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Winding Up the Poetry Discussion
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From: Ginny Moore Kruse <gmkruse>
Date: Mon, 01 May 2000 18:05:28 -0500
There's never enough time for any subject, particularly Poetry. We just began, but we don't need to wait until next April to discover, read, and share poetry with others.
We somehow managed to get through the month of April without ever mentioning Shel Silverstein, referred to in a Time Magazine obit on May 24, 1999, as "...best known for writing and illustrating michievous, charmingly tasteless books of poetry for children... quirky..." More than 14 million copies were sold of his books during his lifetime. We'll never know how many children (who are now adults) were once delighted by the poems in "Where the Sidewalk Ends" and "A Light in the Attic." He more or less held on during years when most adults were somehow unable to make much of a case for poetry. Or to publish much of it for children. Or to make much of it very attractive. We've come a long way...
Nicole asked an important question. Can contemporary and classic or historical poetry be mixed? The question can be answered any number of ways, Nicole, and I hope several individuals who teach children have written to you independently to tell you how they incorporate poetry into their currciula, or into every day. There's formal teaching, and there's the apparently informal integration of poetry into an environment. Both require planning, but planning is easier when one has a personal "storehouse" of poets, anthologies, and other sources of poetry from which to draw. There's no one way. No right way.
Poetry can be part of everyone's day. The Poetry in Motion poems on the NYC buses and subways proved that years ago. Imagine reading a poem while you ride to work. Imagine hearing a poem after you get to school. Imagine treating yourself to a new book of poetry from time to time. Perhaps you'll end up saying, I can't imagine a day without poetry. Neither can I.
In the introduction to her anthology of poems for young adults,
"Light-Gathering Poems" (An Edge Book / Henry Holt, 2000), Liz Rosenberg writes "All poets must train themselves to look, and to see. These poets [in the anthology] have gone a step further, to look toward some brightness, some way of rescue, hope or comfort...I have often thought the great virtue of youth is not its beauty, but its hope."
Ginny Moore Kruse (gmkruse at facstaff.wisc.edu) Cooperative Children's Book Center (www.education.wisc.edu/cbc/) A Library of the School of Education, University of Wisconsin Madison
Received on Mon 01 May 2000 06:05:28 PM CDT
Date: Mon, 01 May 2000 18:05:28 -0500
There's never enough time for any subject, particularly Poetry. We just began, but we don't need to wait until next April to discover, read, and share poetry with others.
We somehow managed to get through the month of April without ever mentioning Shel Silverstein, referred to in a Time Magazine obit on May 24, 1999, as "...best known for writing and illustrating michievous, charmingly tasteless books of poetry for children... quirky..." More than 14 million copies were sold of his books during his lifetime. We'll never know how many children (who are now adults) were once delighted by the poems in "Where the Sidewalk Ends" and "A Light in the Attic." He more or less held on during years when most adults were somehow unable to make much of a case for poetry. Or to publish much of it for children. Or to make much of it very attractive. We've come a long way...
Nicole asked an important question. Can contemporary and classic or historical poetry be mixed? The question can be answered any number of ways, Nicole, and I hope several individuals who teach children have written to you independently to tell you how they incorporate poetry into their currciula, or into every day. There's formal teaching, and there's the apparently informal integration of poetry into an environment. Both require planning, but planning is easier when one has a personal "storehouse" of poets, anthologies, and other sources of poetry from which to draw. There's no one way. No right way.
Poetry can be part of everyone's day. The Poetry in Motion poems on the NYC buses and subways proved that years ago. Imagine reading a poem while you ride to work. Imagine hearing a poem after you get to school. Imagine treating yourself to a new book of poetry from time to time. Perhaps you'll end up saying, I can't imagine a day without poetry. Neither can I.
In the introduction to her anthology of poems for young adults,
"Light-Gathering Poems" (An Edge Book / Henry Holt, 2000), Liz Rosenberg writes "All poets must train themselves to look, and to see. These poets [in the anthology] have gone a step further, to look toward some brightness, some way of rescue, hope or comfort...I have often thought the great virtue of youth is not its beauty, but its hope."
Ginny Moore Kruse (gmkruse at facstaff.wisc.edu) Cooperative Children's Book Center (www.education.wisc.edu/cbc/) A Library of the School of Education, University of Wisconsin Madison
Received on Mon 01 May 2000 06:05:28 PM CDT
