The Everything Writing Poetry Book (36 page)

All night long their nets they threw
   To the stars in the twinkling foam—
Then down from the skies came the wooden shoe,
   Bringing the fishermen home;
'Twas all so pretty a sail it seemed
   As if it could not be,
And some folks thought 'twas a dream they'd dreamed
   Of sailing that beautiful sea—
   But I shall name you the fishermen three:
       Wynken,
       Blynken,
       And Nod
.

Wynken and Blynken are two little eyes,
   And Nod is a little head,
And the wooden shoe that sailed the skies
   Is a wee one's trundle-bed,
So shut your eyes while mother sings
   Of wonderful sights that be,
And you shall see the beautiful things
   As you rock in the misty sea,
   Where the old shoe rocked the fishermen three:
       Wynken,
       Blynken,
       And Nod
.

Another character type to consider is the inanimate object. The moon in Field's poem speaks and sings to the characters. A dish and a spoon are characters in the nursery rhyme “Hey Diddle Diddle.” You will also have to establish the intelligence and human traits of these objects if you choose to use them.

Poems for the Little Ones

Children enjoy poetry simply for its musical quality and its exciting stories. The adventures taken by the Owl and the Pussycat and Wynken, Blynken, and Nod were created with the purpose of entertaining young listeners. Children can visualize the images a poem sets forth, without relying upon corresponding pictures or film. The bounce of the rhyme and the meter can have them tapping their toes or rocking their heads in time with the rhythm.

If you are a parent, you probably know how effective rhythms and melodies are at lulling your children to sleep. For infants, the rocking of a cradle and the rhythm of a lullaby create a soothing atmosphere that helps them drift off to sleep. A poem by Alfred, Lord Tennyson, “Sweet and Low,” illustrates this; it is a lullaby sung by a mother to her child. It gives the listening child images to visualize, and it uses several rhymes and repetitions to create its rhythms:

Sweet and low, sweet and low,
   Wind of the western sea!
Low, low, breathe and blow,
   Wind of the Western sea!
Over the rolling waters go,
Come from the dying moon, and blow,
   Blow him again to me;
While my little one, while my pretty one sleeps
.

Sleep and rest, sleep and rest,
   Father will come to thee soon;
Rest, rest, on Mother's breast,
   Father will come to thee soon;
Father will come to his babe in the nest,
Silver sails all out of the west
   Under the silver moon:
Sleep, my little one, sleep, my pretty one, sleep
.

Learning Poems

Due to the power of poetic language, children tend to remember verses and songs quite easily. If a poem entertains youngsters, they will read it over and over again until they have memorized it. Poets and teachers have taken advantage of this fact and written verses that help children remember educational and life lessons. Poems have been written to teach youngsters everything from the parts of the body to the names of the planets. Songs as simple as “This Little Piggy” and “Here's the Church” make infants aware of their fingers and toes. “One, Two, Buckle My Shoe” teaches toddlers about numbers. “Thirty Days Hath September” is a verse that helps children remember how many days are in each month.

To write poems that teach basic lessons, you have to keep the word
simple
in the front of your mind. The topics can't be too complex, and the poems themselves can't be too long or complicated. Otherwise, the children will not understand or be able to memorize what you have written. One poem by Sara Coleridge called “The Months” teaches children the names of the months and about the turning of the seasons:

January brings the snow,
Makes our feet and fingers glow
.

February brings the rain,
Thaws the frozen lake again
.

March brings breezes loud and shrill,
Stirs the dancing daffodil
.

April brings the primrose sweet,
Scatters daisies at our feet
.

May brings flocks of pretty lambs,
Skipping by their fleecy dams
.

June brings tulips, lilies, roses,
Fills the children's hands with posies
.

Hot July brings cooling showers,
Apricots and gillyflowers
.

August brings the sheaves of corn;
Then the harvest home is borne
.

Warm September brings the fruit;
Sportsmen then begin to shoot
.

Fresh October brings the pheasant;
Then to gather nuts is pleasant
.

Dull November brings the blast,
Then the leaves are whirling fast
.

Chill December brings the sleet,
Blazing fires and Christmas treat
.

The interaction these songs encourage between parent and child also aids in the process of bonding, an important psychological step for children. The more you interact with your children at this stage of their lives, the better your chances of having a healthy relationship with them later.

Haiku

The haiku is a Japanese verse form made popular during the seventeenth century as a party game. That's right—people would go to parties and entertain themselves by writing poetry! However, because of its short length and simple content, the haiku is also an excellent way of teaching children about the art of writing poetry. Even children in second grade can master the form and create some touching—and amusing—poems.

