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Poetry Friday: Yuki and the One Thousand Carriers by Gloria Whelan

Oct3

Yuki and the One Thousand Carriers By Gloria Whelan. Illustrated by Yan Nascimbene. Sleeping Bear Press, 2008.

This week and next in our homeschool we’re traveling to Japan: sushi, haiku, kimonos, rice paper, origami, big city, small farm, tsunamis, cherry blossoms. And what else might we discover in our imaginary journey to Japan?

When you’re looking for children’s books with an international setting and flavor, Gloria Whelan is a go-to author, and Sleeping Bear Press is definitely a premier publisher of such books. Sleeping Bear has published a whole bushel basket of alphabet books featuring different countries, states, regions, and interests from A is for Aloha: A Hawai’i Alphabet to K is for Kabuki: A Japan Alphabet to Z is for Zamboni: A Hockey Alphabet. And their non-alphabet, non-concept books rate high in both beauty and educational value, too. Sleeping Bear Press specializes in picture books, ergo the pictures in the books are delightful, colorful, and rich in detail.

Yuki and the One Thousand Carriers is no exception to that description. The illustrations, in double page and page and a half spreads, are Japanese in flavor, with the delicate figures and light and dark contrasts of Japanese character writing. However, there’s also a lot of color splashed all over these pages to delight the eye and engage the imagination. Yan Nascimbene also did the small, intricate illustrations for another lovely picture book set in Japan, Hachiko: The True Story of a Loyal Dog by Pamela S. Turner.

Gloria Whelan’s text tells the story of an seventeenth or eighteenth century girl, Yuki, who must accompany her family on a 300 mile journey to the capital city of Edo. Yuki must ride in a palanquin (most of the time), and her teacher has given her an assignment to write a haiku every day to chronicle the journey. Yuki writes all of her longing for home and her fears about the future as well as her enjoyment in the small pleasures of each day into her haiku.

Little Red Bowtie from Flickr via Wylio

© 2012 John Morgan, Flickr | CC-BY | via Wylio

Once outside the gate
how will I find my way back?
Will home disappear?

River is busy
making its own long journey;
it doesn’t look back.

Gulls write their haiku
in the sky, dipping and darting,
not caged in a box.

Once during the long journey, Yuki is able to climb out of the palanquin and walk a little way. She writes:

Grass under my feet
plum blossoms drift down on me
just for a minute.

Finally, the family reach Edo, the end of their journey, and Yuki learns to appreciate where she is, instead of always looking back to long for her old home.

The book is a fantastic introduction to historical Japan and a lovely story of overcoming homesickness through poetry and awareness of daily blessings.

Jama’s Alphabet Soup has today’s Poetry Friday Roundup.

Poetry Friday: September by Helen Hunt Jackson

Sep26

September by Helen Hunt Jackson 1830-1885

Monarch on Seaside Goldenrod from Flickr via Wylio

© 2011 Dendroica cerulea, Flickr | CC-BY | via Wylio


The golden-rod is yellow;
The corn is turning brown;
The trees in apple orchards
With fruit are bending down.

The gentian’s bluest fringes
Are curling in the sun;
In dusty pods the milkweed
Its hidden silk has spun.

The sedges flaunt their harvest,
In every meadow nook;
And asters by the brook-side
Make asters in the brook,

From dewy lanes at morning
The grapes’ sweet odors rise;
At noon the roads all flutter
With yellow butterflies.

september 9+9 from Flickr via Wylio

© 2010 rosmary, Flickr | CC-BY | via Wylio


By all these lovely tokens
September days are here,
With summer’s best of weather,
And autumn’s best of cheer.

But none of all this beauty
Which floods the earth and air
Is unto me the secret
Which makes September fair.

‘Tis a thing which I remember;
To name it thrills me yet:
One day of one September
I never can forget.

