As a poet, I’m always interested in new poetic forms.  Join Hands! by Pat Mora (with photographs by George Ancona, Charlesbridge, 2008) introduced me to the pantoum.  The pantoum is a poetic form derived from Malaysia.  It is composed of quatrains where the second and fourth lines are repeated as the first and third lines of the following quatrain.  In Join Hands!, Mora uses the form (with slight alterations in her repeating lines) to create a poem about celebrating life through dancing, singing, masquerading and parading.  The book takes you through the lines, one line per page, with accompanying photograph per line.  A few Spanish words like ‘amigos’ and ‘canciones’ are used. (Mora is known for her bilingual Spanish/English books.)   The explanation of the form comes at the end of the book.  I wish it had come at the beginning, however!  Reading the text linearly while viewing the picture made it seem a bit confusing.  However, I did enjoy the lively photographs by George Ancona,  accompanying each line.  They feature children dancing and strutting and holding hands.

Have you heard of the pantoum or tried your hand at writing one?  A few months after I read this book, I encountered a pantoum written by Canadian poet, Robyn Sarah in her latest book, A Pause for Breath.  The form seemed vaguely familiar when I suddenly realized I had encountered it in Mora’s book.

This week’s Poetry Friday host is Danika at Teaching Books.

A while ago, a colleague of my husband’s gave us this delightful book, Max Makes a Million (Viking, 1990), about a dog-poet named Max.  And thus was I introduced to the marvelously oddball world and voice of New Yorker and children’s book writer and illustrator, Maira Kalman.  The story of  Max is not so much poetry per se in the conventional sense of verse on a page (although it is that in this book as well), but more the illustration of an extended metaphor at work.  The poet-as-dog in his New York digs with his artistically inclined owners, and extravagant ambitions, his friendship with a painter, and his encounter with the critic,  is quirky and evocative.  And somehow, all very apt for a poet! And there’s lots of word music, to boot.  Max’s poetry is catchy:

I want to dance
the kazatski
until I plotski
and sing like a boid
on toity-toid and toid

In this wonderful TED video, Kalman talks about her ‘creative process,’ so to speak, with much vigor, charm and humour.  I was struck by how much she mentioned being a ‘bad poet’ and of writing ‘bad poetry’ and yet, in the end, I have to say her judgement of herself — however harsh — never stopped her from carrying on.  As any artist knows — poet or otherwise — it’s often hard just to stay inspired.   And seeing as it’s February, you might find watching this video and hearing her talk about this dreary month a bit of an inspiration yourself.

This week’s Poetry Friday host is MsMac at Check It Out…

Although it’s February and feels like winter — at least in my part of the country — February actually  marks the beginning of spring in many East Asian countries.  The Asian calendar is particularly sensitive to changes of season.  When I think of writing about the seasons in poetry, the first form that comes to mind is the haiku and the most famous practitioner of its art, Basho.

Grass Sandals: The Travels of Basho by Dawnine Spivak, illustrated by Demi, is a delightful picture book that captures the essence of the wandering poet for children.   In it, Basho is featured as a character embarking on a journey.  Upon his hat, he writes: “Hat, I will soon show you cherry blossoms” and sets off.    Of course, Basho has his adventures — not of the swash-buckling kind, mind you — and he records them in haiku.  He wades in rivers, sits under ancient trees, sleeps on grass pillows, and swims in the ocean.  This meandering but mindful wandering is presented on each page with images, haikus, and Chinese characters — kanji, as they are known in Japanese — for the most salient natural element presented in the poem.  So in addition to being a good book about a famous historical figure, Grass Sandals teaches a little bit of kanji as well!

Illustrator Demi has drawn wonderful images of the traveling Basho on a background of washi — Japanese paper — to great effect.  (You can see more of Demi’s artwork in the PaperTigers gallery.) The genial nature of the poet is well reflected in his expressions.  Grass Sandals is a good introduction to the poet and the form, and a lovely Asian way of welcoming in a season that might not otherwise feel like spring at all!

This week’s Poetry Friday host is Irene Latham at Live. Love. Explore. – head on over!

