Encountering the Poet and Delighting in the Verses

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Poetry is a wonderful topic to linger on, isn’t it? There is so much to it: the poetry itself, its author, the poet, and the mechanics of poetry. I was hoping to have a wonderful year-long poetry curriculum ready to introduce to you this month, but time was not on my side to accomplish that. But I am musing on poetry nonetheless. It is one of these topics that I love but that often fall by the wayside and with which I occasionally need to reconnect. And when I do, it is in earnest, lol. 

Poetry and the poet

I love getting to know the poet behind the poem! My favorite way to do that is, of course, through a picture book biography of the poet. For example, discovering the life of Robert Frost, back in March, just opened his poetry to me in a completely new view. My kiddos were so excited that he was a farmer and said that now they understood why he wrote about nature with so much love. From getting to know the poet and having a relationship with him it deepens their relationship with his poetry. So often, we just read the poem and forget the soul who wrote it. It makes poetry impersonal and unrelatable. But once you know the poet the poetry becomes a cherished friend as well.

Robert Louis Stevenson

For the end of this school year we will be focusing on Robert Louis Stevenson’s A Garden of Verses. This is one of my favorite poetry books to start with after Mother Goose. The poems in A Garden of Verses are so relatable to a child, it is lovely and simple. But before we swing into the poems themselves I want to introduce my children to R.L. Stevenson himself. In order to do that we will read The Voyage of the Ludgate Hill: Travels with Robert Louis Stevenson by Nancy Willard and illustrated by Alice and Martin Provensen. We will follow the activities suggested in the November 2024 Booklist for RLS Day. I will most likely add reading a lovely article called The Penny Piper – R.L.S. – 1850-1894by M. Burnette Thompson found Christmas Volume 16, 2nd edition. As it is such a sweet article and really goes to show R.L.S.’s love of Christmas and his childlike spirit.

Poems

We will create a Notebooking page about R.L.S. as an introduction to the poems we will learn and copy after that page in our Poetry Notebook. Once we are acquainted with the man behind the poems we will simply start reading and learning poems by heart as I explained earlier in The Simple Art of Poetry. We have new Poetry Notebooks ready, fancy pens for copywork and art supplies galore. This will be the focus of our Morning Time for the next 6 to 8 weeks. Simple, beautiful and enjoyable by all ages.  We will start with The Wind as our first learned by heart poem. While we learn it by heart we will be reading other Stevenson poems daily, just for pure enjoyment.

What else?

Well, if I listen to my idealistic self I would definitely add either Kidnapped, followed by Catriona,  or Treasure Island as a read aloud. I would also add reading a more in depth biography such as Robert Louis Stevenson: his life, by Catherine Owens Peare. And then maybe we would study Scotland and Samoa, just to name a few extra ideas that pop in my mind, lol! But that would overcomplicate it, so for now we will stick to simple, beautiful poetry.
Keep it simple!
Love,
Mattie