Literary Allusion

You thought The Excrement Poem was an oddly out-of-character poetry choice for the blog of elementary school teachers who are supposed to be writing about their reading lives and specifically about all of the wonderful new books that might win the Newbery Award? You allowed yourself to be deceived? You haven't wasted the last few years of your otherwise wonderful life reading THE SERIES OF UNFORTUNATE EVENTS?

You didn't make the connection to THE END?

I quote, "We might even say that the world is always in medias res -- a Latin phrase which means 'in the midst of things' or 'in the middle of a narrative' -- and that it is impossible to solve any mystery, or find the root of any trouble..." In other words, WE GO ON, just as the Beaudelaire triplets and their new daughter do...or did, if I'm piecing together the clues about Lemony and Beatrice correctly, which is probably impossible, based on the circular illogicity (a word which here means "I don't get it," or some such thing) of THE SERIES OF UNFORTUNATE EVENTS and of life itself.

Poetry Friday

The Excrement Poem: by Maxine Kumin

It is done by us all, as God disposes, from
the least cast of worm to what may have been
in the case of the brontosaur, say, spoor
of considerable heft, something awesome.

We eat, we evacuate, survivors that we are.
I think these things each morning with shovel
and rake, drawing the risen brown buns
toward me, fresh from the horse oven, as it were,

or culling the alfalfa-green ones, expelled
in a state of ooze, through the sawdust bed
to take a serviceable form, as putty does,
so as to lift out entire from the stall.

And wheeling to it, storming up the slope,
I think of the angle of repose the manure
pile assumes, how sparrows come to pick
the redelivered grain, how inky-cap

coprinus mushrooms spring up in a downpour.
I think of what drops from us and must then
be moved to make way for the next and next.
However much we stain the world, spatter
it with our leavings, make stenches, defile
the great formal oceans with what leaks down,
trundling off today's last barrowful,
I honor shit for saying: We go on.

-----------------

We go on.

And in case you think this is an odd poem choice, check this out for odd.

Cool Teacher Update

In our quest to list 100 Cool Teachers in Children's Literature, we are up to 84. Check the sidebar for the teachers who've been nominated so far and wrack your brains for any we've missed!

Ten Poems to Last A Lifetime

I love Roger Housden's book TEN POEMS TO LAST A LIFETIME. I like the whole idea of it. In the introduction, he writes, "What is is about honey and bees that engages a beekeeper in his work for a lifetime? Or chimpanzees---Why does the primatologist Jane Goodall spend her working life alone in Africa watching and talking to them? What does a Shakespeare scholar find so fascinating about all those plays, which most of us are glad to be done with at the end of high school? And why do some people return to a few favorite poems over and over again, down through the years, when there are so many other books and anthologies out there just waiting to be digested and absorbed? .... It must be an unending source of discovery, of reflection, solace and insight; of pleasure; and also of warmth and nourishment, in athe way a fire can warm hands, and bread can fill the stomach." I am not one to read poetry anthologies from front to back but I love to find a poem that changes me. That is why I love this book and the concept of it--poems that you can go to over and over and over. Roger Housden mentions later in the introduction that everyone will have his/her own list of poems for a lifetime. I may start my own collection. Wouldn't it be fun for kids to do this? I'd love to see an anthology like this for kids. If you want to think about poems that would make a list of a kid version of an idea like this, we will be happy to post the list--poems that provide kids with some way to make sense of the world, that they could go to over and over. Comment away!

Art Teacher Suspended for Museum Trip?

Did anyone else see this article about a Texas teacher who has been suspended because her students saw nude art on an approved museum field trip?

Breaking News For Frost Fans

A previously unpublished poem by Robert Frost has been found! The poem, entitled "War Thoughts At Home" was found handwritten in the cover of a book, and will be published in Virginia Quarterly Review this week.

Kimberly Willis Holt

Kimberly Willis Holt was at our favorite children's bookstore--Cover to Cover--last Saturday. I have heard her speak before and I always love what she has to say. She was there talking about her new book PART OF ME: STORIES OF A LOUISIANA FAMILY which I just finished and loved! I am a huge fan of Holt's so I would be happy to see this one win the Newbery too. It is pretty new so we'll see if it makes any of the Mock Newbery lists. The book is another one of her stories with characters who stay with you. Actually, it is about 4 generations of a family. The fun thing for all of you teachers and librarians out there is the thread of books and reading throughout the book. The main character was a bookmobile driver which brought back great memories of my childhood bookmobile days. This book is really a tribute to books, reading, readers and family. I loved it!

Poetry Friday for the Changing Seasons

I found this poem for Jody Scott once, long ago. Her sticky note of thanks is still in the book by the poem. I love rediscovering that note and being flooded with memories of her.

The poem is RELUCTANCE, by Robert Frost.

My favorite stanza:

The leaves are all dead on the ground,
Save those that the oak is keeping
To ravel them one by one
And let them go scraping and creeping
Out over the crusted snow,
When others are sleeping.


The last stanza:

Ah, when to the heart of man
Was it ever less than a treason
To go with the drift of things,
To yield with a grace to reason,
And bow and accept the end
Of a love or a season?


The whole poem

NEW BABYMOUSE BOOK!

I just picked up a copy of BABYMOUSE: ROCK STAR today. I am very excited that this new addition to the series is out. I plan to read it tonight. Since so many people put BABYMOUSE: BEACH BABE on their Top 5 List for Mother Reader, I am anxious to check it out. It looks like it is going to be another good one:-)

Banned Books Week

Franki sent me a link from Outside of a Cat about Banned Books week...

...there it was, number 98 on the list of 100 Most Frequently Challenged Books of 1990-2000: THE HEADLESS CUPID by Zilpha Keatley Snyder. The memories came flooding back...new teacher, just out of OSU with an MA in Children's Literature; parents loud and threatening and defiant; questioning myself, my judgement, my professionalism; feeling of support when my principal read the book and defended it and me when we met with the parents...and my astonishment when I learned, at that meeting with the parents, that THEY HADN'T EVEN READ THE BOOK! We cooked up some activities for the kid to do in another book out in the hall while the class (or the group...that part's fuzzy) worked on THE HEADLESS CUPID, but his parents wound up reading the book (finally) and realized it wasn't so bad, and they let the kid finish the book on his own because he wanted to find out how the story ended.

Gigantic nothing-burger with a side of ignorance. Left me with a mild case of professional indigestion, but no permanent aversion to books that fringe cases might not approve of.