X-Post Do you or your children like poetry?

[Luanne]

Neither my daughter nor myself seem to be able to get into reading poetry. I have tried honestly.

[Michelle in MO]

We have, from time to time, when we've had the time and been inspired, read a poem aloud after reading a chapter in the Bible each morning. I have a series of books we bought from Barnes & Noble, called Poetry for Young People. There are a number of these, one on each poet: Carl Sandburg, Henry Wadsworth Longbellow, Shakespeare, Samuel Taylor Coleridge, Rudyard Kipling, Lewis Carroll, Emily Dickinson, and Robert Frost are the titles we own. I think there are others, too. They have very good explanations for unfamiliar vocabulary words, plus a short bio. on each poet and short explanations on the meaning of each poem. The illustrations are nice, too.

I've found that this series makes poetry enjoyable for our family. For two years, we planned a "Poetry Roundup and BBQ" at our house, where each guest had to share a poem, either memorized or not memorized, and then we'd sit around and eat BBQ. We did this with our homeschool group and a few other invited guests. It was a lot of fun, but we haven't done it in a couple of years. I don't think I made the title up myself; I think "Poetry Roundup" was the title in one of my youngest daughter's spelling lessons (Spelling Workout), so the idea stuck with me.

Here's a link to the books from Barnes & Noble. I'm sure Amazon carries them, too:

http://search.barnesandnoble.com/Poetry-for-Young-People/Gary-D-Schmidt/e/9780806906331/?itm=4

This is the one for Robert Frost.

Anyway, this is how we've done poetry in our family! We also used to memorize one poem per month, but unfortunately, that practice has fallen by the wayside. I sometimes miss those earlier days of homeschooling!

[HS mom]

probably just haven't found a poem that meant something to you. just browse- go to poets.org and read a poem a day till you find one you like. don't let somebody else interpret it for you or tell you what it's supposed to mean, or bully you into looking for subtexts. just read and think what you think.

there are so many different styles of poetry. and sometimes, it's just a few lines or a stanza the catches your imagination or your heart.

Frost has many that seem to click with with people. Have you read any of Emily Dickinson's? Yeats? Here's one by Yeats. Read it when you're relaxed, and the house is quiet. And tell me what you think. Please. :) I'd like to know.

When You Are Old (http://www.poets.org/viewmedia.php/prmMID/15526)

[Laura in CA]

The Hunting of the Snark. They think it's hysterical (they're 11 & 12). Also "A-Sitting on a Gate" from "Through the Looking Glass." (Links are

http://ebooks.adelaide.edu.au/c/carroll/lewis/snark/index.html

&

http://homepages.tcp.co.uk/~nicholson/alice.html (http://homepages.tcp.co.uk/%7Enicholson/alice.html))

I'm eager to move on to Tennyson, Byron, etc. (I love poetry!), but since they're young yet, for now I'm just glad they think poetry is fun.

You might check out A E Housman's "Oh, When I Was in Love with You"

http://www.amherst.edu/~rjyanco94/literature/alfrededwardhousman/poems/ashropshirelad/ohwheniwasinlovewithyou.html (http://www.amherst.edu/%7Erjyanco94/literature/alfrededwardhousman/poems/ashropshirelad/ohwheniwasinlovewithyou.html)

The Lewis Carroll poems may not appeal to everyone! Maybe we have a silly streak :)

[Laura R (FL)]

Well...we do...but in more of a Shel Silverstein way. "Oh I'm being eaten by a boa constrictor, a boa constrictor...."

We dig a bit of weird Shakespeare, especially the witches in Macbeth, and my oldest likes some gothic poetry. I had her copy poetry to improve her handwriting at age 13, so she had to search for things she liked. I have avoided studying too deeply so that we enjoy it. It's just a matter of coming across one that you like now and again. I like "Trees", nature poems, and silly rhymes/parodies.

[Mandy in TN]

Favorite poets were discussed on the WP forums not to long ago. Here is what I posted.

Basho, Issa, Valerie Worth, e.e. cummings, Carl Sandburg

The 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.

Emily Dickinson

Nobody
by Emily Dickinson

I'm nobody! Who are you?
Are you nobody, too?
Then there's a pair of us -don't tell!
They'd banish us, you know.

How dreary to be somebody!
How public, like a frog
To tell your name the livelong day
To an admiring bog!

Edgar Allan Poe

From The Conqueror Worm
by Edgar Allan Poe

Out- out are the lights- out all!
And, over each quivering form,
The curtain, a funeral pall,
Comes down with the rush of a storm,
While the angels, all pallid and wan,
Uprising, unveiling, affirm
That the play is the tragedy, "Man,"
And its hero the Conqueror Worm.

There are random poems that really impacted my life. One was a poem that I had to memorize in 7th grade. It is holocaust poetry and was studied in the historical context and the context a learning literary terms. I have never forgotten it.



The Burning of the Books

by Bertolt Brecht (translation by H.R. Hays)

When the Regime ordered that books with dangerous teachings

Should be publicly burnt and everywhere

Oxen were forced to draw carts full of books

To the funeral pyre, an exiled poet,

One of the best, discovered with fury, when he studied the list

Of the burned, that his books

Had been forgotten. He rushed to his writing table

On wings of anger and wrote a letter to those in power.

Burn me, he wrote with hurrying pen, burn me!

Do not treat me in this fashion. Don't leave me out. Haven’t

Always spoken the truth in my books? And now

You treat me like a liar! I order you:

Burn me!

HTH-
Mandy