nosing

About corners,

Gazing into an empty

Flowerpot,

Later easing over the grass

For a nap,

Unless

Someone hangs out the wash--

Which changes 

Everything to a rush and a clap

Of wet

Cloth, and fresh wind

And sun

Wide awake in the white sheets.

When reading this poem, it reminds me of lazy summer days; of gazing out and marking the time of day by where the sun is as it crosses the porch. I can even smell the freshness of the laundry after being hung outside all day, drying in the gentle breeze and warmed by the sunshine.

Check out all the small poems and fourteen more by Valerie Worth and share them with your children.