Starting With Hughes

If forced to choose a favorite poet to use to teach poetry to young children, I think I'd have to go with Langston Hughes. His poems are filled with brilliant metaphor, rich language, strong rhythms and sounds--all the things I want to expose to young readers of poetry. Not only that, but they're steeped in history. To read and understand Hughes, you must understand his times--where and when he was from. His poems give me the opportunity to teach students about those times. And I really think his poems are way better at bringing those times to life than any textbook could ever be.

So last week I started with "Dreams," one of my all-time favorites and maybe Hughes's most widely known poem. Today we looked at one that's slightly less famous, although it does lend its title to the title of a great collection of his poems which every teacher should own, "The Dream Keeper." It goes like this:

Bring me all of your dreams,
You dreamers, 
Bring me all of your
Heart melodies
That I may wrap them
In a blue cloud-cloth
Away from the too-rough fingers
Of the world.

Only eight lines, yet so poignant. At least in my mind. In case you're wondering, I also enjoy and will probably teach at some point this year "Mother to Son,"  "I, Too," "Dream Variations," and "Dream Deferred." (What can I say? I'm a sucker for Dream poems). Of course, I've already talked about how I used two of his other poems, and I'd also say that if I taught high school, I'd teach "Theme for English B" for sure.

I'll leave with a short one that I discovered, simply called "Poem." I'll be sharing it tomorrow with my students to see what they think and to talk about the joy of repetition in poems (definitely a topic for future posts)...

I loved my friend 
He went away from me 
There's nothing more to say 
The poem ends, 
Soft as it began- 
I loved my friend

Poetry Friday: Poetry Mix Tape...Rivers

Not only is Tuesday my first day of school, it's the first day of school for two of my children as well. One of the things on my "Things to do with the kids before summer ends" list is to take them downtown to ride the People Mover (a train that carries commuters and visitors around the city's main downtown area) and have a nice picnic lunch by the Detroit River. I guess I don't have many days left to do this, but I think we can squeeze it in.

Detroit's downtown isn't the most bustling of places, but I do have a fondness for the river. Water of any kind is something I enjoy, but I always find myself enchanted by the shores of the Detroit River. Maybe it's the view of a foreign country. Maybe it's that "water symbolizes rebirth" thing. Maybe it's the huge ships and barges. Who knows.

Source: www.flickr.com/photos/22735153@N06/2741610040

This got me thinking about poems about rivers. I don't know that many, so it seemed a good one to research. Thanks to the Poetry Foundation's Poetry Tool, I even came across one (albeit a slightly depressing one--you'll see when you click the link to read the rest) about the very river pictured above:

Poem to the Detriot River

By Terry Wolverton

Not really a river at all,

but a handshake between two Great

Lakes, Huron stretching to embrace

Erie in its green-gray grasp. You

stitch the liquid boundary of

a city dismantling itself,

bricks unmortared, spires sagging, burnt

out structures razed to open field.

Prairies returning here, foxtails

and chicory, Queen Anne’s lace sways;

tumbleweeds amble down Woodward

Avenue, blow past fire hydrants,

storefronts and rusted Cadillacs.

You are the mirror into which

we plunge. 

Read the rest of the poem here.

And please also check out these poems about rivers (although I'm not sure "Gold River" nor "The Way to the River" are about rivers, they river in the title and I like them a lot, so they make the mix tape!):

"A River" by John Poch
"The Way to the River" by W.S. Merwin
"The Negro Speaks of Rivers" by Langston Hughes
"Trout" by Kathryn Starbuck
"Gold River" by Catie Rosemurgy
"Niagara River" by Kay Ryan

Know more poems about rivers? Please add them in the comments section. I just know there are more out there.

And while I have your attention, if you haven't subscribed yet, please do so either by email or RSS. My ego needs a boost and topping the 10 subscribers I currently have would certainly do the trick. Also, if you are new to my "Poetry Mix Tape" concept, please check out the previous three, which I do think were top notch, in my humble opinion.

Oh, and please check out the Poetry Friday Roundup over at Susan Taylor Brown's wonderful blog.

Poetry Friday: Terrific Picture Books

I think I've already mentioned my affinity for chillin' at the bookstore. It's one of my favorite places to just hang out when I get "alone time." Sometimes I'll blog or surf or work on lesson plans or just wander around browsing (making sure to have my cell phone camera handy, naturally).

Earlier this year I stumbled upon two picture books that intrigued me. Both were illustrated versions of poems by Langston Hughes: The Negro Speaks of Rivers, illustrated by E.B. Lewis, and My People, featuring the photographs of Charles R. Smith, Jr.

I was drawn to these books because Hughes is one of my favorite poets, "Dreams" was one of the first poems I ever memorized. I think I was in second grade. Also, I really love sharing these kinds of books with students--books that bring poems to life through pictures and images--because I think it helps them learn how poems can paint a picture in their minds.

Actually, I ended up not sharing these books with my students, but we did read and discuss the poems together. Then I asked them to do what Lewis and Smith did--bring the poems to life. I had long been trying to figure out how to incorporate technology into our poetry studies. This turned out to be a perfect opportunity to try something new. In what was kind of an experiment, we used iMovie, which would allow them to find pictures from the web and add text and music to create a kind of multimedia version of one of these poems.

For only our second time using iMovie, the movies turned out pretty good. In retrospect, I think I wish I had shown them the books first. Initially my thinking was that I wanted to see what they'd do without any "influence." However, it probably would have been a good idea to give them some guidance and I think the books would have done just the trick. For example, the students who chose "My People," ended up with movies filled with images of famous people, which kind of misses the mark, in my mind. But alas, it was a learning experience for all of us. And I don't suppose there's anything wrong with that.

Here's a fifth grader's multimedia interpretation of "The Negro Speaks of Rivers:"



Poetry Friday is being hosted by Irene Latham at Live Love Explore today. Be sure to check it out.