Joyce Sidman Poetry: Song of the Water Boatman & Other Pond Poems

Sidman, Joyce. 2005. Song of the Water Boatman & Other Pond Poems. Illustrated by Beckie Prange. Boston: Houghton Mifflin. ISBN: 9780618135479.

Image courtesy Joyce Sidman

Review and Critical Analysis

Joyce Sidman’s Song of the Water Boatman & Other Pond Poems is a collection of 11 poems that explore the ecosystem of a pond from the beginning of spring through the onset of winter. The poems are a combination of forms including rhyming poems, free verse poems, and shape poems. Each poem is accompanied by a beautiful ¾ to full page woodblock illustration hand-colored with watercolor and a short paragraph that provides information about the organism depicted in the poem.

The language Sidman uses make the poems accessible for young children. The poems themselves use imagery and concrete language to explain the habitat and behavior of unfamiliar animals and plants in a way that is understandable for children. For example, in “Listen for Me” the arrival of the spring peepers is described from the point of view of one of the frogs saying, “I creep up from the cold pond/the ice pond,/the winter pond.” Any academic or technical vocabulary such as “herbivorous” and “carnivorous” is reserved for the sidebars where the terms are first explained and included in parentheses. Young readers can enjoy the poems and learn important vocabulary words without difficult language getting in the way of the poems.

Sidman uses several different repetition and rhythm to create patterns throughout the poems in Song of the Water Boatman & Other Pond Poems. For example, in “Listen for Me” Sidman repeats the last word at the end of the first four lines of each stanza. The repetition is extended to a refrain in “Song of the Water Boatman and Backswimmer’s Refrain” where each stanza ends with a variation of the refrain “Yo, ho, ho,/the pond winds blow.” The various forms of repetition provide ample opportunities for choral reading and performance.

Song of the Water Boatman & Other Pond Poems is a 2006 Caldecott Honor Book and an excellent resource to use in support of a wide variety of science concepts.

Example Poem
In the Depths of the Summer Pond

Here hang the algae, green and small,
in the depths of the summer pond.

Here floats the flea, waving antennae,
that eats the algae, green and small,
in the depths of the summer pond.

Here nods the nymph with feathery gills
that drinks the flea,
that eats the algae, green and small,
in the depths of the summer pond.

Here dives the bug, sleek and swift,
that nabs the nymph
that drinks the flea
that eats the algae, green and small,
in the depths of the summer pond.

Here kicks the frog with golden eyes
that gulps the bug,
that nabs the nymph
that drinks the flea
that eats the algae, green and small,
in the depths of the summer pond.

Here lurks the fish, wide of jaw,
that swallows the frog
that gulps the bug,
that nabs the nymph
that drinks the flea
that eats the algae, green and small,
in the depths of the summer pond.

Here hunts the heron, queen of the pond,
that spears the fish,
that swallows the frog
that gulps the bug,
that nabs the nymph
that drinks the flea
that eats the algae, green and small,
in the depths of the summer pond.

Activity

“In the Depths of the Summer Pond” is a great poem to use with students who are studying the food chain in their science classes. Begin by asking students what they know about food chains and food webs. Have them explain key vocabulary like consumers, producers, and decomposers. Then explain that you will be reading a poems that explores a food chain in a specific ecosystem--a pond during the summertime.

Read through the poem once or twice for students to model pronunciation of words and the rhythm. Children of all ages will pick up the repetition of the the lines “that eats the algae, green and small,/in the depths of the summer pond” and will likely join in after the first few stanzas. Once students have a feel for the rhythm, divide the students into seven groups (or select seven readers). Assign each group one of the animals, and allow them time to practice their parts. Then have the groups read the lines about their animal in each stanza, with everyone chiming in for the line “in the depths of the summer pond.” 

As an extension, give the students another ecosystem--the ocean, the rainforest, the woods, or the desert--and ask them to identify seven parts of a food chain for that ecosystem. Working with their group members, students could then produce an illustration or find a public domain or Creative Commons digital image online and write a line of poetry to describe their animal. All the images and lines can be put together on the wall or in photo editing software to make a food chain diagram.

Performance Poetry: The Friendly Four

Greenfield, Eloise. 2006. The Friendly Four. Illustrated by Jon Spivey Gilchrist. New York: Harper Collins. ISBN: 9780060007607.

Image courtesy Harper Collins Publishers

Review and Critical Analysis
Eloise Greenfield’s The Friendly Four is a collection of 34 poems for children that work together to tell the one story of the summertime adventures of four children--Drummond, Dorene, Louis, and Rae. These children each face common struggles like being overshadowed by a baby sibling, moving to a new place, being adopted, or coping with a seriously ill parent. Over the course of one summer, these young friends learn to depend on each other and inspire one another through play and imagination.

The language of The Friendly Four is fairly straightforward to make it easily understandable for children in preschool to third grade. The text does include some simple similes and metaphors like “... churning/our legs like bicycle wheels” in the poem “The Race” and “Every day away from her/would be a thousand years” in “Going to Get Rae.” Teachers and librarians can find examples to illustrate almost any poetic device, but as a collection, the poems read more like everyday childhood conversation, making the book approachable for early readers.