My children have been asking lots of questions recently about their family history, which is in part closely connected with Uruguay and Argentina – this has led to reminiscences of a wonderful trip to the waterfalls at Iguazu and, naturally, led me to go and pull Francisco X. Alarcón’s book of Animal Poems of the Iguazú/ Animalario del Iguazú (Children’s Book Press, 2008) off the shelf. This is a vibrant book of poems, many of them quick, witty epigrams about individual rainforest species. Maya Christina Gonzalez‘ vibrant illustrations fairly zing off the page too! Here’s part of the English version of one of the longer poems, the last in the book, that brings all the animals together. It’s called “Same Green Fate”:

let’s listen to
the green voice
of the rainforest[...]

let’s learn
the distinct
living alphabets

of so many species
so many insects
and butterflies[...]

let’s make the world
a true Ybirá Retá -
a Land of the Trees

And that touch of Guaraní is echoed in the Spanish version too. Wonderful! If I close my eyes, I can relive one magical, wildlife-and-waterfall-filled early morning walk… Well, if you can’t actually be there, these poems are the next best thing!

This week’s Poetry Friday is hosted by Anastasia Suen at Picture Book of the Day – head on over!

The other day I caught myself chastising my daughter for not being grateful when receiving a gift.  I said something to the effect of,  “You need to learn about gratitude.”  As soon as the words slipped out of my mouth, I felt like a Victorian school marm.   Indeed, as Anne Harvey, editor of  the poetry collection The Naughtiest Children I Know (illustrated by Harry Horse, published by Red Fox, 2000) points out in her introduction, Victorians “were rather keen on doling out warnings and reminders and strong punishments.”   Don’t touch!  Don’t Look!  Don’t Move!  Have you washed your hands? etc. etc.  Old litanies, but still — dare I say it? –  in common use.

The poems in “The Naughtiest Children I know” are an amalgam of poems about children and vice.  They are meant, as Harvey says, to delight rather than to ’sternly warn.’ Many of the poems are cautionary tales that will make you laugh or nod in agreement; some kids do get their comeuppance (Alonzo Never-shut-the-door is burglarized by a burglar who ironically shuts the door as ‘good burglars always do.’)  while others just carry on. The poems are arranged alphabetically with titles that often refer to the naughty child by name such as “Alice who had a bad habit of throwing things” or “Humphrey Hughes of Highbury” (whose mischievous vice is taking books out of the library and letting them go overdue so that his mother can pay the fine!)  or “Zachary’s Progress.”  At the back of the book is a delightful “Alphabet of Horrible Habits” which features children with names beginning with each letter of the alphabet and their vices.

It’s all too easy to take a “high-and-mighty” tone as a parent, I find, so reading these poems was liberating.  Bad habits and vices — don’t we all have a few?  This book pokes fun at those vices in a way that children can relate to as well as parents.

This week’s Poetry Friday host is Tricia at The Miss Rumphius Effect.

The new PaperTigers issue is all about “religious diversity in relation to end-of-the-year celebrations.”  For Christians, the end of the year is about celebrating the advent of the birth of Jesus Christ.  In Carol of the Brown King: Nativity Poems by Langston Hughes, the story is written about in six poems, beautifully and colorfully illustrated by Ashley Bryan.  In the title poem, Hughes brings out both the paradoxically particular and universal appeal in worshipping the Christ child by identifying one of the Wise Men as “dark like me–/Part of His/Nativity.”   In “Shepherd’s Song at Christmas” a little shepherd boy contemplates the kinds of gifts he can bring to the “King in the Manger”  and settles on this one:

I will bring my heart
And give my heart to Him.
I will give my heart
To the Manger.

Ashley Bryan’s illustrations are rich and colorful depictions of the nativity.  Bryan, who is known for his interest in the illustration of African American spirituals and poetry, has featured African-Americans as Mary and Joseph and the infant Jesus,  and as the shepherd boy and one of the Magi in this book.  His illustrations contextualize the story in a way that departs from the traditional depictions of these Biblical figures and also creates points of identification for African Americans to this story.  By reading and viewing a book like Carol of the Brown King,  a child can have a wider, richer view of the Incarnation.

