Poem in Your Pocket Day

Tomorrow is the first national Poem in Your Pocket Day (New York City has been celebrating it since 2002).  I love this idea in theory, and will put a poem (TDB) in my pocket before I take the kids the school in the morning, but will I read it to anyone?  Probably not.  Wait--the kids!  I'll read it to them, and send them off with poems in their pockets, too (maybe Milly could memorize a short one).

If you're looking for a poem for your pocket, check out these pocket-sized Poem PDFs, some poems about pockets (love this idea, too), or just browse poets.org.  It is National Poetry Month, you know.

Poetry Friday: Behind the Museum Door

I'm a museum person:  I'll look at just about anything if it's behind glass and has a little plaque.  Fortunately for me (and for the kids, who also get to go there on field trips), we live within frequent visiting distance of the Smithsonian Institution and its complex of wonderful--and free--museums.  The 14 poems in Behind the Museum Door: Poems to Celebrate the Wonders of Museums, selected by Lee Bennett Hopkins and illustrated by Stacey Dressen-McQueen (Abrams, 2007), are framed by a school visit to a museum whose exhibits range from mummies to moccasins, fine art to fossils.  My favorite (poem, if not exhibit) is Alice Schertle's "O Trilobite."  Against a dark blue background teeming with the little critters, these are the opening lines:

O trilobite, there are a few,
here in the Fossil Room, of you.
Once billions strong, you ruled the sea,
a Cambrian Age majority.

In print, the left margin of the poem's lines forms a gentle convex curve, like the shape of a trilobite's shell.

I love Stacey Dressen-McQueen's rich and expressive artwork, made with acrylic paint, oil pastel, and colored pencils.  The multicultural group of children she's painted here is clearly delighted with their trip to museum.  I would be, too.

Poetry Friday: Bronzeville Boys and Girls

The 34 concise poems in this collection, Bronzeville Boys and Girls by Gwendolyn Brooks, illustrated by Faith Ringgold (Amistad, 2007) were first published in 1956.  They are just as fresh and appealing today; maybe even more so in this newly illustrated edition by Ringgold, whose paintings of the neighborhood houses and children are a perfect match for Brooks's poems [compare the cover of the original edition below].  I love that each poem has a name (Keziah, Nora, Tommy):  the name of the child it speaks for or about.  Ringgold, in "About Bronzeville Boys and Girls," says "[Brooks] reminded us that whether we live in the Bronzeville section of Chicago or any other neighborhood, childhood is universal in its richness of emotions and new experiences.  We are all Bronzeville boys and girls."  I think she's right:  at least I recognized myself (child and adult) in more than one of these poems.

From "Eunice in the evening:"

What is so nice in the dining room
Is--Everybody's There!
Daddy on the long settee--
A child in every chair--
Mama pouring cocoa in
The little cups of blue.
(And each of us has leave to take
A ginger cookie, too.)

Highly recommended. 

[The original cover art by Ronni Solbert.]

Poetry Friday: From the Gargoyle's Den

We spent last Saturday morning at the Gargoyle's Den, a workshop for families held every week from 10-2 in the crypt classroom of the Washington National Cathedral.  Lots of projects:  Leo and Milly loved it.  The classroom has a nice collection of cathedral-themed picture books, too.  This poem is from A Gargoyle on the Roof by children's poet laureate Jack Prelutsky; pictures by Peter Sis , whose distinguished work as an author and illustrator I admire (Greenwillow, 1999).

Mother Gargoyle's Lullaby

The moon and stars have vanished,
The long dark night is through,
Another day is dawning,
The sky is clear and blue.
The morning sun is rising,
It's climbing overhead.
My precious baby gargoyles
Should snuggle into bed.  [continues]

Other picture books about gargoyles:

god bless the gargoyles by dav pilkey (Voyager, 1999).  Look at this book for the gorgeous paintings (made with acrylics, watercolors, and India inks).  One was inspired by Edward Hopper's Nighthawks.

Night of the Gargoyles by Eve Bunting; illustrated by David Wiesner (Clarion, 1994).  Gargoyles on a museum building come to life at night in Wiesner's black-and-white charcoal drawings.