I have been thinking about the poetry reading I went to yesterday. There is a wonderful book, now out of print but still available at times on the used market. It’s called “ Miracles, Poems by children of the English-speaking world,” collected by Richard Lewis, Simon and Schuster, 1966.

I love this book. I found it on tape once, too, and I don’t listen to that enough.

What strikes me most is that not only were the children able to put together wonderful words to express an idea, but there was an adult there, listening and ready to put the words down on paper for them. One of my favorites, for example, was written by a child only 4 years old:

Rain
©1966 by Adrian Keith Smith
Age 4
New Zealand

The rain screws up its face

and falls to bits.

Then it makes itself again.

Only the rain can make itself again.

I love these so much that I collected seven of the poems that stood out in my mind, and placed them on the website I made at least 5 years ago, which I call my LDTH Poetry Collection.

This one is even more fun, because I got an email a year or two ago from the person who wrote it. He’s now a grownup himself!

Grownups
©1968 by Marc Duskin
Age 10
United States

Grownups are silly,
They never drink coffee
When it’s served
To them.
They just talk
And never drink it
Until it’s cold.
Isn’t that silly?

I haven’t grown
Since I was five
I haven’t grown at all…
Grownups are just getting shorter.

And we can not end this post without the poem I chose about a cat. After all, yesterday’s event was full of poems about animals. This one is best read out loud, slowly and with feeling:

A Cat
©1964 by John Gittings
Age 8
England

Silently licking his gold-white paw,
Oh gorgeous Celestino, for
God made lovely things, yet
Our lovely cat surpasses them all;
The gold, the iron, the waterfall,
The nut, the peach, apple, granite
Are lovely things to look at, yet,
Our lovely cat surpasses them all.

There are more on my poetry page if you are interested. Or just go find yourself a book. My students tell me they like buying used books at ABE Books online, and Amazon.com and eBay also have used books listed regularly. Or if you are lucky, you may have a used book store in your town where you can get assistance finding it. Or not, your choice.

I hope you enjoy these lovely words today, book or no. It’s sunny again in Lansing at least for the morning and I am fully enjoying that!

This entry was posted on Saturday, December 9th, 2006 at 10:37 amand is filed under Miscellaneous Artforms. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.