{"id":13753,"date":"2016-08-11T00:01:08","date_gmt":"2016-08-11T04:01:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.alsc.ala.org\/blog\/?p=13753"},"modified":"2016-07-31T21:25:17","modified_gmt":"2016-08-01T01:25:17","slug":"poetry-alive-well","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.alsc.ala.org\/blog\/2016\/08\/poetry-alive-well\/","title":{"rendered":"Poetry is Alive and Well"},"content":{"rendered":"

Wynken, Blynken, and Nod one night
\nSailed off in a wooden shoe,\u2014
\nSailed on a river of crystal light
\nInto a sea of dew.<\/em><\/p>\n

We all know this Eugene Field poem, don\u2019t we? The rhythmic rocking of this language does a great job taking us back to when we first heard it, read it, maybe even memorized it.<\/p>\n

I was ten when I tucked this lullaby away in memory. It was fanciful, beautiful, and surprising. It caused my body to sway, slowly, with anticipation for the next cadenced line. What I knew then: this poem made me feel<\/em>. What I didn\u2019t know then: I was participating in the long and impressive tradition of poetry.<\/p>\n

Along with a few other poems, I read Wynken, Blynken, and Nod<\/em> to a group of twenty four 7, 8, and 9 year olds during a mid-July program. At one point, I became very aware of the silence in the room; while looking around I saw their collective mouth agape, their summer-bodies bent forward, hanging on every single one of these herring fish. And there we were, on the floor, engaging in a poem written in 1889.<\/p>\n

My program was called Poetry<\/strong>. Simple, right? The kids got to eat up little morsels of poems and after my public reading, we broke into three different activities: Spine Poetry, Nature Poetree, and Imagery Rainbows. These were a hit!<\/p>\n

For Spine Poetry I gathered a bunch of old chapter and picture books, gave a brief explanation: try to make beautiful language with just the titles<\/em>; they may or may not make sense. (Talk about a fun and library-centric found-poetry exercise.) Next, I created a POETREE where I hung nature themed poems. I encouraged the group to pluck off a poem, read it, and write one. My intent of the POETREE is to create a display of these nature poems in our 811\u2019s. Lots of poems were donated for the library poetree. Lastly, Imagery Rainbows combined bright construction paper and an easily approachable take on metaphor and simile. This was the most populated activity and the grown-ups even created a few!<\/p>\n