Remembering Maya Angelou: Works for Young People

We were saddened to learn of the recent death of literary powerhouse and cultural icon Maya Angelou. Most of her work is best read by older teenagers and adults, but luckily a number of pieces will allow young people to benefit from her wisdom and insight, too.

For example, Angelou’s poem “Life Doesn’t Frighten Me” is available as a picture book with fun, zany illustrations by Jean-Michel Basiquiat. Young children will enjoy Angelou’s beautiful words and gain inspiration for coping with everyday fears such as imagined monsters in the dark or new, frightening experiences.

Slightly older kids may enjoy Poetry for Young People: Maya Angelou, an anthology of her more accessible poetry at its whimsical, soulful best. Angelou was a champion of painting stirring imagery with her words; accordingly, each poem in the book is accompanied by an illustration. Artistic kids might enjoy doing their own drawings based on some of the more vivid lines from her poems, even ones not included in the book like “On the Pulse of the Morning.”

Those with wanderlust will love My Painted House, My Friendly Chicken, and Me, a magical volume that will transport readers to the stomping grounds of the Ndebele tribe in southern Africa. Readers will be entranced by the richly colored photographs and introductions to the people and their traditions.

After reading her work, kids may be interested in Angelou’s life story. For those between the ages of 8 to 12, Maya Angelou: Journey of the Heart, is a good biography by Jane Pettit based on Angelou’s own memoirs.

Maya Angelou receiving the Presidential Medal of Freedom, 2011

Maya Angelou lived a rich, vibrant life. Though her loss stings, we are lucky that we, and future generations, can continue to enjoy and learn from the evocative writing she left behind.

Poetry Month Revisited

April is National Poetry Month and last year at this time we ran a series of blogs on all kinds of poetic forms, from the acrostic to the villanelle. You can find the full series of poetry blogs, all written by Yellin Center Learning Specialist and top-notch blogger Beth Guadagni, by searching "poetry" in our blog labels on the right hand side of this page.

However, we did want to at least mention this month long event and share suggestions for ways you, your students, and your family can celebrate this wonderful form of literature.

The website of the Academy of American Poets has suggestions for poetic activities for every day of the month. And for those who don't know offhand just how many days that includes, try reciting the poem, "Thirty days hath September...", which had its origins in the 16th century or earlier.

If  you are a budding poet with social media leanings, you can participate in a Twitter poetry contest sponsored by National Public Radio. Have fun!

Do you know the poem about this flower?

photo credit: Martin Ramsden 
 

Turn Back to Poetry with Poetry 180

We have one last blog to share from our April celebration of Poetry Month.

During his tenure as the Poet Laureate of the United States (2001-2003), Billy Collins dedicated much time and energy to his conviction that poetry should be a part of people’s daily lives. With this in mind, he developed and publicized a project called Poetry 180. His plan: that students hear a poem on each of the 180 days of the school year to derive both enrichment and pleasure from relevant, contemporary poets. In a statement introducing his project, Collins writes, “By just spending a few minutes reading a poem each day, new worlds can be revealed.”

The poems Collins selected, which include work from poets like Philip Levine, Naomi Shihab Nye, Sharon Olds, Paul Zimmer, Lucille Clifton, and Collins himself, can be purchased as a collection (Poetry 180: A Turning Back to Poetry), but the collection is also available for free on the Library of Congress’s website. While many of the poems would be appropriate for a wide range of ages, Collins selected the poems with high school students in mind. They are meant to be read to students, and the website includes a helpful link containing tips on reading poetry aloud. Collins was so pleased with the success and impact of Poetry 180 that he assembled a second collection, called 180 More: Extraordinary Poems for Everyday, which is also available in bookstores.

Whether or not they encounter it in school, Poetry 180 is a fantastic collection for young people. The language is both frank and beautiful and the themes are varied and germane. Students who groan at the prospect of having to dissect yet another ancient sonnet will find Poetry 180 to be a breath of fresh air. Do not miss this collection, whether you read one poem a day or devour the whole thing in just a few sittings.

Poetry Comes to Life with Poetry Alive!

We've come to the end of our celebration of National Poetry Month and hope you have enjoyed our focus on all aspects of poetry. Today, we look at an organization that "returns to the bardic tradition of long ago..."

There’s nothing quite like seeing a talented performer breathe life into a wonderful piece of literature. Poetry Alive!, a poetry performance group, gives schools the opportunity to bring that experience to their students. The organization, which was founded nearly thirty years ago, sends two-person teams of performers around the country and the world to perform poems for children and teenagers. There are specific programs tailored to students in elementary, middle, and high school, which include poems to suit the different cognitive skills and tastes of each age group. Poetry Alive! makes kids think, but it also makes them laugh, gasp, chime in, and move around. Audience participation is a hallmark of the program, and students often have the opportunity to call out parts of the poems or take the stage to act out poems alongside the performers. The energy and passion Poetry Alive! lends to the genre is electric, and students leave performances nearly crackling with enthusiasm.

