The Bill Martin Jr Big Book of Poetry

The Bairn loves poetry and I love reading it to him. In fact, sitting in the rocking chair reading "Disobedience" by A.A. Milne to The Bairn makes me terribly nostalgic, takes me right back to my own childhood, and gives me a sense that all the generations of my family must somehow be connected back through time by some variation on this activity.  My mother used to read it to me.

I recently found this children's book of poetry at our library.  It's full of gems and illustrated by a variety of artists, including Lois Ehlert, a favorite of The Bairn's.  If I didn't enjoy poetry so much myself, I wouldn't have imagined that The Bairn could sit still for so long asking for more.

Here are two of the poems we like best from the book at the moment (The Bairn also really loves one about a woodpecker and a silly one about scratching an itch.  Oh, and I also love reading him the one about rain by Langston Hughes, but I'm too lazy to look that one up.  Oh, AND I discovered that in Grade 9, Steve listed poetry as one of his pet peeves and when he looked through this book with us, he couldn't get past the non-rhyming poetry.  He says he doesn't know what makes it a poem if it doesn't rhyme.  Oh, the engineers).

Afternoon on a Hill

I will be the gladdest thing
Under the sun!
I will touch a hundred flowers
And not pick one.

I will look at cliffs and clouds
With quiet eyes,
Watch the wind bow down the grass,
And the grass rise.

And when the lights begin to show
Up from the town,
I will mark which must be mine,
And then start down!

--Edna St. Vincent Millay


Taking Turns

When sun goes home
behind the trees,
and locks her shutters tight --

then stars come out
with silver keys
to open up the night.

--Norma Faber