Janeczko Collection: Hey You!

Janeczko, Paul B., comp. 2007. Hey You!: Poems to Skyscrapers, Mosquitoes, and Other Fun Things. Illustrated by Robert Rayevsky. New York: HarperCollins. ISBN: 9780060523480.

Image courtesy
Paul B. Janeczko

Review and Critical Analysis
In Hey You!: Poems to Skyscrapers, Mosquitoes, and Other Fun Things, Paul B. Janeczko has collected 30 poems by 25 different poets--from classic poets like Emily Dickinson to more modern poets like Douglas Florian and Nikki Grimes. The contents of the poems vary from black holes, to skyscrapers, to bees, and everything in between. Like the topics, the forms are varied, too. The book contains free verse poems, letter poems, and rhyming poems. The one unifying factor that unifies these poems is the fact that they are apostrophe poems, each one written to a specific object.

While the level of the language differs from poem to poem, the nature of apostrophe poems elicits elements of personification in almost every poem. For example, in “Sneakers” by Joan Bransfield Graham, the speaker comments on her shoes that appear “ready to blaze into/the day, either with or without/my feet!” and in X.J. Kennedy’s “To a Snowflake,” the speaker attributes the power of thought to snowflakes as the speaker considers how the snowflake cannot “Make up your wisher where/You wish to spend tonight.” The poets in Hey You! bring all of these ordinary objects to life through personification. Many of the poems build on this personification with imagery and figurative language. Naomi Shihab Nye’s “Little Blanco River” is one of the most vivid examples. Nye’s speaker describes the river, whose “...smooth shale skull/is slick & cool.” She depicts the river as making “...a clean swishing sound/centuries of skirts/lifting & falling in delicate rounds.” Though the language varies among these poems, each one reflects a close, intimate examination of an object that has made itself important to the speaker.

In Janeczko’s selections for Hey You!, the poems use sound in several different ways. Marjorie Maddox’s “Warning to a Fork” includes line after line of alliteration to build a strong rhythm and sense of foreboding. The poem warns the “Pitchfork for pie,/trident for tuna salad” to beware the “mangler of metal utensils,/mortuary of soup spoons and knives.” This alliteration works in conjunction with the onomatopoeic description of the “clank and crunch” of the garbage disposal to create such a dire warning. Unlike the dark nature of “Warning to a Fork,” Russell Hoban’s “Soft-Boiled” uses strong rhythm and end rhyme to create a light-hearted tone reminiscent of Dr. Seuss. His opening lines, “I do not like the way you slide,/I do not like your soft inside,” will conjure Green Eggs and Ham for almost any one.

The poems are accompanied by the cartoon-style illustrations of Robert Rayevsky in the foreground of each spread. The backgrounds of the visuals vary from what appears to be blurred photographs to watercolor paintings to abstract designs. Even the illustrations for the poems take on a variety of tones and textures. Despite their wide range, the images are connected by some type of blur or hazy effect added to each one that gives the pages a dream-like feeling.

Hey You! is a varied collection of poems from well-known poets of quality. While the poems have no clear theme, they provide excellent examples of the many ways poets can use apostrophe.

Example Poem
Sneakers
By Joan Bransfield Graham

Sneakers,
glancing from bed,
I see morning light cast
long shadows behind you just like
comets.

Your tails
flaring, you seem
ready to blaze into
the day, either with or without my feet!

Activity
Have students look at several different types of shoes. You can invite students to sit in a circle and display their shoes to each other, or, if you feel using student shoes might cause a student embarrassment, you could use images of shoes or a selection of your own shoes. Ask students questions that lead them to think of the shoes personified. For example, you could ask students to explain which shoes they think have the most energy? Which ones are tired? Which shoes look like they have been on many adventures? Do any of the shoes seem angry? Excited? Shy? After students have had a chance to respond to the shoes, explain that you are going to read a poem from the point of view of a child speaking to their sneakers.

