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RE: OOP - OUT OF POETRY!
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From: Kate Brown <kbrown_at_brevisconsult.com>
Date: Sat, 21 Jul 2012 15:05:21 -0400
What a wonderful letter that was. Would you please send the message out again, louder and repeatedly, so that, hopefully, someone with the wisdom t o understand fully the meaning of your words as well as the power to correct this grievous omission in youngsters' experience with literature will hear and take the necessary actions to change the state of things?
My father raised us on poetry; he always had the best line(s) for whatever the occasion. Whether Shakespeare, Poe, Shelley, or one of the Latin poets , we could always count on Dad to direct us from an angry moment to a place where we could see the event or hear the words from a different perspective , to enrich the humor of the moment by giving us insight into its universal, timeless quality, or just breaking the silence with words so lovely, thoughtful, or stimulating that our minds were off in a thousand directions in a flash, imagining, grasping for a line to respond to his, or creating a new line or our own to echo his.
I remember doing a story hour for second graders one day (I am a school librarian) using the poetry of Ogden Nash. Seeing the books in my arms as I met her class at the door, the teacher asked if that was what I intended to use with her class that day. "They aren't very good readers. You'll have a tough time with them if that's what you plan to use today," she said.
When she arrived to pick up the children, with a smug smile already in place, the first question she asked was, "And how was story hour today, class?"
It was awesome! They were so funny! Can Mrs. Brown to come our room and read them again! Without a word, she left the library in record time.
What can I do to help?
Kate Brown, Consultant
From: Lbhcove_at_aol.com
Sent: Saturday, July 21, 2012 1:26 PM To: ccbc-net_at_ccbc.education.wisc.edu Cc: svardell@gmail.com; Jplewis42@aol.com; rebeccakai@aol.com; janet@janetwong.com Subject:
OOP - OUT OF POETRY!
Sadly, I feel the genre hit hardest with out of print titles has been poetry.
Except for a few scattered titles, one cannot find works by David McCord, Aileen Fisher, Eve Merriam, Myra Cohn Livingston, Lilian Moore - all NCTE Poetry Award Winners - as well as other brilliant poets' words in print. I t is a sad commentary not to have a book like McCord's ONE AT A TIME, over 400 pages of classic poetry, Livingston's A SONG I SANG TO YOU, a rare book of her selected poems.
And gone are breakthrough books by Janet Wong such as GOOD LUCK GOLD AND OTHER POEMS bringing us a look at the experiences of a multicultural Asian-American growing up in California.
No one has mentioned poetry thus far in this discussion. Has it become a stepchild of literature again? Or must light verse be the only thing left to give our children? Can we not bring beauty back into children's lives with real poetry? Poetry with a capital P?
Lee Bennett Hopkins
Visit my site at: www.leebennetthopkins.com
Date: Sat, 21 Jul 2012 15:05:21 -0400
What a wonderful letter that was. Would you please send the message out again, louder and repeatedly, so that, hopefully, someone with the wisdom t o understand fully the meaning of your words as well as the power to correct this grievous omission in youngsters' experience with literature will hear and take the necessary actions to change the state of things?
My father raised us on poetry; he always had the best line(s) for whatever the occasion. Whether Shakespeare, Poe, Shelley, or one of the Latin poets , we could always count on Dad to direct us from an angry moment to a place where we could see the event or hear the words from a different perspective , to enrich the humor of the moment by giving us insight into its universal, timeless quality, or just breaking the silence with words so lovely, thoughtful, or stimulating that our minds were off in a thousand directions in a flash, imagining, grasping for a line to respond to his, or creating a new line or our own to echo his.
I remember doing a story hour for second graders one day (I am a school librarian) using the poetry of Ogden Nash. Seeing the books in my arms as I met her class at the door, the teacher asked if that was what I intended to use with her class that day. "They aren't very good readers. You'll have a tough time with them if that's what you plan to use today," she said.
When she arrived to pick up the children, with a smug smile already in place, the first question she asked was, "And how was story hour today, class?"
It was awesome! They were so funny! Can Mrs. Brown to come our room and read them again! Without a word, she left the library in record time.
What can I do to help?
Kate Brown, Consultant
From: Lbhcove_at_aol.com
Sent: Saturday, July 21, 2012 1:26 PM To: ccbc-net_at_ccbc.education.wisc.edu Cc: svardell@gmail.com; Jplewis42@aol.com; rebeccakai@aol.com; janet@janetwong.com Subject:
OOP - OUT OF POETRY!
Sadly, I feel the genre hit hardest with out of print titles has been poetry.
Except for a few scattered titles, one cannot find works by David McCord, Aileen Fisher, Eve Merriam, Myra Cohn Livingston, Lilian Moore - all NCTE Poetry Award Winners - as well as other brilliant poets' words in print. I t is a sad commentary not to have a book like McCord's ONE AT A TIME, over 400 pages of classic poetry, Livingston's A SONG I SANG TO YOU, a rare book of her selected poems.
And gone are breakthrough books by Janet Wong such as GOOD LUCK GOLD AND OTHER POEMS bringing us a look at the experiences of a multicultural Asian-American growing up in California.
No one has mentioned poetry thus far in this discussion. Has it become a stepchild of literature again? Or must light verse be the only thing left to give our children? Can we not bring beauty back into children's lives with real poetry? Poetry with a capital P?
Lee Bennett Hopkins
Visit my site at: www.leebennetthopkins.com
---Received on Sat 21 Jul 2012 03:05:21 PM CDT
