Poetry book review: Paul B. Janeczko

A POKE IN THE I. selected by Paul B Janeczko. 2001. Illustrated by Chris Raschka. Hong Kong: Candlewick Press. ISBN: 0763606618.

This book of concrete poems is filled with little gems. A concrete poem is a poem that takes a shape that explains what the poem is about. Because of concrete poem's unusual shapes, sometimes this style of poetry has to be read very carefully. Here’s an example from this book. WARNING: It may take you a couple of tries to read it correctly!

The Salmon
by Douglas Florian

                                             Could do with legs!
                                        Just think what we
                                   Our pearly eggs.
                              Upstream we spawn
                         We somersault!
                    We vault!
               We jump!
          Our leaps astound!
     We bound!
We spring!

Unfortunately, concrete poems are also difficult to transpose onto a blog because of their shape. Some of my favorite poems from this poem are impossible to reproduce here, for example, “Pattern Poem with an Elusive Intruder” which is in the shape of a worm-bitten apple. There are also popsicle shaped poems, lightbulb-shaped poems, and poems that are collapsing from the sheer weight of the words. There are also one word poems, such as “Cat Chair” by Chris Raschka which contains the word ‘cat’ buried deep inside a vibrant red chair and “Stowaway” by Robert Carola, which shows the word ‘stowaway’ way deep at the bottom of a ship.

Janeczko has amassed an amusing collection of poems guaranteed to appeal to any child – in fact, when I pulled this book out of the stack of library books to review, I had to keep taking it away from my 13 year old daughter long enough to get this blog posting done.

Chris Raschka’s whimsical illustrations, from torn-paper scraps and paint, help illustrate the poems perfectly. “Skipping Rope Spell” by John Agard shows children in dancing, playful poses around the various ‘stanzas’ of the poem; “Forsythia” by Mary Ellen Salt shows barbed wire under the forsythia bush of the poem, invoking a childhood memory of an isolated bush out in rural farmland. And then there’s the illustrations for “Tennis Anyone” by Monica Kulling. The illustrations are identical on the two page spread, just facing in 180 degree opposite directions, while the words take you from one far side of the two pages to the other far side of the two pages. By the time you’ve finished reading this poem, you feel like you’ve just watched a tennis match, not read a poem about one, just like Raschka’s illustrated people for this poem.

Graphic from : http://www.amazon.com/Poke-I-Paul-B-Janeczko/dp/0744589401/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1240624248&sr=1-1 Accessed 4/24/2009.

Poetry Book Review: Jeff Foxworthy

SILLY STREET. Jeff Foxworthy. 2009. Illustrated by Steve Björkman. New York: HarperCollins. ISBN 978-0-06-171918-9.

A little ditty is going through my mind:
The redneck’s a poet
And he sure does know it!

Jeff Foxworthy of “You know you’re a redneck if…” fame, has written his second children’s poetry book. These poems are designed to tickle the funny bone of ages 4-8. The illustrations bring the poems to life and fit in perfectly with the silly poems.

The poems feature hilarious situations and stores along Mr. Foxworthy’s Silly Street. There are bubblegum trees, a magician who made his whole store disappear, a marble shop that just might sell you a glass eyball instead of a marble, the best sandbox ever, and a different kind of petting zoo (Björkman’s illustration for this poem features a skunk in a flowered dress and a cow that says, “Quack!”). All of these poems are guaranteed to get any group of children giggling with the sheer nonsense.

It would be hard to choose between my favorite poem in this collection, but if I had to narrow it down to 2, they would be “House of Clocks” and “Butterflies”

House of Clocks

At Mel’s House of Clocks
They only sell socks,
Which makes me ask,
“What was Mel thinking?”

He says, “Socks are the thing
That makes the world sing
Cause they’re warm and keep
Your toes from stinking!”

Butterflies

One thing you must see
Is the butterfly tree
Where thousands of butterflies light.
Their wings look like leaves
As they flap in the breeze.
When they leave, it’s a rainbow in flight.

For a stand-up comedian these poems show great poetic style. They have regular meter and rhyming patterns, and his use of symbolic language, especially in “Butterflies,” is first rate. His imaginary and funny poems appeal to the imaginatioin as well. I highly recommend this book for early elementary school teachers to read in their classrooms.

Graphic from : http://www.harpercollins.com/books/9780061719196/Silly_Street/index.aspx Accessed 4/10/2009.

Poetry Book Review

STEADY HANDS: POEMS ABOUT WORK. Tracie Vaughn Zimmer, 2009. Illustrated by Megan Halsey and Sean Addy. New York: Clarion Books. ISBN 978-0-618-9035-1.

