What are the benefits of raising children with poetry in the house? Upon arriving home, you get the delight of finding notes like this, from your college-age daughter:
This is just to say
I took the last 100 Grand bar
which you were probably saving.
Forgive me,
it was so caramel-y,
and I just
got my braces off.
~~~~~~~~~~
The real "This is Just to Say" by William Carlos Williams can be found here.
Here is a link to a recording of Williams reciting the poem, which comes from this page at Penn Sound -- a treasure trove of audio links.
Here is a video of Matthew Macfadyen (my daughters are swooning) just saying that he hogged the last of the plums.
~~~~~~~~~~
The Poetry Friday round up is at Think Kid, Think!
13 comments:
Aw, love her!!
Love it! :)
Well, Mama, it was stolen for a good cause. I'm sure you don't mind.
My sister, Jess (16) awaits the non-braces day with great impatience. Congrats to Anne-with-an-e for surviving!
Haha, I love this! It makes me so excited to have older children someday. Not that my littles don't keep me laughing, but...this is just awesome. :)
HA! That is priceless! Thank you so much for sharing that wonderful note. I look forward to the day my little guys (hopefully) leave such treasures for me. Made my day. :)
Love it! You've raised that girl right :).
That's so great. We just did that poem a few weeks ago as our poem of the week, and my youngers loved it. I can see some "This Is Just To" spawn in my future . . .
A person in our house got his braces off a few months ago, and would definitely sympathize with the call of the caramel!
Lol, I love that. I have never been big into poetry. Do you suggest any specific books to read aloud with the children?
Perfect!
Thanks, all!
And Elisa, here are a couple of old posts about poetry with children:
here and here.
Browsing the poetry section at the library and finding something that delights *you* is probably the best place to start. A mom's enthusiasm is infectious. :)
Thanks, Karen. I already googled a few I like and I just remembered that we have a book called "Talking Like the Rain" that the kids enjoy. I googled some Ogden Nash..I like his...and I have never heard them before. I grew up in Switzerland and I really don't ever remember hearing any poetry until maybe only a tiny bit in High School.
Karen, I love it. I remember when I was in college leaving a "This Is Just to Say" poem for a roommate.
And while I've never been a caramel fan, I do sympathize with the need to eat sticky chewy things as soon as the braces come off.
Elisa, My kids have loved A Child's Calendar by John Updike with gorgeous illustrations by Trina Schartt Hyman. A beautiful little gem of a poem for each month of the year. My daughter memorized most of the poems when she was four or five.
Also, I highly recommend The Creatures Choir and Prayers from the Ark by Carmen Bernos de Gasztold. She was a French cloistered nun and the poems were translated into English by the novelist Rumer Godden. They are delightful, written from the point of view of the various animals.
Melanie, thanks for chiming in. We have that Updike book, too (can't remember, but I may have first gotten the recommendation from you!) and love it.
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