Schools must book Poetry Alive! to give students a chance to see the performances; information can be found on various links from their home page. Visitors can also access videos of poem performances and learn more general information about the organization.

Even students who have never gotten to see Poetry Alive! in person can submit their original poetry for consideration in the regular Poem of the Month contest. And Poetry Alive!’s Poetry Research Page  contains a wealth of kid-friendly information on poets and poems. Also worth a visit is the Poetry For Fun page, which will direct youngsters to fun destinations on the web where they can write magnetic poetry online, access poet Kenn Nesbitt’s lessons on writing funny poems, and more.

National Poetry Month: The Diamante

For people who are intimidated by writing poetry, the diamante poem can be a great format to try first. The diamante is a relatively new form – it was invented in 1969 by poet Iris McClellan Tiedt – that follows a very precise formula. It’s easy to follow, but a working knowledge of parts of speech is required.

Steven Depolo/Flickr

A diamante is seven lines long and shaped like a diamond. In fact, “diamante” means “diamond” in Italian! Each line is made up of words from a particular part of speech:

Noun

Adjective, Adjective,

Verb, Verb, Verb,

Noun, Noun, Noun, Noun

Verb, Verb, Verb,

Adjective, Adjective,

Noun

And that’s it! When writing a diamante, though, there’s one more choice to make. Some diamantes are called synonym diamantes; this means that the first noun and the second noun are different words for the same thing. For example, here’s a synonym diamante we wrote about brothers and sisters:

Siblings

Obnoxious, Helpful

Sharing, Arguing, Laughing

Brother, Sister, Enemy, Companion

Teasing, Tickling, Tattling

Irritating, Loveable

Friends

Siblings are sort of like friends (at least sometimes…), so that’s why this is considered a synonym diamante. On the other hand, some diamantes start and end with words that have different meanings or associations. As you can probably guess, these are known as antonym diamantes. Here’s an example:

Lake

Refreshing, Calm

Sparkling, Flashing, Lapping

Lily pads, Ripples, Seashells, Waves

Roaring, Crashing, Rolling

Salty, Endless

Ocean

Diamantes are great for kids. Let them pick their own topics, or challenge them to tie their poems into something they’re learning by assigning them to start and finish with words like “Tom” and “Huck,” “element” and “compound,” “cell” and “virus,” “democracy” and “monarchy,” etc. This is a wonderful poetic form – a true gem! 

National Poetry Month: The Acrostic

Acrostic poems are great fun for children. Most people are familiar with an incarnation of the acrostic poem in which a name or word is written vertically and then a series of descriptive words or phrases is written based on each letter. Many young children use their name for this type of poem, for example:

D – aring
A – thletic
V – ery good at the guitar
I – nto movies
D – og lover

But the complete definition of the acrostic form reveals much more versatility and potential for fun. The first syllable or word of each line can also be used to spell out a message. Acrostics appear throughout history. Many psalms in the Hebrew Bible are acrostics, and Austrian poet Rudolf von Ems (1200-1254) began each of his great works with an acrostic of his own name. Even the Dutch national anthem is an acrostic! The first letter of each word in the first fifteen lines of the song spell out “Willem Van Nassov,” a Dutch military leader who later became Prince of Orange. Edgar Allan Poe took a step away from his usual macabre verse to write the romantic “An Acrostic”:

Elizabeth it is in vain you say
“Love not” — thou sayest it in so sweet a way:
In vain those words from thee or L. E. L.
Zantippe’s talents had enforced so well:
Ah! if that language from thy heart arise,
Breathe it less gently forth — and veil thine eyes.
Endymion, recollect, when Luna tried
To cure his love — was cured of all beside —
His folly — pride — and passion — for he died.

Acrostics do not have to be artistic; they can be great memory aids as well. Many students learn the order of the four compass points by memorizing the phrase:

Nobody
Eats
Soggy
Waffles

Kids usually enjoy writing acrostics starting with their own names. After that, challenge them to write an acrostic using another member of the family’s name. Or, perhaps, an acrostic could be used to convey a secret message!

Clean, fresh, and full of promise,
Your favorite season is in full swing: Spring! With
Room for new growth and golden dreams,
Now that winter’s chill is a mere memory.

Photo credits: "Keep Calm" via yorkblog.com; room by Rubbermaid Products/Flickr.

National Poetry Month: The Clerihew

The Yellin Center Blog continues our celebration of National Poetry Month with a profile of the poetic form called the clerihew.

The history of the clerihew is almost as much fun as the poems themselves. When he was sixteen years old, Edmund Clerihew Bentley was sitting in science class at St. Paul’s School in London when a funny poem about English chemist Humphry Davy popped into his head. He wrote it down and shared it with classmates, and the form was such a hit that he and his friends wrote more and more of the four-line poems – enough to fill a notebook! Bentley went on to publish three books filled with his own poems, which came to be known as clerihews.

The clerihew follows several simple guidelines:

• it is traditionally about a person
• it is four lines long 
• the first line must end with the name of the person the poem is about 
• the first and second lines rhyme with each other, and the third and fourth lines rhyme with each other
• it is funny! 