After reading “Sneakers” at least once or twice, invite students to share what they noticed about the poem. Students should notice that the speaker is talking to shoes that do not have the ability to respond. Ask them to imagine what would happen if the shoes came to life. What might the shoes say in response to the child?

As an extension, students may choose to write a 1-2 stanza poem from the point of view of the shoes that gives its response to the child. Other students may wish to write their own poem that speaks to a specific object like their desk, the school bus, or their favorite game.

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.

Science Poetry: Beast Feast

Florian, Douglas. 1994. Beast Feast. San Diego: Harcourt. ISBN: 0152951784.

Image courtesy Amazon.com

Review and Critical Analysis
Douglas Florian's Beast Feast contains 21 poems depicting all types of animals. Some animals such as the ants and the caterpillar are very familiar, while others, like the rhea and the kiwi, are more unusual. Each of the book's spreads pairs one of the poems with a whimsical, full-page watercolor painting of the animal.

The poems in Beast Feast rely heavily on playful rhyme and strong rhythm for their appeal. Florian uses traditional rhyme throughout the book. For example, in  "The Sloth" he rhymes "claws" and "pause," but he also plays with pronunciation and invents words to add a comical effect. In "The Walrus" he rhymes the word "sea" with his invented "walrusty," and in "The Boa" he plays with the word more, writing it as "moa and moa."

While all the poems play with rhyme and rhythm, they structures vary significantly. They vary in length from the two-lined "The Boa" that is a fairly simple rhyming couplet to the 20-lined "The Pigeon." Several of the poems are structured as quatrains, while my personal favorite, "The Mole" is written as a two-stanza limerick. The variety of poems and structures and lengths ensure there's a poem for everyone in this book.

Florian's language in Beast Feast is very accessible for children. The wording and descriptions are mostly straightforward, with an occasional simile such as referring to a lobster as being "Like an underwater/Mobster." He does include some scientific vocabulary such as "crustacean," "invertebrates," and "reptilian" that might need explanation for younger students who have not learned the vocabulary, yet. Their inclusion, however, is not so intrusive that students who might select this book from the shelf will be completely confused.

Douglas Florian's Beast Feast won the 1995 Lee Bennet Hopkins Poetry Award and is an excellent science resource for the library or elementary classroom.

Example Poem

The Lobster

See the hard-shelled
Leggy lobster
Like an underwater
Mobster
With two claws
To catch and crush
Worms and mollusks
Into mush
And antennae
Long and thick
Used for striking
Like a stick.
So be careful
On vacation
Not to step on
This crustacean.

Activity
"The Lobster" is an especially useful poem to use with a unit on ocean life. To introduce the poem, I would engage children in a conversation about their favorite underwater animal. Ask them to share what makes that animal special before reading about the legs, pinchers, and antennae of the lobster.

As an extension, have the children write a poem about their favorite ocean animal. Encourage them to try using rhyme or a simile like the poet does in "The Lobster." The poems can also be illustrated with traditional art supplies, or the poem and illustration can be designed using an iPad or computer.

Poetic Form - Concrete Poems: Wet Cement

Raczka, Bob. 2016. Wet Cement: A Mix of Concrete Poems. New York: Roaring Book Press. ISBN 9781626722361

Review and Critical Analysis

Image courtesy www.bobraczka.com/#/wet-cement

Bob Raczka’s Wet Cement: A Mix of Concrete Poems is a delightful collection of 21 concrete poems about everyday objects and experiences. In the opening, Raczka explains his “word paintings” in which he uses both the arrangement of letters in the poem titles and the layout of words in the poems to create meaning for each poem in the book. These “word paintings” take the form of clocks, icicles, mazes, and even a tree shedding its leaves. Raczka skillfully takes poems about movement, like “Orbiting,” “Hopscotch,” and “Pop-Up,” and magically recreates the motion with words fixed to a page. Even the title Wet Cement suggests that, at least in this book, concrete poetry has movement.