How do you tell the story of Christmas to your children?  What books do you like to read to them at this time of year?  What events do you like to take them to?  Do drop us a line at PaperTigers and share with us some of your holiday reading treasures.

This week’s Poetry Friday host is Diane Mayr at Random Noodling.

I once wrote a post on the poem “On the Ning Nang Nong” by Spike Milligan.  That poem has never left my mind and since then I have happily acquired more wonderful poetry by Spike Milligan in the form of a ‘collected’ called A Children’s Treasury of Milligan.  Ever his whimsical self, Milligan purports that the collection is a result of a search for six of his childrens’ titles that were supposedly found in various locations like a haddock-stretching factory and a dead whale in Newfoundland among other outlandish places.   But seriously folks, this collection does indeed draw from Milligan’s previous works for children that include such classics as Unspun Socks from a Chicken’s Laundry and Silly Verse for Kids.

Milligan is particularly good with animals.  Indeed, one of his six books is titled A Book of Milliganimals.  This section is not just confined to word-play on the theme of animals but also has some great illustrations done by Milligan himself.  There is, for example, the rouge-colored “Strawberry Moose” and the “Three-legged Hippo” which is a rendering of the animal with three legs, of course, from different perspectives, one of which includes a “rare back view.”  And of course, there is lots of silly verse such as:

Tiger, Tiger Burning etc

Tigers travel stealthily
Using, first, legs one and three.
They alternate with two and four;
And, after that, there are no more.

As well as Milligan’s verse, the collection contains two stories — “The Bald Twit Lion” and “Sir Nobonk and the terrible, awful, dreadful, naughty, nasty Dragon” which make good counterpoint to the poetry.   With all this wonderful material, this book can easily entertain parent and child for many a bedtime read, as my daughter and I are discovering.

This week’s Poetry Friday host is Becky’s Book Reviews…

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.

Award-winning poet Lara Saguisag introduces her Personal View, written for PaperTigers last year, with the rather unpromising line:

I must confess: as a child I didn’t like poetry very much.

That perception might have continued had she not been blown away by listening to poet Valerie Bloom – read Lara’s article, where she muses on this transformation and “The Many Possibilities of Children’s Poetry“.

I have yet to lay my hands on a copy of Lara’s Children of Two Seasons: Poems for Young People (Anvil, 2007) so instead, as we in the north of England move towards sharp, chilly mornings, I direct you to the poem “Frost” by Valerie Bloom – and make sure you listen to Valerie’s own exquisite reading of it too. It’s taken from Valerie’s The World is Sweet (Bloomsbury, 2001).

This week’s Poetry Friday round-up is taking place at Big A little a…

Graphic novels are all the rage these days, especially for young adult readers, but what about a graphic anthology of poetry?  That’s what Poetry Comics: An Animated Anthology by Dave Morice purports to be.  I found this book in the young adult graphic novel section of the downtown branch of my local library.  It contains such classic English poems as Wordsworth’s “I Wandered as a Lonely Cloud” and Robert Herrick’s “To the Virgins, to Make Much of Time” as well as other more modern classics, so to speak, like an excerpt from Allen Ginsberg’s “Howl” and a poem by Langston Hughes. The erstwhile comics that go with the poems vary greatly in style and quality.  There’s a rather surreal rendering of Shakespeare’s “Sonnet 18, Shall I Compare Thee to a Summer’s Day” that I found bizarre.  However, the sequence envisioning Walt Whitman as a poetic superhero whipping off his jacket to expose his W-emblazoned costume à la Superman seemed exceedingly apt.

Using comics and cartoons to visually interpret these canonical English poems seems to me to be an exercise in creative engagement with work that has been dulled with overuse in the language arts classroom.  I applaud Morice’s efforts in bringing to these poems some fresh insights via the visual medium.  Morice ends his book with an appendix explaining how comics are created with step-by-step instructions.   What a great assignment to give to a bored high school English class!  Don’t doodle while the instructor drones on about Shakespeare, doodle the poem instead and see what comes out.  The kind of interactive engagement that drawing the poem takes will make the poem memorable to the student for the rest of his or her life.

This week’s Poetry Friday is hosted by Laura Salas – head on over!