I am beyond fond of September–and October and November. Several special days and celebrations in September make it a significant month for our family: three birthdays, Hobbit Day, the beginning of autumn, International Talk Like a Pirate Day, and National Punctuation Day. I do hope you’ve had a lovely September, with a day or a few days that you can never forget because you’ve made such thrilling memories with the ones you love.

Our hostess for today’s Poetry Friday Roundup is Laura Purdie Salas at Writing the World for Kids.

Poetry Friday: Hymn by Joseph Addison

Sep5
Spiral Galaxy NGC 3982 from Flickr via Wylio

© 2010 Hubble Heritage, Flickr | CC-BY-SA | via Wylio

The spacious firmament on high,
With all the blue ethereal sky,
And spangled heavens, a shining frame
Their great Original proclaim.
Th’unwearied sun, from day to day,
Does his creator’s powers display,
And publishes to every land
The work of an almighty hand.

Soon as the evening shades prevail
The moon takes up the wondrous tale,
And nightly to the listening earth
Repeats the story of her birth;
While all the stars that round her burn
And all the planets in their turn,
Confirm the tidings as they roll,
And spread the truth from pole to pole.

What though in solemn silence all
Move round the dark terrestrial ball?
What though no real voice nor sound
Amid the radiant orbs be found?
In reason’s ear they all rejoice,
And utter forth a glorious voice,
Forever singing as they shine,
The hand that made us is divine.

The tune that is traditionally used for this hymn poem by the 17th century essayist is adapted from Haydn’s Creation, The Heavens Are Telling, another poem set to music that extolls the beauty of God’s creation in the heavens.

Mr. Addison (b.May 1, 1672, d.June 17,1719), in addition to writing poetry, was well-known as an essayist. Here are some selected quotes from his writings:

“Books are the legacies that a great genius leaves to mankind, which are delivered down from generation to generation as presents to the posterity of those who are yet unborn.” Isn’t it nice to think that Charles Dickens and Jane Austen and Mark Twain were all writing to leave a legacy to me and my children?

“A true critic ought to dwell upon excellencies rather than imperfections, to discover the concealed beauties of a writer, and communicate to the world such things as are worth their observation.” A good motto for book bloggers, at least when possible, when the “excellencies” outweigh the “imperfections”?

“There is no defense against criticism except obscurity.” On the other hand, the author would do well to remember this particular aphorism. Critics will criticize.

At any rate, I enjoyed Mr. Addison’s hymn, and I hope it encourages you and stirs you to worship the Creator as you live your Friday.

Poetry Friday: I Am His, and He Is Mine

Aug22

Loved with everlasting love, led by grace that love to know;
Gracious Spirit from above, Thou hast taught me it is so!
O this full and perfect peace! O this transport all divine!
In a love which cannot cease, I am His, and He is mine.
In a love which cannot cease, I am His, and He is mine.

Heav’n above is softer blue, Earth around is sweeter green!
Something lives in every hue Christless eyes have never seen;
Birds with gladder songs o’erflow, flowers with deeper beauties shine,
Since I know, as now I know, I am His, and He is mine.
Since I know, as now I know, I am His, and He is mine.

Things that once were wild alarms cannot now disturb my rest;
Closed in everlasting arms, pillowed on the loving breast.
O to lie forever here, doubt and care and self resign,
While He whispers in my ear, I am His, and He is mine.
While He whispers in my ear, I am His, and He is mine.

His forever, only His; Who the Lord and me shall part?
Ah, with what a rest of bliss Christ can fill the loving heart!
Heav’n and earth may fade and flee, firstborn light in gloom decline;
But while God and I shall be, I am His, and He is mine.
But while God and I shall be, I am His, and He is mine.
~George W. Robinson

Does being “in Christ” really lend a savor and an intensity to life that “Christless eyes” are lacking? Are the greens greener and the songs gladder? I don’t know, but I think so. I know that I have depth of purpose and security and “abundant life” that I don’t see in those I know who are not walking with the God of the Universe through Jesus Christ by the power of the Holy Spirit.