I had the pleasure of meeting Stacie Vaughn Zimmer last week at the Texas Library Association’s annual conference in Houston. She autographed her latest poetry collection, Steady Hands: Poems About Work, with these words: “Lynda, May your steady hands always find poetry in them!”

The poems in this book cover a gamut of professions, both blue collar and white collar, and there is no stereotyping since Ms. Zimmer intermingles the masculine and feminine pronouns in her poems. There are a few surprises – the dog walker suffered a nervous breakdown in his previous profession of attorney, the organizer conducts her own interviews instead of being interviewed, and the cafeteria cook looks like Elvis.

The first poem is titled “Morning,” and describes the frantic pace of getting ready on a normal workday. It ends with the lines “Engines hum/heels click/and doors thud/behind ambitions.” The last poem is titled, “Night,” and ends with the lines “Then the moon/unlocks the door/for the night shift.” The illustrations for both these poems depict the exact same little boy in his bed; the few things that are different are the lighting in the room, the time on the alarm clock, whether he’s pulling the blanket off or on, and the sky in the window behind. Otherwise, the same little boy gazes at the camera in silent contemplation of his future – which job will HE choose?

The illustrations in this book are by Megan Halsey and Sean Addy and include a multiple of media, such as collage; ink-line, pastels, and water color drawings; and photography. My favorite illustration is the one that accompanies the poem “Flight Attendant.” It shows a little boy about 7 or 8 on his bicycle, smiling up at 3 airplanes flying overhead in a pastel blue sky. This illustration matches the last 6 lines of the poem perfectly:
    “where, as a child,
    he would stop
    (even on his bicycle)
    and dream
    about the planes he saw
    Skimming through the clouds.”

Of course, my favorite poem in this collection is “Librarian.”

Logging onto his blog,
the librarian reviews
a graphic novel he scored
at a conference in Toronto.
He edits
a podcast interview
with a new voice
in the poetry slam scene,
adds friends to the teen library
Internet café.
Then he grabs some sodas and bags of snacks
and heads downstairs
to open the all-buy book club
that meets just after school.

Graphic from: http://www.amazon.com/Steady-Hands-Poems-About-Work/dp/0618903518/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1239403833&sr=1-1 Accessed 4/10/2009

Comets, Stars, the Moon, and Mars: Poetry Book Review

COMETS, STARS, THE MOON, AND MARS: Florian, Douglas, 2007. Illustrated by Douglas Florian. Orlando, FL: Harcourt, Inc. ISBN#978-0-15-205372-7

Douglas Florian has done it again! In this, one of his most recent books of poetry, he has written poems for each planet (including Pluto!), the sun, our moon, and other interesting objects found out beyond our atmosphere. Each poem is accompanied by an illustration of paintings, collage, or rubber stamps. There are strategically placed cutouts within some of the illustrations too, giving a tantalizing hint of what lies beyond, or on the next page for us earthbound types.

My favorite poem is "Pluto:"

     Pluto was a planet.
     But now it dosn't pass.
     Pluto was a planet.
     They say it's lacking mass.
     Pluto was a planet.
     Pluto was admired.
     Pluto was a planet.
     Till one day it got fired.

I've always felt sorry for Pluto - here it was minding its own business and just being itself, until suddenly one day some scientist decided it couldn't be a planet anymore. Mr. Florian expresses that same sentiment, albeit so much better than I ever could!

Mr. Florian also provides a "Galactic Glossary" and helpful bibliography at the end of his book. The glossary provides factual, helpful information useful to teachers who want to incorporate poetry into their astronomy lessons. One example is his entry for the minor planets:

         "The minor planets, also called asteroids
          or planetoids, are pieces of rock
          orbiting the Sun. The largest is Ceres,
          which is approximately 180 miles
          across. The greatest concentration of minor
          planets is found between Mars and Jupiter
          in an area called the asteroid belt, where
          they likely number in the millions."

graphic from: http://search.barnesandnoble.com/booksearch/isbnInquiry.asp?r=1&ISBN=9780152053727&ourl=Comets%2DStars%2Dthe%2DMoon%2Dand%2DMars%2FDouglas%2DFlorian accessed 3/24/2009.

