A Writing Kind of Day - Ralph Fletcher

POETRY
Poems for Young Poets
for: Intermediate Grades
2005
Rating: 4 (a 3-5 range of poems, graphics, not illustrations, are "ih")
811.54F at Library

Ralph Fletcher lives in New Hampshire, and I'm quite sure that at one time he was a part of Teacher's College Writing Project. He's written a lot of poems for kids, about kids, and books about writing poems. All the poems in this book are about writing, poems, poetry, words....they're really fun. What follows are a few particular favorites:

(Oh, what a great dedication:
For Cynthia Rylant, your delicious poems and stories continue to inspire me.")

Frost in the Woods

Uncle John lives in New Hampshire
near where Robert Frost was born.

He puts on his red plaid hunting shirt
and takes me hiking in the woods.

The leafless trees throw shadows
that dye the snow blue and black.

I ask him: Do you own these woods?
He answers: I’m renting them from God.

It’s just the tripm-tromp of our boots
until my uncle stops to recite a poem:

The way a crow
Shook down on me
The dust of snow
From a hemlock tree . . .

When he’s done the words keep echoing
in a quiet place that has opened inside me.

I ask him: Did y ou write that poem?
He says: I rented it from Robert Frost.

Bill of Sale

We read a poem
about a bill of sale
for a slave girl
named Lydia Wells.

She was sold for $133
on July 18, 1858, to a man
named Samuel Rothrock.

Coming home on the bus
I kept picturing Lydia,
the same age as me,
her bare feet in the dirt,
standing in the hot sun,
sold like an animal
to the highest bidder.

In a country like America
how could this ever happen?
How can I go on with my life?


Poetry

Poetry is like some
sugar-crazed teenager
who just got a license
but refusees to follow
the rules of the road.

It races out of control
then jams up the traffic by
going reeaaaaaal slooooooow.
It turns up the music so loud
you can’t figure out how it Decides
to capitalize certains Words.
Punctuation? Ha! A joke!
Won’t use complete sentences.

And why does it refuse to
stay
on
the
line?
The most annoying thing?
Poetry won’t shut up.
It embarrasses everyone
by telling the truth.