Wonder, if you must; wander if you may.
As the old, dear sweet book says,
"We'll meet again someday."

will be back next week, ciao

Charles Simic, a writer who juxtaposes dark imagery with ironic humor, is to be named the country’s 15th poet laureate by the Librarian of Congress today.
He was born in Belgrade and came to the U.S. at the age of 16.
He began writing poetry, he says, to impress girls!
The New York Times has an
ARTICLE about him by Motoko Rich.

A stanza from one of his poems:

"A dog trying to write a poem on why he barks,

That’s me, dear reader!

They were about to kick me out of the library

But I warned them,

My master is invisible and all-powerful.

Still, they kept dragging me out by my tail"

Two Poems for August

There is a story about a poet who was asked to talk about what his poem meant "in ordinary terms". He replied that if he had been able to express it in ordinary terms, he wouldn't have written the poem. Children are often very open to poetic language, and there are many poems that children enjoy hearing over and over. Poems open imaginations. If your read-aloud times haven't included some poems, you could check the library for some good anthologies for children.
Here are two for you to enjoy:

August
The opposing
of peach and sugar,
and the sun inside the afternoon
like the stone in the fruit.

The ear of corn keeps
its laughter intact, yellow and firm.

August
The children eat
brown bread and delicious moon.
- Federico Garcia Lorca

The next short poem describes perfectly the approach to the natural world that so many children instinctively practice:

Step out onto the Planet
Draw a circle a hundred feet round.

Inside the circle are
100 things nobody understands, and, maybe
nobody's ever really seen.

How many can you find?
- Lew Welch


- Donice Wooster in Family Matters, a blog at http://www.fcchurch.com

My two favorite poem books when I was little were "A Child's Garden of Verses" by Rob't L. Stevenson, and a book called "If Jesus Came to Your House."

I like beauty in poetry, not deep thinking (I can't think deep).

Welcome to the club, Dottie; I can't think deeply either. Well maybe if I were in a coal mine, or a submarine.

I

A Gentle Knight was pricking on the plaine,
Y cladd in mightie armes and siluer shielde,
Wherein old dints of deepe wounds did remaine,
The cruell markes of many a bloody fielde;
Yet armes till that time did he neuer wield:
His angry steede did chide his foming bitt,
As much disdayning to the curbe to yield:
Full iolly knight he seemd, and faire did sitt,
As one for knightly giusts and fierce encounters fitt.

2

But on his brest a bloudie Crosse he bore,
The deare remembrance of his dying Lord,
For whose sweete sake that glorious badge he wore,
And dead as liuing euer him ador'd:
Upon his shield the like was also scor'd,
For soueraine hope, which in his helpe he had:
Right faithfull true he was in deede and word,
But of his cheere he did seeme too solemne sad,
Yet nothing did he dread, but euer was ydrad.

Canto I, The Faerie Queene, Edmund Spenser

For Dottie:

The Snail

By Gladys Sims Stump

A snail is such a funny thing.
I saw one just this morning.
He was walking past my house.
Last night it had been storming.

I watched him go along the path.
He had a slow, slow pace.
With a house on his back-- he
Wouldn't be expected to run a race.

A home like a snail, no, no, no.
I wouldn't like it, you see.
The load would be heavy,
But-- worse than that--
No one could live in the house with me.

'ydrad' - a nice word. of the same ilk as 'yclept'



The Gentle Knight, at first sight, seems to embody some contradictions. He feared nothing, but rather himself was dreaded (although 'gentle'). He is 'Full jolly' yet 'too solemne sad.'

I think I see some influence of c.c. cummings maybe there.