The richness of Raczka’s poems does not stop at his creative use of form. The poems use both rhyme and rhythm to extend the wordplay to an auditory experience as well. He uses traditional rhyme (The poem doesn’t have traditional lines to distinguish end rhyme from internal rhyme.) to show the contrast between a teacher and students’ views of the last bell of the school day in “Clock.” The poem explains “The clock on the wall says it’s five ‘til three but the kids in my class say it’s five ‘til free.” In other poems, like “Takeoff” he uses both traditional rhyme (“heaven”and “seven”) and slant rhyme (“twelve” and “himself”) to recreate the Wright brothers’ first flight. In addition to rhyme, poems like “Dominoes”use a strong, driving rhythm to move readers in the fast pace of cascading dominoes. The poem begins “JUST ONE PUSH/ HERE WE GO/ FOLLOW THROUGH/ FEEL THE FLOW” and carries the exact same rhythm throughout. The powerful rhyme and rhythm make “Dominoes” a favorite of my high school students who read this for a March Madness contest.

In Wet Cement, Raczka plays with poetic shape, he plays with sound, and he plays with the meaning of words. His use of metaphor takes some of the not-so-ordinary subjects of poems and brings them down to earth. For example, in “Dipper” he compares stars in the night sky to fireflies in a jar, and in “Tunnels” he make refers to the subway as “A CITIFIED-JUST-SLIDE-INSIDE-AND-TAKE-A-RIDE ELECTRIC MOLE.” Raczka also employs pun in “Hanger” which provides a humorous look at what a clothes hanger might think about “hanging out.” His use of one or two significant devices in these short poems create an approachable way to introduce and allow children to play with figurative language without picking a poem apart, over-analyzing it, and destroying their innate enjoyment of poetry.

The concrete poem form is carried all the way through Wet Cement...literally. The table of contents in the front of the book is shaped in the form of a table, and the copyright information in the back of the book is in the shape of the letter C enclosed in a circle. In between, Raczka’s book maintains the focus on “word painting” so much that the book contains no illustrations. Instead, the visuals are created through the use of black and white on each spread. Most of the pages are white text with black typography; however, the poems involving nighttime and stars reside in white text on a black background.

Raczka’s concrete poetry is appealing for readers of all ages. The short poems and everyday topics make the poems approachable for young readers. Their shape, however, may pose a challenge for younger readers. Some of the poems require turning the book, using a mirror, or reading the page from top to bottom. Older children will enjoy the wordplay and the challenge of figuring out how to read the poem. In fact, some of my high school boys needed hints to figure out “Hopscotch,” even after they decoded the title.

The sparse layout and everyday topics of Wet Cement make Raczka’s poems seem simple and effortless, making readers feel like anyone can write concrete poems. In fact, the last poem “PoeTRY” encourages readers to “TRY” poetry. Any attempts at will quickly reveal the clever wit and creativity that Raczka puts into his concrete poetry. Maybe everyone can write concrete poetry, but it is not as easy and it looks!

Example Poem
Takeoff

Wright on course,
headed for heaven.
One two three four
five six seven

eight nine ten
eleven twelve
Wright back down,
but proud of himself.

Image courtesy www.bobraczka.com/#/wet-cement

Activity
Share with students the feelings you had the first time you did something exciting like riding a bike, flying in an airplane, or even jumping on a trampoline. Have them imagine what it would feel like if they did something no one else had done before.

For older children who will surely know about the Wright brothers, you may want to jump right into the poem, projecting it with a document camera so they can see the shape of the title and poem as you read. After you’ve read the poem, you could invite students to read it together. Then see if they can guess who the poem is about.

Younger children who may not be familiar with the Wright brothers may benefit from a brief introduction to their claim to fame. Then after reading the poem aloud and viewing the poem, ask students to see what clues about flying and airplanes they see in the shape of the poem and title.