Am I happier than non-Christians? No, sometimes I think I am sadder and more intensely hurting, especially when I see the news and feel a small part of the pain of non-Muslims being persecuted in Iraq or a comedian with Parkinson’s and without hope in the U.S or people in my own community who have only themselves, their families, and financial success to live for. I hurt for those who are outside the circle of God’s everlasting love and for those who are walking in darkness. I want to pull them into the light and rest of Jesus’s love. But I can’t force them to follow Him.

And so I pray. For Iraqi Christians and Yazidis. For members of the Islamic State and of Al-Qaeda. For immigrant children and adults, legal and illegal. For comedians and rock stars and plumbers and schoolteachers. For my friend’s son. For my own children. For the world that Christ died to save. And sometimes I cry.

But while God and I shall be, I am His, and He is mine.

Irene Latham at Live Your Poem has the Poetry Friday Roundup.

Poetry Friday: Hosie’s Aviary by Tobias and Leonard Baskin

Jul11

Hosie’s Aviary is a book of bird poems and drawings. It’s a lovely collection, a family project, and a delight to the ear and the eye. For example, the poem “EGRET”:

Long hair
and pencil bill,
does this egret write poems?

Leonard Baskin was planning and studying to become an Orthodox rabbi like his father until at age 14 he saw a sculpture demonstration in Macy’s department store, and he began studying art instead. Baskin became a famous sculptor and also illustrated many children’s books; however, it was for Hosie’s Alphabet (Viking), text written by his children Hosea and Tobias and by Lisa, his second wife, that he received a Caldecott Honor in 1973. In 1979, Mr. Baskin illustrated and published Hosie’s Aviary, also published by Viking Press and also written by his children Tobias, Lucretia, and Hosea, and by Lisa Baskin.

Leonard Baskin, who died in 2000, seems to have been a fascinating man. He was a friend of Ted Hughes, for whom he illustrated the poetry collection, Crow. The first Crow poems were written in response to a request by Baskin, who had at the time produced several pen and ink drawings of crows. Hughes’ wife, Sylvia Plath, dedicated one of her poems, “Sculptor”, to Leonard Baskin. Mr. Baskin was the sculptor for one section of the memorial to Franklin Delano Roosevelt in Washington, D.C.

Tobias Baskin, who just happens to have been born the same year I was, became a “self-directed learner” much like his father. He is now a biology professor at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst. In the following video, he gives an acceptance speech to a homeschool group called North Star in Massachusetts which gave him an award for self-directed learning, or as he says, for dropping out of high school:

Tobias Baskin, 2010 from North Star on Vimeo.

The Crossover by Kwame Alexander

Jul9

Have I mentioned before on this blog that I don’t really care for verse novels? Yeah, I’ve said it several times.

Anyway, if you do like stories in verse form, or if you don’t, but you really, really like basketball, you might want to check out Kwame Alexander’s basketball slam/rap/verse novel, The Crossover. Josh Bell and his twin brother, Jordan, are both basketball phenoms. Josh, the narrator of our story and author of all the poems in the book, is particularly talented, and he even has a nickname that supposedly indicates just how good he is on the court: everyone calls him “Filthy McNasty” because his “game’s acclaimed/so downright dirty, it’ll put you to shame.”

Between the basketball jargon and the rap feel to some of the poems and the high school and jazz slang, I got a little lost. But I’m not the intended audience for this book. I did like the family values and the picture of forgiveness and reconciliation that is featured. I didn’t like wandering through the verse, trying to translate it into a story.

Here’s a sample, and you can see for yourself whether The Crossover would suit you:

Basketball Rule #1

In this game of life
your family is the court
and the ball is your heart.
No matter how good you are,
no matter how down you get,
always leave
your heart
on the court.

Showoff

UP by sixteen
with six seconds
showing, JB smiles,
then STRUTS
side
steps
stutters
Spins, and
S
I
N
K
S

a sick SLICK SLIDING
SWEEEEEET
SEVEN-foot shot.

