I cannot sing, nor do I want to
To that Jesus on the cross
But rather to the One that
walked on water.

For Christians all over the world, today  — Good Friday — is one of the saddest days of the year.   So the sentiment expressed above by Spanish poet Antonio Machado is one, particularly, that many children might feel on this day. And yet, one cannot enter into the religious celebration of Easter without first experiencing the death of its central figure, Jesus Christ.

Good Friday is observed all over the world in various ways.  There are masses, worship services, processions and rituals carried out.  Writing or reading poetry is also a way to observe the day.  You might take out some good books about Easter from the library or check out the plethora of websites out there on poetry and Easter.  I took out an oldie found for me by my librarian friend from our local library titled Easter Poems by well known children’s poetry anthologist  Myra Cohn Livingston, illustrated by John Wallner (Holiday House, 1985) and found many good poems that reflect both the “joy and solemnity of the holiday” as the jacket flap blurb indicates.   Today is about the solemnity, of course, but soon joy will come.  Here’s an excerpt from one poem “These Three” by X.J. Kennedy that begins with the solemn lines:

These three on Friday
Lay cloudy, dark and still:
Shadows
Of three crosses
On cold Golgotha Hill

Of course, the poem ends with a trio of  images of the joy yet to come.

What books do you read to your children on this day?  Give us your recommendations, poetic or otherwise. Today’s Poetry Friday host is Kate at Book Aunt.

Halloween is tomorrow and for a good portion of the English-speaking world, the event will be celebrated with children dressing up for trick-or-treating and adults going in costume to parties.  According to Robin May’s Holidays and Festivals: Halloween, Halloween had its origins in northern Celtic Europe — Britain, Ireland and northern France in particular.  The festival has long been associated with witches, the dead, ghosts and mischief much as it still is today.  It predates as well as precedes the Christian holy days of All Saints’ and All Souls, together known as Hallow Tide.

North Americans celebrate the event with trick-or-treating.  Children dress up and venture out into the neighborhood to gather candy by calling out “Trick or Treat”  at people’s doors.  Having grown up in Canada, I have very fond memories of going out trick-or-treating and now enjoy accompanying my children.  What has been specially memorable for my family growing up was introducing the holiday to Japanese kids who were experiencing the event for the first time.

Of course, this being Poetry Friday, I wondered if there might be any poetry books on the event as it is celebrated here.  Sure enough, at my local library I found Halloween Poems selected by Myra Cohn Livingston, illustrated by Stephen Gammell.  There are a lot of wonderful poems here about witches and skeletons, ghosts and jack-o-lanterns.   I liked the wry poem “Trick or Treating at Age Eight” where the little boy narrator comes to the conclusion that the only thing to fear on Halloween night are “the boys/a few years older/with legs a little longer,/hooting up and down the neighborhood/who chase me all the way home.”  And then there is the slightly spooky poem “We Three” where the little trick-or-treaters find an unexpected fourth in their group.  Gammell’s illustrations, accompanying the text, have an appropriately macabre comic feel to them — a little weird, but not too scary.  Halloween Poems makes for a delightful celebration of the season in poetry.

This week’s Poetry Friday host is Jennie at Biblio File.

Poet Janet Wong’s energy and dynamism really struck me when I interviewed her for our current issue of PaperTigers, and these qualities really come through in her recent interview with Elaine at Wild Rose Reader. It focuses on “her experience as a student in a master class on poetry taught by the late Myra Cohn Livingston, one of America’s foremost children’s poets and anthologists” – as well as being a great read itself, the comments that follow on from the interview have kept the conversation going…

Not only that, but Janet and Elaine have also invited readers of the interview to write their own poems including the words ring, drum and blanket, as this used to be one of Myra’s homework assignments. You can still join in – and if you need inspiration, you can read Janet and Elaine’s own offerings; there’s a great poem called Dragon Boat Festival by Diane Davis; and Cloudscome, Miss Rumphius Effect and Writing and Ruminating have all taken the challenge in wonderful and very different directions too.