Poetry Choices

I originally wrote this article for our later literacy coordinators having done a quick write using at our last coordinators’ meeting, the opener, I’m in a Bad Place, an idea which I had acquired at a session at the annual convention.

Recently at our coordinators’ meeting I shared some new books that I had purchased at the International Reading Association.

The poem idea I shared-I’m In a Bad Place was from Sara Holbrook. I first discovered her books several years ago. Wham! It's a Poetry Jam is a great introduction to performance and poetry. Word Song/ Boyd Mills Press publishes her work. She has many great collections available in paperback.

Her latest book that I purchased is called Outspoken! How to Improve Writing and Speaking Skills Through Poetry Performance by Sara Holbrook and Michael Salinger published byHeinemann (distributed in Canada by Pearson). It even comes with a DVD. It looks great.

In my teaching, two poets whom I have found wonderful to get gets involved in poetry are Canada’s own Bob Heidbreder and Sheree Fitch. If I had a Million Onions by Sheree was her book I shared at our coordinators’ meeting. It’s published by Trade winds. Toes in my Nose (Doubleday Canada) is full of short poems that kids love and are easy to perform. The longer version of one of the poems, Mabel Murple (Doubleday Canada) is a great one to inspire kids to write poems based on their favorite colours. Kids love the tongue twisters that both Sheree and Bob use. The sixth graders who didn’t initially didn’t like poetry were telling me how much they enjoyed learning about assonance and metaphor after a round with Toes in my Nose.

If you like hearing interviews with poets and other writers I just discovered a great website, www.justonemorebook.com/

You can hear a pod cast with Sheree for instance talking about poetry.

I went to a great session on poetry at the International Reading Association Annual Convention. Lee Bennett Hopkins who is a champion of poetry for children and young adults chaired it. I shared two of his recent anthologies Spectacular Science-a book of poems and Marvelous Math- a book of poems, both are Aladdin paperbacks from Simon and Shuster (www.SimonSaysKids.com). I just love these books from a great assortment of wonderful poets. Just a note, this is also the publisher of Byrd Baylor, all her books are wonderful and teach kids that you don’t have to rhyme to write poetry (unfortunately my very favorite Guess Who My Favorite Person Is? is out of print).

I went to this session because Georgia Heard was one of the poets and although I had read some of her work, I had never seen her. Georgia has worked extensively with children and teachers. To learn more about her work go to http://books.heinemann.com/products/E00093.aspx Georgia has a great sounding new book coming out soon.

The other two poets were totally new to me but I enjoyed their presentations thoroughly and did purchase a couple of their books. Kristine O’Connell George was great and I purchased one of her books, Fold Me A Poem (Harcourt Brace) which I forgot to bring. She has an awesome website. http://www.kristinegeorge.com/

The other poet was Rebecca Kai Dotlich who also has a website. http://www.rebeccakaidotlich.com/

I shared with the coordinators a perfect summer book, Lemonade Sun and Other Poems (Word Song/Boyd’s Mill Press). I also couldn’t resist Castles by Rebecca and J. Patrick Lewis (also Word Song). It’s gorgeous and would work well with a medieval unit in grade nine of course.

Finally I shared a new book by the father of writing process, the mentor of Nancy Atwell and Lucy Caulkins and countless others, Donald Graves (who noted he had been teaching for 50 years!) His book is A Sea of Faces: The Importance of Knowing Your Students (Heinemann). Now if you would like to read the first chapter, which is what I shared with you at the meeting, you can download it. You will be ready for September with your new class.

http://pd.heinemann.com/books/products/E00990.aspx