National Poetry Month

Last year, I combined National Letter Writing Month with National Poetry Month.  It started out a bit accidentally when I found a copy of a poem I wanted to share with a friend, but it was great timing, because I could include little excerpts or entire poems, in letters or on postcards, that I wanted to share with other friends and with my grands.

My first items in the mail so far this April have not included poetry, but I've been dragging out some of my anthologies and looking through them for possibilities.

I have several books of children's poems as well, and this morning, I got stuck reading some of them.  You know how sometimes you are looking for one particular poem, but ended up reading one after another.  It can happen with recipe books, too!

Reading some favorite children's poems  reminded me of Natalie Merchant's CD Leave Your Sleep.  Merchant collected the poems she shared with her young daughter and put them to music.  It is a beautiful album, full of delightful poems and melodies from famous and not so famous poets.  

The King of China's Daughter
The King of China’s daughter,

She never would love me
Though I hung my cap and bells upon
Her nutmeg tree.

For oranges and lemons,
The stars in bright blue air,
(I stole them long ago, my dear)
Were dangling there.

The Moon did give me silver pence,
The sun did give me gold,
And both together softly blew
And made my porridge cold;

But the King of China’s daughter
Pretended not to see
When I hung my cap and bells upon
Her nutmeg tree.

The King of China’s daughter
So beautiful to see
With her face like yellow water, left
Her nutmeg tree.

Her little rope for skipping
She kissed and gave to me –
Made of painted notes of singing-birds
Among the fields of tea

I skipped across the nutmeg grove, –
I skipped across the sea;
But neither sun nor moon, my dear,
Has yet caught me.

-Edith Sitwell.

Another favorite is Bleezer's Ice-Cream by Jack Prelutsky.  Merchant put it to music as well, and back in 2010, I made a papier mache eccentric figure inspired by Prelutsky's poem.

It starts out:

I am Ebenezer Bleezer, I run BLEEZER’S ICE-CREAM STORE, there are flavors in my freezer you have never seen before, twenty-eight divine creations too delicious to resist, why not do yourself a favor, try the flavors on my list:

 I just included the 28 flavors on the list

Yep, it should be Prelutsky with a t

Don't get me wrong, I'm still excessively fond of John Donne and T.S. Eliot, and I have no problem switching from serious to playful, from scholarly to absurd, from William Butler Yeats to Shel Silverstein.  The difference is that Jack Prelutsky and Shel Silverstein make me smile in almost every case.  

Who are some of your favorite poets?