What a show-off.

Another Day as Emily by Eileen Spinelli

Jun25

I don’t care much for verse novels. I really liked this story, but why was it written as a verse novel? (Disclaimer: I have the same complaint about most verse novels.) Maybe it was billed as poetry because of the Emily Dickinson tie-in? If so, the poetic nature of the poems was lost on me. It felt like prose with funny line breaks.

On the other hand, did I say I really liked the story? Suzy is a bit jealous of her little brother who is getting all of the attention because of his heroic act of calling 911 when their elderly neighbor has a medical emergency, and so Suzy decides to become Emily Dickinson, reclusiveness and long white dresses and all. I went through some weird phases myself when I was eleven or twelve (and even older), and I can well imagine an eleven year old becoming an Emily Dickinson wannabe.

I liked the way Suzy/Emily’s parents decided to be patient and wait for the phase to end, but how they made Suzy go to church with the family on Sunday, Emily Dickinson or not. I liked how Suzy’s best friend wasn’t perfect, but was a good friend. I liked Suzy. As I said, I went through some phases myself. Did I ever mention how in sixth grade I had a large rag doll that went everywhere with me for a few weeks, even to the sixth grade skating party? Then, in junior high, my best friends decided to go to Narnia. Really. They set a date and wrote good-bye notes. We were in college when we decided to form a Baptist convent. Yeah, an Emily Dickinson phase would have fit right into my childhood and adolescence without a ripple.

Ms. Spinelli has a record of winning me over with her characters and story (The Dancing Pancake), but I would prefer straight prose with a bit of poetic license thrown into the mix. Oh, well, I’m not her editor, and Ms. Spinelli is a a highly successful children’s author while I’m just an adult with an aversion to so-called verse novels.

L is for Lyrics

Apr25

“Poetry and Hums aren’t things which you get, they’re things which get you. And all you can do is go where they can find you.” ~Winnie the Pooh

Lyrics: a set of words that make up a song, usually consisting of verses and choruses. The writer of lyrics is a lyricist.

'Moonrise beside Mt. Diablo' photo (c) 2013, David McSpadden - license: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0/

America by Paul Simon

Let us be lovers, we’ll marry our fortunes together
I’ve got some real estate here in my bag.
So we bought a pack of cigarettes and Mrs. Wagner’s pies
And walked off to look for America.

“Kathy,” I said, as we boarded a Greyhound in Pittsburgh,
“Michigan seems like a dream to me now
It took me four days to hitch-hike from Saginaw.
I’ve come to look for America.”

Laughing on the bus
Playing games with the faces
She said the man in the gabardine suit was a spy
I said, “Be careful, his bow tie is really a camera.”

“Toss me a cigarette, I think there’s one in my raincoat.”
“We smoked the last one an hour ago.”
So I looked at the scenery, she read her magazine
And the moon rose over an open field.

“Kathy, I’m lost,” I said, though I knew she was sleeping.
“I’m empty and aching and I don’t know why.”
Counting the cars on the New Jersey Turnpike
They’ve all come to look for America
All come to look for America
All come to look for America

© 1968 Words and Music by Paul Simon

The Top One Hundred Song Lyrics that Work as Poetry

K is for Kyrielle

Apr18

“[P]oetry can do something that philosophy cannot, for poetry is arbitrary and has already turned the formulae of belief into an operation of faith.” ~Charles Williams

kyrielle: derives from the Kýrie, which is part of many Christian liturgies. A kyrielle is written in rhyming couplets or quatrains. It may use the phrase “Lord, have mercy”, or a variant on it, as a refrain as the second line of the couplet or last line of the quatrain. In less strict usage, other phrases, and sometimes single words, are used as the refrain. Each line within the poem consists of only eight syllables.

