No foolin’—Gregory K. starts his month-long poetry fiesta with a bang: a brand-new, ne’er-before-seen poem by this country’s first Children’s Poet Laureate, the great Jack Prelutsky. You just gotta book on over and see!
I wish I would have sat down to listen the day Anna wrote this poem. I listened to her read it to me as I walked around and did the things I thought I needed to do. That was yesterday. Today as I typed the poem into the computer for her…I sat down to listen as she read it to me again.
I feel in love with my daughter again today!
Happy Poetry Month!
Thanks for the many happy trails you help us find.
Kay
Spring Song By Anna (age 10)
The First Very Spring Like Day is Today!
Flowers bloom in such a wonderful way, today.
The trees sway on the cool beautiful cay, today.
The rose whispers, “Pick me. I’ll make your day, today.”
Everyone wonders if it’s the month of May, today.
The spring skirts says, “Wear me before I fray, today.”
Spring horses are eating lots of hat, today.
A man says, “Dance with me, I’ll make you sway, today.”
You capture an elephant to see how much it weighs, today.
You have to go to the Doctor to get an x-ray, today.
Then you go right down to the subway, today.
You forgot it was Jimmy’s birthday, today.
You go outside to ask the plants a big survey, today.
See a soccer game in instant replay, today.
Your husband gives you a bouquet, today.
You get a latte at the café, today.
Your children have a big essay, today.
Take a big day to relax in Norway, today.
Make sure your dog knows to obey, today.
You fill the ice tray, today.
You pass a sign that says one way, today.
You sit on the back porch and watch a blue jay, today.
The first very spring like day is today!
Oh Kay, that is so beautifully sweet. Thanks for posting this link Melissa! A few weeks ago I knew about 30 days/30 poems,then forgot completely; but thanks to you I know about it again. We read poems every night at bedtime–can’t wait to share Jack Prelutsky’s funny little gem tonight.
Have a Happy Poetry Month.
Kay, how enchanting! Thank you so much for sharing this with us. Anna is quite a talented girl. What beautiful phrases…this is so fresh and delightful. “…the cool beautiful cay…” and what spring skirts say: oh I love it!
“Exploration,” says John Stilgoe, author of Outside Lies Magic, “is a liberal art, because it is an art that liberates, that frees, that opens away from narrowness. And it is fun.”
Yes: it is so, so much fun, and that is why I write these posts all chattery with excitement over this or that connection the kids made today. (Or that I made myself!) I know I get carried away, but that’s the point, isn’t it, that way leading on to way has carried me away?
And yet—and yet—I think we are at once ‘carried away’ and made more fully present in the now, more rooted, by these relationships between ideas about things past and future. The joy of connection makes me want to celebrate this moment, this brief encounter with wild-haired child and broad-trunked tree, bus going by, sign on church wall, Scottish warlord creeping over the tower wall and startling the English soldier’s wife who has just put her babe in arms to sleep by crooning that the Black Douglas won’t get him. Child, laughing, shouting “Dinna ye be sae sure aboot that!” across the courtyard outside the library. How can I not celebrate this freedom?
Every day is complicated, messy, and full of friction. And every day has glorious or cozy moments worth celebrating. I seldom bother to chronicle the friction and the mess because writing time is fleeting and precious—and childhood even more so. I’d rather capture the small joys that I might forget—or take for granted—if I don’t take time to set them down in words.
(Excerpt from this post about Real Life, quoted here because I don't want anyone to be under the impression that things are always perfect around here! Heaven knows we are anything but. Perfect, frictionless, orderly? Nope. Happy? Most of the time!)
Be like the bird
Who, pausing in flight
On limb too slight,
Feels it give way beneath her,
Yet sings,
Knowing she has wings.
I wish I would have sat down to listen the day Anna wrote this poem. I listened to her read it to me as I walked around and did the things I thought I needed to do. That was yesterday. Today as I typed the poem into the computer for her…I sat down to listen as she read it to me again.
I feel in love with my daughter again today!
Happy Poetry Month!
Thanks for the many happy trails you help us find.
Kay
Spring Song By Anna (age 10)
The First Very Spring Like Day is Today!
Flowers bloom in such a wonderful way, today.
The trees sway on the cool beautiful cay, today.
The rose whispers, “Pick me. I’ll make your day, today.”
Everyone wonders if it’s the month of May, today.
The spring skirts says, “Wear me before I fray, today.”
Spring horses are eating lots of hat, today.
A man says, “Dance with me, I’ll make you sway, today.”
You capture an elephant to see how much it weighs, today.
You have to go to the Doctor to get an x-ray, today.
Then you go right down to the subway, today.
You forgot it was Jimmy’s birthday, today.
You go outside to ask the plants a big survey, today.
See a soccer game in instant replay, today.
Your husband gives you a bouquet, today.
You get a latte at the café, today.
Your children have a big essay, today.
Take a big day to relax in Norway, today.
Make sure your dog knows to obey, today.
You fill the ice tray, today.
You pass a sign that says one way, today.
You sit on the back porch and watch a blue jay, today.
Posted on April 1st, 2009 at 7:29 amThe first very spring like day is today!
Oh Kay, that is so beautifully sweet. Thanks for posting this link Melissa! A few weeks ago I knew about 30 days/30 poems,then forgot completely; but thanks to you I know about it again. We read poems every night at bedtime–can’t wait to share Jack Prelutsky’s funny little gem tonight.
Posted on April 1st, 2009 at 4:57 pmHave a Happy Poetry Month.
Kay, how enchanting! Thank you so much for sharing this with us. Anna is quite a talented girl. What beautiful phrases…this is so fresh and delightful. “…the cool beautiful cay…” and what spring skirts say: oh I love it!
Posted on April 1st, 2009 at 7:10 pm