Sketches from a Spy Tree - verse novel Book Review

SKETCHES FROM A SPY TREE: Zimmer, Tracie Vaughn, 2005. Illustrated by Andrew Glass. New York: Houghton Mifflin Company ISBN-13: 978-0-618-23479-0

Sketches from a Spy Tree is not your typical verse novel. Most of this genre is written for teenagers, but this novel is aimed squarely at middle schoolers. Tracie Vaughn Zimmer has written an intriguing collection of free verse poems that can be read individually. Read as a novel, though, they follow narrator Anne Marie, her identical twin Mary Anne, and their best friend May Ching, over the course of a couple of years as they explore their neighborhood, feelings, and learn to cope with life’s ups and downs. It also paints a ray of hope for upper elementary and younger middle schoolers who are struggling with a parent's remarriage.

At the beginning of this novel, 10 year old Anne Marie tells us about how her father left her mother and 3 daughters a couple of years before the story begins. Over the course of the novel, we learn about Anne Marie’s new stepfather, the neighbors, the frightening dog who lives 2 blocks away, the new baby sister, and how Anne Marie finally learns to care for her stepfather. Ms. Zimmer skillfully crafts this progression, with lines moving from “I’m the one with hate/painting my heart black.” (“The Twins”) to “I bite the side of my cheek/until after the I do’s/and clamp my eyes tight/for the kiss” (“The Kiss”) to “Our last name/is not the same/as Momma’s anymore/and there are days/I dislike him/just for that.” (“Names”) to the day when Mike, her stepdad, gives her the art supplies her father left behind when he left, “But right now I think I’ll/paint a picture/to fill the black spot/he wiped clean/in my heart.” (“Potential”). In the last poem, Anne Marie is carefully wrapping a self-portrait: “It’s a Father’s Day gift/for my stepdad, Mike.” (“Self-Portrait”). The very last page is a wonderful painting of Anne Marie with a sketchbook in hand and wide grin on her face. Could this be the self-portrait she gave to Mike? If so, Anne Marie has come a long way since the beginning of the novel.

Andrew Glass’s illustrations are primarily sketches and paintings which we are led to believe come from Anne Marie herself. Mr. Glass has used a combination of paintings, sketches, and collages to bring the poems to life. The paintings, especially, are vibrant, and filled with movement – after all, Anne Marie leads an active, typical 10 to 11 year old’s life. But she has her quiet moments too. The poem that gives the book its title, “Maple Street” is illustrated with a photo collage, and is my favorite from the book because I also had a tree I sat in to hide from the world when I was Anne Marie’s age.

Maple Street

There’s no doubt
where our street
found its name:
the gigantic maple tree
in front of Jamie Hamlin’s house.
His nose may run
green slime all year,
but he shares
the stale chocolate bars left over
from his family’s corner store
and besides,
like I said,
there’s his tree.

With my sketchbook and colored pencils,
I climb
the four largest limbs
into my tower,
the perfect place to draw
what I see:

Mary Anne and Emily
swinging higher and higher
their hair like two flags
in the wind

or
Paul and Carrie O’Brien
practicing karate moves before their four o’clock class.

From my tower
I can see the whole neighborhood.
But no one can see me,
hidden by these green and paper leves,
creating sketches
from a spy tree.

Both Tracie Vaughn Zimmer and Andrew Glass are twins. Tracie is an identical twin and Andrew is a fraternal twin, although he tells us in the dust jacket, “As fraternal twins, Alex and I never looked anything alike. He was a strapping football player type, while I was a skinny, artistic guy. Yet it was not unusual that as soon as people learned we were twins, they suddenly stopped being able to tell us apart.” Knowing that both the poet and artist of this book are twins just like their main character, gives this book a unique appeal.

Graphic from: http://www.houghtonmifflinbooks.com/catalog/titledetail.cfm?titleNumber=111177 accessed 3/6/2009

Poetry Book Review: Multicultural Poetry

A THOUSAND PEAKS: POEMS FROM CHINA. Liu, Siyu, and Orel Protopopescu, translators and editors, 2002. Illustrated by Siyu Liu. China: Global Interprint, Inc, and Berkely, CA: Pacific View Press. ISBN 1-881896-24-2.

Ancient China is a land and time that, for most of us, lies hidden in the mists of long-dead centuries past. But authors Liu and Protopopescu perform magic and roll back time to a land of both romance and bloody history. Poetry in China goes back over five thousand years. It was and continues to be an integral part of Chinese culture. This book gives an excellent overview of Ancient Chinese history, the many dynasties and revolutions, and the many poets as well, on an upper elementary or middle school grade level.

Liu and Protopopescu introduce the reader to the classic Chinese poetry form known as shi, which is very similar in format to the Japanese haiku. Unlike Japanese haiku, though, shi deals not only with nature, but with political unrest, the social climate, and emotions. Shi can be traced back to the Han dynasty, which ended in 206 BCE, but is still a major form of Chinese poetry today. Chinese children are taught to memorize shi before they can even read to instill proper respect for farmers, parents, and authorities. Even Mao Zedong wrote shi, and one of his shi is included in this collection.