This poetic form, with its repetition of the “kyrie”, seems appropriate for this Good Friday when we remember the Lord Jesus in his suffering and death.

'Crucifixion by Mia Tavonatti' photo (c) 2011, Rachel Kramer - license: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0/A Lenten Hymn by Thomas Campion

With broken heart and contrite sigh,
A trembling sinner, Lord, I cry:
Thy pard’ning grace is rich and free:
O God, be merciful to me.

I smite upon my troubled breast,
With deep and conscious guilt oppress,
Christ and His cross my only plea:
O God, be merciful to me.

Far off I stand with tearful eyes,
Nor dare uplift them to the skies;
But Thou dost all my anguish see:
O God, be merciful to me.

Nor alms, nor deeds that I have done,
Can for a single sin atone;
To Calvary alone I flee:
O God, be merciful to me.

And when, redeemed from sin and hell,
With all the ransomed throng I dwell,
My raptured song shall ever be,
God has been merciful to me.

Robyn Hood Black is hosting Poetry Friday at Life on the Deckle Edge on this Good Friday.

J is Just for Fun

Apr16

“I shake the poems like doormats. Phrases tumble. Some are swept past the margins and stay there. A few find places in other poems. Some spots need a bit more mystery, and I nudge them around corners, away from the bright light, to let shadows do their work.” ~Jeannine Atkins

Ogden Nash is one of my favorite poets. I have a theory that making us laugh at ourselves and at the world we live in is one of the important functions of poetry. Mr. Nash certainly makes the laughter and the fun of poetry evident.

For instance, there’s this poem in which Mr. Nash volunteers his definition of marriage: humorous, insightful, and eminently debatable.

For pure fun, Custard has always been one of my favorites.

And here I posted about Mr. Nash’s poem, Very Like a Whale, in which he makes fun of Byron’s similes.

Now, here’s another Ogden Nash poem, just for fun during Poetry Month:

Portrait of the Artist as a Prematurely Old Man by Ogden Nash

It is common knowledge to every schoolboy and even every Bachelor of Arts,
That all sin is divided into two parts.
One kind of sin is called a sin of commission, and that is very important,
And it is what you are doing when you are doing something you ortant,
And the other kind of sin is just the opposite and is called a sin of omission
and is equally bad in the eyes of all right-thinking people, from
Billy Sunday to Buddha,
And it consists of not having done something you shuddha.
I might as well give you my opinion of these two kinds of sin as long as,
in a way, against each other we are pitting them,
And that is, don’t bother your head about the sins of commission because
however sinful, they must at least be fun or else you wouldn’t be
committing them.
It is the sin of omission, the second kind of sin,
That lays eggs under your skin.
The way you really get painfully bitten
Is by the insurance you haven’t taken out and the checks you haven’t added up
the stubs of and the appointments you haven’t kept and the bills you
haven’t paid and the letters you haven’t written.
Also, about sins of omission there is one particularly painful lack of beauty,
Namely, it isn’t as though it had been a riotous red-letter day or night every
time you neglected to do your duty;
You didn’t get a wicked forbidden thrill
Every time you let a policy lapse or forget to pay a bill;
You didn’t slap the lads in the tavern on the back and loudly cry Whee,
Let’s all fail to write just one more letter before we go home, and this round
of unwritten letters is on me.
No, you never get any fun
Out of things you haven’t done,
But they are the things that I do not like to be amid,
Because the suitable things you didn’t do give you a lot more trouble than the
unsuitable things you did.
The moral is that it is probably better not to sin at all, but if some kind of
sin you must be pursuing,
Well, remember to do it by doing rather than by not doing.

Be a sinner, and let your sins be strong (sin boldly), but let your trust in Christ be stronger, and rejoice in Christ who is the victor over sin, death, and the world. We will commit sins while we are here, for this life is not a place where justice resides. We, however, says Peter (2. Peter 3:13) are looking forward to a new heaven and a new earth where justice will reign. ~Martin Luther