Poetry Friday: When We Last Left Ramona and Her Poetry Project...

... she was hunting down Billy Collins (not in a stalker-ish way -- that's my beat -- but in an, "I have to find 'Snow'!" way.)

And, yes, Mary Lee was spot on (have you been dropping in at our house, Mary Lee? You know how we do things around here....) We listened to the music mentioned in the poem: Thelonious Monk's "Ruby, My Dear" and the Ronettes singing "Walking in the Rain" and George Thorogood (Billy didn't specify a tune, so I picked "Move It On Over.") We listened to Samuel Barber's "Adagio for Strings"and then we talked briefly about Jean-Paul Sartre, because you can't read a poem that mentions Being and Nothingness without making sure your child gets the reference, even if she is only eleven years old.

And since I'm finally getting over that cold/flu thing I had, we've forged ahead with Project Mommy's Daily Poem, as Ramona named it. We had an eclectic week around here, poetically speaking, and Ramona's hunts included the following:

• "I Never Saw a Moor" by Emily Dickinson (I bookmarked it in this book, which I love)

• "The Panther" by Ogden Nash, tagged in our well-worn copy of Favorite Poems Old and New

• "Hurt No Living Thing" by Christina Rossetti, which I decided to pull from The Tree That Time Built: A Celebration of Nature, Science, and Imagination

And today, I'm highlighting a book that Ramona and I found a few years back and both fell in love with. After repeated library check-outs, we gave The Cuckoo's Haiku: and Other Birding Poems by Michael J. Rosen to Ramona for her seventh birthday (and I could have sworn that was ten minutes ago.)

I blogged about the beginning of our infatuation with this book here, and linked to an interview with Rosen at Seven Impossible Things Before Breakfast here. Here's another extended interview with the author in The Columbus Dispatch.

And this week for the Daily Poem, Ramona hunted down the following from The Cuckoo's Haiku:

hunkered, plumped sparrow

each feather pockets the heat 

a mitten-warmed fist 

Her self-assigned project continues to grow. We've decided to start a Poet Notebook, too. I'll keep you posted.

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The Poetry Friday round up is at A Teaching Life. 

Poetry Friday: Mark Jarman

I've shared this poem once before, but it bears repeating. I love it so much.

Prayer for Our Daughters
by Mark Jarman

...May they find a place to love, without nostalgia
For some place else that they can never go back to.
And may they find themselves, as we have found them,
Complete at each stage of their lives, each part they add to.

May they be themselves, long after we've stopped watching....

~~~~~~

(Read the whole thing here, at The Writer's Almanac.)

Robyn Hood Black has the round up this week at Life on the Deckle Edge.  Robyn's post today is all about haiku, which made me hunt up the haiku posts on my blog -- bunches of them, here.

Poetry Friday: One Leaf Rides the Wind

 

One Leaf Rides the Wind by Celeste Davidson Mannis, with Susan Kathleen Hartung's gorgeous illustrations, has captured Ramona's fancy.

We were at the library and the cover caught my eye. Did you click over? Isn't it lovely?  The illustrator has a wonderful website -- go ahead and tour her studio (I'll wait until you're back) and take a look at how helpful she is.

One Leaf Rides the Wind is called a counting book for ages 4-8, but I'm going to call it a treasure for Ramona and me. Each page of counting includes a haiku and a visual treat.  

This one is going on my list: 

Books Ramona loves

Tucked away for her birthday

Delight awaits her.

~~~~~

Anastasia Suen is hosting the Poetry Friday round up today.