Here is an example of one of Bentley’s early clerihews:

The people of Spain think Cervantes
Equal to half-a-dozen Dantes;
An opinion resented most bitterly
By the people of Italy.

Of course, the great thing about being an artist is that sometimes you get to break the rules. Here’s another example by Bentley, which is not about a person but meets the other requirements:

The art of Biography
Is different from Geography.
Geography is about maps,
But Biography is about chaps.

Clerihews can be great fun to write with children. Try assigning a group of kids the same person and letting them compare their work, or let them choose whomever they want. Wouldn’t it be fun to leave the person’s name out of the poem and play a guessing game? The sky’s the limit with this light, enjoyable poetic form! To get your poetic juices flowing, here’s one we wrote in celebration of spring:

Will Punxsutawney Phil 
See his shadow stretch over the hill? 
He’s a pretty famous rodent dude 
Who heralds spring with attitude. 

Creative Ways to Celebrate National Poetry Month

There are lots of fun, out-of-the-box ways to celebrate National Poetry Month. Below are a few of our favorites.

Put a Poem in Your Pocket – Or on Your Feed

Poets.org suggests participating in Poem in Your Pocket Day on April 18; visit their page for more details and to access links to poems you can carry with you throughout the day. But rather than simply sharing your pocket poem with co-workers, family, and friends as the site suggests, why not put a modern twist on this fun idea? Many websites, including Poets.org., The Poetry Foundation, Poem Hunter, Old Poetry (oldpoetry.com) and more will allow you to share poems with the click of an icon. Post your favorite poems to Facebook or share them via Twitter or email.


Take a Poet to Lunch

Of course, if you know any poets, buying them lunch would be a great way to celebrate poetry month. But for those of us without connections, a fun alternative is to tuck a poem into someone’s lunchbox for them to find when they sit down to eat that afternoon. Or pack yourself a favorite poem, or a whole book of them, to nourish your body and your soul come lunchtime. For a child, why not use Magnetic Poetry as an inspiration and include a bag of poetic words next to the bag of apple slices? Your child and his/her friends can create their own poems while they eat!


Enjoy Poetry-Inspired Media

The Outsiders was inspired, in part, by Robert Frost’s Nothing Gold Can Stay. What would Dead Poets Society be without “O Captain, my Captain”? Plenty of books and movies center around poetry, and there are also a number of wonderful movies about the lives of famous poets. Poets.org hosts a long list of great films to enjoy. Or, challenge your family to think of as many books as they can which are focused on poetry. One of our recent favorites is Matched by Ally Condie, which centers around themes in Dylan Thomas’s Do Not Go Gentle.


Read Poetry – as a Novel

There are many wonderful novels available for young people that are written in verse. These can be great options for unsteady readers because verse looks much less intimidating than dense paragraphs on a page. Try titles like Love that Dog by Sharon Creech (also, look for Hate that Cat), What My Mother Doesn’t Know by Sonya Somes, Out of the Dust and Aleutian Sparrow by Karen Hesse, The Surrender Tree by Margarita Engle, Crashboomlove by Juan Felipe Herrera, and The First Part Last by Angela Johnson.


Trade Your Bedtime Story for a Poetry Reading

Instead of reading a traditional picture book to your children as you tuck them in, opt for fun, child-friendly poems like those of Jack Prelutzky or Shel Silverstein, or reach for classics like A Child’s Garden of Verses by Robert Louis Stevenson, When We Were Very Young by A.A. Milne, or Appley Dapply’s Nursery Rhymes by Beatrix Potter. Rhyming books like Llama, Llama Red Pajama by Anna Dewdney and just about any of Dr. Seuss’s offerings are also good choices.

Photo: CC by Jemimus

National Poetry Month: The Villanelle

The villanelle is a lovely, rhythmic form that takes quite a bit of skill to work with. Still, it might be a fun challenge for poetically-inclined individual students or groups of students who can put their heads together.

A villanelle consists of nineteen lines broken up into five tercets (three-line stanza) and a final quatrain (four-line stanza). Villanelles also rhyme according to a specific pattern: the first and third lines of each tercet rhyme, and in the quatrain the first, third, and fourth lines rhyme.  The trait that makes villanelles so delightful to read and so difficult to write is the pattern of repeated lines. A villanelle has refrain lines, meaning that certain lines repeat in specific places. 

Confused? All of these rules become much clearer in context, so look at the example below, from E.A. Robinson's The House on the Hill* for clarification. Pay particular attention to the repetition of the refrain lines, and the rhyme scheme:

Intriguing, isn't it? Some of the English language’s most beloved poems are villanelles, like Sylvia Plath’s Mad Girl’s Love Song, Elizabeth Bishop’s One Art, and Dylan Thomas’s masterpiece Do Not Go Gentle Into That Good Night. What better way to celebrate poetry month than taking a crack at this challenging, beautiful form yourself!

*This poem was included in a collection published in 1896 but was first written in an earlier form in an 1894 letter. Among Robinson's other works was Richard Corey (1897), which became the basis for a song by Simon and Garfunkel in 1966.