The word shi means “poetry” in Chinese, and according to the authors, shi consists of four or eight lines per poem, with five or seven characters per line. The second and fourth lines usually rhyme, and the first line might also rhyme. The first and second lines portray an image, the third offers a different perspective on the image and the last line reflects the poet’s thoughts. All the poems in this collection have been translated from their Chinese originals, and all are shi. The wonderful thing about this poetry collection is that we are given the English translation, the poem in its original Chinese characters, and then the translation of those characters into the Chinese words. This lets us hear the sound of the poem in its original language and see how closely the poems follow the shi structure. The authors thoughtfully included a helpful pronunciation guide.

The book is divided into different chapters, each chapter named after an important part of Chinese culture. We learn about Ancient Chinese social culture, the world’s first civil service exam (called the Jinshi), and how the Ancient Chinese embraced nature. There are poems about respecting those who work the land, mourning the loss of an overthrown leader, political unrest, and even how the grass grows from year to year. Each poem is also accompanied by text which tells us about the poet, the reason the poem was written, and what was happening in Ancient China at the time to motivate the poem’s creation.

My favorite poem in this book is Poem of My Lost Country, written by a Tang dynasty concubine. The accompanying text tells how people placed the blame on Lady Huarui for distracting her emperor while the kingdom was being attacked. She was ultimately blamed for the downfall of the kingdom, and wrote this poem to redeem her reputation. She was taken captive by the new emperor and became his concubine in turn. When the emperor’s brother read this poem, he became suspicious that Lady Huarui was planning to murder her new husband in revenge for her first husband’s murder. Legend says that he arranged a hunting accident that resulted in her death.

Poem of My Lost Country

My lord raised a flag of surrender over his walled town.
Buried deep in his palace, what could I know of it then?
A hundred and forty thousand men put their weapons down.
How shocking to find not one man among them!

shù guó wáng shi

jün wáng chéng shàng shù xiáng qí
qiè zài shēn gōng nâ dé zhī
shí sì wàn rén qí xiè jiâ
nìng wύ yí gè shì nán ér

By Lady Huarui (Tang dynasty)

In the afterword, the two authors discuss the reasons, challenges, and technical difficulties in writing this book. What I found extremely interesting was where Siyu Liu tells us how, at the age of 10 in the midst of Mao Zedong’s Cultural Revolution, she discovered her parents’ hidden stash of forbidden books. When Mao Zedong died, Siyu Liu and her friends rejoiced in their newfound ancient heritage. This book is her attempt to preserve that heritage so it won’t be lost again.

Ancient China and other ancient civilizations are usually studied somewhere between 4th and 6th grades. This book would be an excellent accompaniment to the Ancient China unit. It brings the Ancient Chinese people to life, showing their doubts and fears, their struggles and joys, and in doing so, shows us that the Ancient Chinese weren’t so very different from you or me.

Graphics from:

http://www.pacificviewpress.com/thousand%20peaks2.html accessed 2/18/2009

http://www.factropolis.com/2008/02/toothpaste-used-throughout-ancient.html accessed 2/18/2009

Poetry Book Review

DAYS TO CELEBRATE. Hopkins, Lee Bennett, ed. 2005. Illustrated by Stephen Alcorn. New York: HarperCollins. ISBN 0-06-000765-6.


This anthology from Lee Bennett Hopkins includes poems for every single month of the year. Hopkins divides this book into twelve chapters, one for each month of the year. On the first page of each chapter, he provides his readers with a calendar of that month. Every single day contains at least one notable event that occured on that date. Hopkins lists birthdates, holidays, important inventions, and miscellaneous fun trivia facts such as on August 2nd, 1858, the first US mailboxes were installed in Boston and New York City. In April, to commemorate National Poetry Month and Young People's Poetry Week, he has a page of quotes from poets on poetry.

The poems included in this anthology range from 2 line snippets to full page poems. Even though the cover's illustrations are cartoons, the inside illustrations are done in Folk Art style. I think this switch from cartoon to folk art makes this book primarily for middle school or young adult readers.

My favorite poem in the entire collection is for February 2nd (today, actually!), to commemorate Groundhog's Day:

Groundhog

by Maria Fleming

People shoo me

from their lawn,

scold me,

chase me,

want me gone,

treat me like

some kind of pest,

a most unwelcome

garden guest.

Then one day,

for mysterious reasons,

they crown me--

ME!--

King of Seasons.

Will spring come soon?

Will winter flee?

The world awaits

my royal decree.