Haiku Form and Content

The haiku's original requirements have been stretched as poets have experimented with the form. Teaching children the original requirements, however, will help them gain an understanding of counting and syllabification. The haiku is only three lines long and originally required seventeen syllables. The first line took five syllables, the second seven, and the third five again.

With children, the subject matter of the haiku can be left open to whatever you think will interest them. However, if you want to teach them another of the original requirements, you can attempt to have the children include a
sentinel word
in the haiku. Traditionally, the haiku captures a sudden, extreme flash of emotion through a concrete image. This image is expressed in the sentinel word.

Sentinel words aren't simply feeling words, such as iand
joy
. Instead, they name an animal or a plant that evokes the image of a season or a time of day. In turn, the season or time of day creates the mood that expresses the poem's emotion.

For example, if you think of summer, what animals or plants do you imagine? Perhaps where you live, the most widely recognized summer plant is the sunflower. The sunflower, therefore, may act as a sentinel to identify the season and express the emotion within the haiku. What do you see most frequently in the winter? If you see a lot of maple trees with bare branches, then those bare-branched maples might be the sentinel words in your haiku.

Haiku Exercises

Have the children list the animals, plants, weather patterns, or natural features that make up the landscape where you live. If you live in farm country, the children will likely choose animals like cows or pigs and edible plants like corn and potatoes. Don't limit the children to things that you (or they) think are pretty or poetic. Have them take a notebook and a pencil on a walk and jot down everything that they encounter—not just the aesthetically appealing.

The next activity for the children is to draw pictures of the words they listed. Encourage them to draw the bird, the trash can, or the stream they found just as they remember it or as they fancy it. Have them look carefully at their drawings to see what the bird or the trash can or the stream is doing. For instance, is the bird flying through a blue sky, building a nest in a tree, or perched on a telephone wire? A bird in flight, its wings and feathers spread, usually suggests freedom or high spirits, while a bird in a tree or on a wire, wings and feathers tucked close to its body, suggests inaction and, perhaps, contemplation.

The next exercise is to have the children begin writing haiku about the pictures they have drawn. You may also work with the sentinel/contrast pairs you have created if you are trying the form. The task at this stage is to set down each image in succinct detail. The children should not explain the images to their readers. Any emotions or meanings must be implied by the images themselves. They should also try to maintain the five-seven-five syllable count to give themselves a feel for the form.

Here are two haiku written by seventh graders based upon these exercises:

The raindrops pull down
a daisy's weak white petals.
Playground bullies laugh
.

Black roses growing
through the cracks of ghetto streets.
White snow covers them
.

Within the syllable count, the students chose flowers—a daisy and roses—to function as their sentinel words but juxtaposed them with images— bullies, rain, and snow—that work against the hope usually promised by the spring season. The students also used the tools of the trade: The first poem repeats the long a sound near the start of all three lines and alliterates
weak
and
white;
the second poem repeats the long
o
sound throughout and makes liberal use of hard consonants.

For good examples of this form, have the children read haiku written by the Japanese masters Matsuo Basho, Taniguchi Buson, and Kobayashi Issa. Consult a good poetry anthology, or look for the collected works of these writers. The children should also read haiku produced by English-speaking poets. There are a number of haiku anthologies available.

Bouts-Rimés

Another poetic form that began as a party game is
bouts-rimés
, which translates literally from the French as “end rhymes.” Despite this translation, the form does not necessarily have to include rhymes. Its basis is a list of words that you place at the ends of each line. For example, if your word list is
table, blackbird, sundae, grease, green
, the first line of the poem will end with
table
, the second with
blackbird
, and so on. Because the list has five words, the poem will have five lines.

Where does the list come from? This is the fun of the form. The list can be generated during a quick walk through a neighborhood, from vocabulary words selected from assigned readings, or by several quick-witted children at a party. It is a form easily adaptable to the skill levels and the needs of young writers.

You may add a twist or two to this basic setup. For example, if you want to teach the children about rhymes, your end words can rhyme using the pattern AABB or ABAB or XAXA, or you can create internal rhymes with your end words. You can also impose rules upon the foot patterns and meters you allow the children to use. The number of words on the list is not restricted either. You could have as few as two or as many as twenty-five—or more—depending on how much you feel the children can handle.

Examples of Bouts-Rimés

Since bouts-rimés have no limitations on line length, meter, or rhyme, the first exercise—perhaps the only one you need—is for the children to generate the list. Aside from nouns and verbs, you might also consider having the children include words that will allow them to use function and category shift. For example, the word
quarter
might appear on the list, but the word may be used as a noun (“I need change for a quarter”), a verb (“She should quarter the pie”), or an adjective (“Give the wheel a quarter turn”). Just remember that one of the rules of the game is that you cannot change the spelling of the word as it appears on the list—you can't change
quarter
to
quarters
or
quartered
.