As an extension, students can write their own concrete poems about common objects they are familiar with. Encourage them to think of items they use or see every day and are very familiar with like books, pencils, or even sports equipment. Children may wish to use an online tool like Read Write Think’s Theme Poem Creator to format their poems. Printed poems can be collected for a class poetry book or taken home to share with family members.

Sources
International Literacy Association and National Council for Teachers of English. 2017. “Theme Poems.” ReadWriteThink. Accessed February 26. http://www.readwritethink.org/files/resources/interactives/theme_poems/

Florian Poetry: Comets, Stars, the Moon, and Mars

Florian, Douglas. 2007. Comets, Stars, the Moon, and Mars. Orlando: Harcourt. ISBN: 9780152053727.

Image courtesy Amazon.com

Review and Critical Analysis
Douglas Florian's Comets, Stars, the Moon, and Mars is a beautiful informational book of 20 poems about all things space-related.  The text has many of the expected features of an informational book, such as a table of contents, a glossary of terms, and suggestions for further reading, but this book is so much more than just an informational book.

This book is first and foremost a poetry book. Florian's poems all have a strong rhyme and rhythm to them. For example, the first poem, "Skywatch" begins "On a clear night you might try/To gaze upon the starry sky." While both the rhyme and rhythm are strong throughout the book, Florian varies the rhyme scheme and rhythm to keep the poems from becoming to sing-song and predictable. Additionally, the poems include strong imagery and figurative language, like a description of the sun's "Scalding-hot surface" or the comparison of a comet to "A dirty snowball of space debris."

The artwork that accompanies each poem--also by Florian--adds another layer of richness to the writing. The illustrations of goache, collage, and rubber stamps on primed brown paper bags create vibrant scenes for readers to explore. Not only does the artwork depict the space element serving as the subject of the poem, the rubber stamp lettering labels other features like moons, geographical features and other key components. My favorite spread is for the poem titled "A Galaxy." The background is a deep navy blue, nearly black, that looks like the abyss of outer space. The poem itself takes the shape of a spiral galaxy, and other galaxy shapes, like barred, elliptical, and egg-shaped galaxies, are depicted in beige with bright orange outlines. The visual effect is stunning, and the additional shapes provide the opportunity for readers to explore the concept further. The illustrations--combined with loads of space facts and fun poems-- make this a book of poetry that readers will want to sit down with and explore. Older children may even want to look up some of the names incorporated into the design to figure out why the names are included.

Young readers will love the strong rhyme and rhythm of Florian's poems in Comets, Stars, the Moon, and Mars. These traits make it a perfect book for reading aloud or call and response readings. Plus, the witty, whimsical nature of some of the poems will draw children in as well. For example, in "Pluto," the poet explains the dwarf planet's demotion, saying "Pluto was a planet./Till one day it got fired."  Florian's comparison of a black hole to a "Cosmic broom" and then wishing he had one for his room will delight younger readers as well. This book is an excellent support for the science classroom.

Example Poem
Venus

Scalding-hot surface
Nine hundred degrees,
No creatures,
No trees.
Poisonous clouds
Of acid above.
Why was it named for
the goddess of love?

Activity
Every poem in this book could be used in an astronomy unit in the science classroom. I can see the poems serving both as introductions to plants, constellations, and black holes or as reviews to see what students remember about previous lessons. The possibilities are endless!

One way I would consider using the planet poems like "Venus" is to use them as part of a check for understanding before assessing knowledge of a particular planet. I would introduce the poem by asking children, "What do you know about the planet Venus?" After giving the group a chance to share everything they can remember, I would read the poem to them at least two times--one time to give them the opportunity to simply enjoy the poem and another to have them listen for facts. After discussing what the poet chose to include and leave out, students could then use both Florian's illustration and other pictures (both realistic and artistic) of the planet as inspiration to create their own illustration of the planet Venus. The illustrations could then be incorporated to a trading card design for display.