The same could also be said for Greenfield’s use of sound devices in The Friendly Four. Sound devices like repetition, rhyme, and alliteration help establish a distinct rhythm at times, the patterns of everyday speech are the driving factor. Repetition and alliteration such as “likes to wrestle/likes to run/likes to count” are sprinkled in just enough to break up the conversational pattern to remind readers that they are indeed reading poetry.

The most distinctive trait of Greenfield’s poetry is the features included to structure these poems for performance. The lines spoken by each of the four children is marked by four different colors, and only lines to be read in multiple voices together are printed in black. Speakers are indicated like they would be in a script, so this book is ready to pick up and start practicing for performance without any additional markup to the text.

Example Poem
Here Comes the Truck

All:	Here comes the truck, carrying sheets of cardboard, cans of paint, and brushes,
Drum and Rae:	carrying sticky tape, and colored paper, and markers,
Dorene and Louis:	and glitter and glue.
All:	Now we have everything we need, to make a town that has beauty and laughter and heart.
Louis:	Let's get started!

Activity
To introduce this poem, I would ask if they ever thought up something and tried to make it from their own imagination. For example, about the closest I ever came up with was a blanket fort or a sock puppet. After students had an opportunity to share what they have made, I would show them the video “Caine’s Arcade” (available on YouTube).

I would read the poem once and then ask for volunteers to read the poem at least two more times to practice reading their lines together in unison. Ask students what they would build if they had all the supplies that Drum, Dorene, Louis, and Rae had. Would they make a town like the children did? An arcade like Caine? Or something totally different?

As an extension, students could work as individuals or small groups to participate in the Global Cardboard Challenge sponsored by the Imagination Foundation, which was started by a group of people who were inspired by Caine and his arcade.

Resources

Imagination Foundation. 2017. “2017 Global Cardboard Challenge.” Accessed April 11. http://carboardchallenge.com.

Mullick, Nirvan. “Caine’s Arcade.” Filmed [October 2012]. YouTube video, 10:58. Posted [April 2012]. https://youtu.be/faIFNkdq96U.

Hopkins Award Poetry: Jazz

Myers, Walter Dean. 2006. Jazz. Illustrated by Christopher Myers. New York: Holiday House. ISBN: 9780823415458.

Image courtesy walterdeanmyers.net

Review and Critical Analysis

Jazz by Walter Dean Myers is a collection of fifteen poems that recreate the experience of jazz music. From the opening poem that
summons the drumming rhythms of jazz’s African heritage to the poem “Three Voices” that highlights jazz instruments like the bass, piano, and horn, each poem presents an experience with the rhythms and emotions of jazz music.

The language of Jazz gives readers a sense of the motivating power of jazz music. The verbs Myers uses all portray active, vibrant movement. For example, in “Good-bye to Old Bob Johnson,” Myers employs verbs like “swinging,” “singing,” “stepping,” and “dipping” to describe the actions of the mourners. Even in a serious occasion like a funeral procession, the people are so filled with emotion they can’t help but move to the music.

Myers further connects the subject of jazz music with his poetry through his use of sound devices in each of the poems. He uses different forms of rhyme and repetition to create a jazz rhythm in each poem. In “Stride,” he accomplishes this by combining both internal and end rhyme with repeated words as he starts the poem:

We got jiving in our bones, and it won’t leave use alone--we’re really moving
               Jiving      bones
We got pride in our stride, and we know it’s all the style--we’re steady grooving
               Pride      stride.

The visuals in Jazz provide another layer to the power and emotion conveyed by the language. Myers’s son, Christopher created bold images of musicians and instruments with bright colored backgrounds by layering black ink on acetate over acrylic paintings to create striking illustrations with depth and richness. Even the typography of the poems includes multiple fonts and colors emphasizes key lines of the poems and adds movement to the words.

Jazz begins with an introduction to jazz music and its history and closes with a glossary of jazz and a jazz timeline, providing nonfiction text features to support the historical significance of jazz music and the jazz artists noted in the poems. The Lee Bennett Hopkins Poetry Award Honor book and ALA Notable Children’s Book is a beautiful library or classroom resource to connect music, painting, poetry, and history.

Example Poem

It’s Jazz

I hear the call of the cornet
I hear a swinging clarinet
They’re playing HOT jazz in the heat
Of old New Orleans
The rattling banjo pays its dues
To the Preservation blues
They’re playing HOT jazz in the heat
Of old New Orleans
There’s a crazy syncopation
And it’s tearing through the nation
And it’s bringing sweet elation
To every single tune
It’s jazz
There’s a drummer rat-a-tatting
There’s a patent shoe that’s patting
While a laid-back cat is scatting
About flying to the moon
It’s jazz
In the HEAT of New Orleans

Activity
To introduce this poem to students, begin by playing a little jazz music for students to get a feel for the musical style. You might play one of the jazz musicians named in the poems, like Louis Armstrong, Robert Johnson, or you might select an artist from the jazz timeline at the end, such as Billie Holiday, Duke Ellington, or Benny Goodman.

As an extension after reading the poem, allow students to make their own percussion instruments like tin can drums, sand blocks, water bottle rattles, or even a homemade didgeridoo. Then, either as a whole class, in small groups, or even as individuals, students can practice the rhythm of the poem with their instruments and perform their own interpretation of this poem or other poems from Jazz.