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| Florida, Jan 2019, J. Doolittle |
What is Poetry?
What is Poetry? Who knows?
Not a rose, but the scent of the rose;
Not the sky, but the light in the sky;
Not the fly, but the gleam of the fly,
Not the sea, but the sound of the sea,
Not myself, but what makes me
See, hear, and feel something that prose
Cannot: and what it is, who knows?
Eleanor Farjeon (1881-1965)
This is a book that I used as a teacher and the title inspired me to develop a "poetry menu" as a theme for poetry presentations I made to teachers at retreats and conferences. It has lots of good ideas for teachers to use in their classrooms. Rhythm and rhyme, wordplay and imagery, will always have a place in classrooms, at least I hope so.
Maybe we can all fit in a little more poetry into our lives...if you look it's all around you...in advertising jingles, playground chants and songs on the radio, and maybe in some neglected books on your shelf.
I'm attaching a video of Morning Has Broken, sung by Cat Stevens (born Steven Demetre Giorgiou, and now know as Yusuf Islam) The words to this song were written as a hymn by Eleanor Farjeon, the featured poet. She also wrote a poem that I found myself voicing out loud just tonight as we observed our cat, JJ, sleeping on the window ledge, his head resting on several stones displayed there.
Cats Sleep Anywhere
Cats sleep, anywhere,
Any table, any chair
Top of piano, window-ledge
In the middle, on the edge,
Open drawer, empty shoe,
Anybody's lap will do,
Fitted in a cardboard box,
In the cupboard, with your frocks--
Anywhere! They don't care!
Cats sleep anywhere.
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| Percy, exhausted after chasing the computer mouse |
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| Kit Kat "plants" himself in terracotta |
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