The Joy of Building Your Own Poetry Library
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In order for our children to have the opportunity to fall in love with poetry, they have to have poetry readily available. Through the years, we have built a small poetry library and we all enjoy having easy access to it. From A.A. Milne to Maya Angelou, building your Poetry Library is a delightful endeavor!
Why a Poetry Library?
A Poetry Library should be a must in every home, it can be such a refuge and delight. Poetry is so important, and so rich. It is a link to times past and present, it is the golden edge of culture. In poetry human emotions, feats and daily life all come together. Take a poem like Beowulf or the Iliad and what it reveals of the cultures that created these poems. For me it was the Song of Roland that ignited a desire to learn more about poetry and history. An unlikely place for sure, but oh so beautiful! We never know what will tug at our heart, and having a Poetry Library is creating another source of offerings of goodness and beauty for my children.
Our Poetry Library
Our Poetry Library is quite small, a couple of 12×12 cubbies, but its content is rich and attractive. My children have easy access to both poems and poet’s biographies in the blink of an eye and can wander down their own rabbit trails as they please. As I have mentioned before, as I grew up in France I started with the same blank slate my children did. I had no knowledge and had never encountered any English speaking poet, not even the Bard! Discovering poetry alongside my children has been a wonderful adventure. It is never too late to get started.
Mother Goose and Nursery Rhymes
If you are starting with very young children, of course, Mother Goose and nursery rhymes are a must! But surprisingly, they are a hit with the older crowds as well. They are just so easy to learn by heart, many of them you can toss around on a daily basis and their silliness always brings up giggles. We use Mother Goose as early as a child will be interested in learning silly rhymes by heart, usually around 3 or 4 years old.
What makes a good Mother Goose book? Well, the rhymes wherein are always the same, lol, so the illustrations are the key! I keep collecting Mother Goose books, just because of the illustrations, my kids think I’m crazy… Which I might be since I apparently have at least 12 different copies, lol!
Here are our top three favorites:
- Marguerite De Angeli’s Book of Nursery & Mother Goose Rhymes
- Tomie DePaola’s Mother Goose
- The Real Mother Goose, Blanche Fish Wright
And a couple of fun off shoots:
- Mother Goose Numbers on the Loose, Leo & Diane Dillon
- Babushka’s Mother Goose, Patricia Polacco
- Chinese Mother Goose Rhymes, Robert Wyndham
When you don’t know where to start
As much as I love Mother Goose, there comes a time that we are all ready to step it up and move on. As a complete ignoramus on the subject my best friend quickly became Favorite Poems Old and New: Selected For Boys and Girls, Helen Ferris Tibbets. Arranged by themes this poetry anthology is the perfect introduction to many, many poets and styles of poetry. Through it we have discovered William Shakespeare, Walter de la Mare, Emily Dickinson, Carl Sandburg and so many others. Sometimes we just read one poem, fall in love and have to read more by the same poet. Then a treasure hunt will start through the book for more. Which will be exhausted too soon and so we will need to find more complete work by that poet. Other times, we read a poem and the style does not appeal to us, so we move on, just to rediscover the same poet with a different theme. And then maybe this time it clicks. And with some others, there never is any affinity, and that’s ok.
Fanning the flames
What to do once you have discovered a poet you enjoy? Well, you obsess over him or her, of course, and go down a delightful rabbit trail! First you look for a lovely picture book biography that checks all the living book boxes: beautiful illustrations, an author passionate by its subject, and lovely literary language. And you meet this new friend, this poet in whose words you have been delighting. Then you find a book of his or her poems, you read some aloud, you learn maybe one or two of your favorites by heart. You create beautiful Notebooking pages about the poet and for each poet that has touched your heart enough to be memorized. And then you repeat it.
Note: Many, many poet biography picture books can be found in our booklists on the poets’ birthdays. Check the Archives out! And subscribe for new upcoming ones.
Individual poem picture books
There are some delightful picture books out there that encompass only one poem, beautifully displayed and illustrated. I love these! They are, usually, one of the best introductions to a poet that you can find. That’s how my family discovered Robert Frost and fell in love with his poetry.
Here is a short list of our favorites:
- Hiawatha, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, illustrated by Susan Jeffers (will be featured in the July Booklover booklist)
- The Night Before Christmas, Clement Clarke Moore, illustrated by Tomie dePaola, Jan Brett, Gennady Spirin, Gyo Fujikawa, (each of the kids has a beautiful edition illustrated by a different artist. As I mentioned: obsess, lol!)
- Wynken, Blynken and Nod, Eugene W. Field, illustrated by Johanna Westerman
- Paul Revere’s Ride, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, illustrated by Ted Rand
- Casey at the Bat, Ernest L. Thayer, illustrated by Patricia Polacco
- Winter Song: A Poem by William Shakespeare, William Shakespeare, illustrated by Melanie Hall
- Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening, Robert Frost, illustrated by Susan Jeffers (the one that started it all)
- The Owl and the Pussycat, Edward Lear, illustrated by Jan Brett
- Birches, Robert Frost, illustrated by Ed Young
As always, keeping it simple, joyful and short is the key to success. Start your Poetry Library simply, with what appeals to you. Then grow it one little bit at a time. It is so worth it and so delightful. Love,
Mattie
