National Poetry Month: Whoa, Dude!

Would be a 'whoa, dude!' experience

That's awesome! Not exactly what Wordsworth said, but almost. This is a very famous poem with lots of mixed metaphors, but still great for this time of year with all the tulips and daffodils popping up.

The serendipity (happy surprise) expressed in this poem is like the opposite of PTSD--the memory of the experience brings refreshing joy and satisfying peace, as experiences in nature often do.

  

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/I_Wandered_Lonely_as_a_Cloud
The theme of feeling a part of nature and having joy in reflecting back on a beautiful experience is worth reading this poem with kids. Plus, they will meet 'I Wandered Lonely As A Cloud'  many times in English literature class. I do like the daffodils dancing spritely. Personification does it for me every time.

in Just
by e e cumming

http://www.poetry-archive.com/c/in_just.html
Springtime is an excellent time for teaching poetry because it seems poets get very inspired during this season. e. e. cummings even made up new words for spring--mudluscious (You can hear your galoshes go schluppp as you try to extract them out of the newly melted snow/mud. Like hot fudge being pulled out of a sundae. That's mudluscious.) And everyone knows what puddlewonderful is; none of us resist splashing in a puddle. Of course, we in SoCal can't fully appreciate the ecstacy that the folks Back East experience having a puddle to splash after everything freezes for half the year--but we sort of empathize.

That's not eddieandbill or bettyandisbel. Maybe its bettyandeddie or isbelandbill; or bettyandbill or isbelandeddie.

 Kids also love music. So it is no surprise that Spring from Vivaldi would really tickle them with the marvelous sounds of a  spring day--that they can identify on their walk to and from school. The music even sounds like flowers burst-blooming in the sun.

Spring by Vivaldi
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GRxofEmo3HA
Performed by the Budapest Strings.

National Poetry Month: Poems # 4 and #5

Harlem

By Langston Hughes

What happens to a dream deferred?

      Does it dry up

      like a raisin in the sun?

      Or fester like a sore—

      And then run?

      Does it stink like rotten meat?

      Or crust and sugar over—

      like a syrupy sweet?

      Maybe it just sags

      like a heavy load.

      Or does it explode?

Langston Hughes biography

  http://www.biography.com/people/langston-hughes-9346313

 

Mother to Son

By Langston Hughes

Well, son, I’ll tell you:

Life for me ain’t been no crystal stair.

It’s had tacks in it,

And splinters,

And boards torn up,

And places with no carpet on the floor—

Bare.

But all the time

I’se been a-climbin’ on,

And reachin’ landin’s,

And turnin’ corners,

And sometimes goin’ in the dark

Where there ain’t been no light.

So boy, don’t you turn back.

Don’t you set down on the steps

’Cause you finds it’s kinder hard.

Don’t you fall now—

For I’se still goin’, honey,

I’se still climbin’,

And life for me ain’t been no crystal stair.