Orangutanka: A Story in Poems by Margarita Engle and Renée Kurilla

Image retrieved from www.amazon.com

Bibliography:

Engle, Margarita, and Renée Kurilla. Orangutanka: A Story in Poems. New York: Henry Holt and Company, LLC, 2015. ISBN 9780805098396

Review and Critical Analysis:

Orangutanka: A Story in Poems tells the story of “big sister” orangutan who wants to dance while the rest of her family wants to rest, “dreaming orangutan dreams.” Margarita Engle writes the story of this family of Orangutans with a series of linked tanka poems, or a “string” of tanka. Engle opens the book with “A Note About Tanka Poems.” In the note, she explains that Tanka is an ancient Japanese form of poetry. It consists of five lines, and traditionally it has a syllable count of 5,7,5,77. However, Engle explains that modern tanka poets rarely actually count syllables. Instead, they follow a basic pattern of short, long, short, long, long. This is the pattern that Engle uses in this book. At the end of the note, Engle invites children to create their own tanka poems about any topic.

After the note about tanka poems, Engle goes straight into the story of a family of orangutans. Each page spread features a bright and colorful portrayal of orangutans in what seems to be a beautifully created and cared for setting. Readers can see tourists looking at the orangutans in the background, as well as caretakers providing food and necessities for them. Each page spread contains at least one tanka poem, and sometimes two poems, telling the story of this family. The story ends with two tanka poems explaining “An Orangudance Activity” for children to participate in and “dance like a happy orangutan.” The book concludes with a page containing facts about orangutans and opportunities to learn more about orangutans with online resources and book suggestions.

In this book of tanka poetry, Margarita Engle writes poems that are true to tanka form and style. Tanka poems are traditionally untitled, and include minimal punctuation and capitalization. Engle’s poems are all untitled, and they contain no capitalization. They only include punctuation when necessary - commas to separate words such as “shiver, sway, rattle, and shake,” or dashes for “hip-hop” and “cha-cha-cha.” The tanka poetry form can include simile, metaphor, opinions, emotions, and some rhyme. Engle includes some of these in her story. She says papa is so big that his weight makes “low branches waltz slowly,” comparing tree movement to a dance. Her descriptive words include emotion in the poems, like “such wild excitement / as forest rangers offer / a feast for orangutans!” When big sister explores the forest floor with “hip-hop / somersaults and cartwheels, / cha-cha-cha- / so many forms of orangudance / with lively arms and legs,” the reader can’t help but feel the happiness and excitement of this little orangutan.

Renée Kurilla’s digitally colored illustrations are a perfect fit for Engle’s verse. The poems feature a happy, excited, vibrant little orangutan, and Kurilla’s illustrations are just as happy, excited, and vibrant. Her illustrations bring this family of orangutan’s to life and will make children “ooh” and “aah” over them. They will likely cause children to stay a little longer when they stop to visit the orangutans on their next zoo visit. My favorite illustration is on the page spread containing the final poem in the story. It shows children dressed in brightly colored clothes joyously dancing like orangutans, while the sister orangutan looks on. With such a colorful, happy ending, children will be inspired to dance like a happy orangutan and even write their own tanka poem.

Poem Used to Support Critical Analysis:

An Orangudance Activity

By Margarita Engle

imagine

rain forest music -

insects

buzz, zoom, and hum

while green leaves swish

twigs rattle

branches drum, and thunder booms -

can YOU dance

like a happy orangutan

with energetic arms and legs?

“An Orangudance Activity” is the final poem of Orangutanka. It is an invitation for children to join in and dance like a happy orangutan. The poem is actually two tanka poems written in the modern tanka style, inviting children to imagine themselves in the rain forest where the orangutans live.

I would introduce this poem at the end of the book like it is intended. I would read it once immediately following the story, and after hearing students’ reactions to the entire book, I would invite them to go back to that final poem with me. I would have students close their eyes and tell them to imagine themselves there, in the rain forest, with the big sister orangutan. I would read the poem while their eyes are closed. After reading, we could have our own orangutan dance party set to rain forest music.

I would then remind students about the elements of the tanka poetry form that they would have learned prior to reading. Margarita Engle encourages children to create their own tanka poems in her note at the beginning of the book, and I would have them do just that. I would have students brainstorm topics to write their tanka poems about - they can be about any topic at all - and then have them write a poem in the modern tanka form.

What My Mother Doesn’t Know by Sonya Sones

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Bibliography:

Sones, Sonya. What My Mother Doesn’t Know. New York: Simon and Schuster, 2001. ISBN 0689841140

Review and Critical Analysis:

What My Mother Doesn’t Know is yet another of Sonya Sones’s beautiful and powerful novels in verse. Once again, she engages her reader immediately with rhythm and cadence to tell the story of 15-year-old Sophie. Sones “tells / the heart-stoppingly riveting story / of my first love. / And also of my second. / And, okay, my third love, too.” Sophie is a typical teenage girl, trying to figure out her very emotional life. She falls in love with sexy Dylan, then with her “cybersoulmate” Chaz, and finally with Murphy, the geek who turns out to be “Mr. Right-and-a-half.” Sones captures the very essence of teenage girl emotions in this verse novel.

Sones writes this novel using free verse. Each poem is the length of one or two pages, and contains a title that very specifically sums up the poem’s subject. Line lengths and stanza lengths vary throughout the poem. One poem, “I Wish,” is even in the shape of a magic potion - the subject of the poem. Although each poem is different in length and style, they all somehow work together to tell this story. Sones’s rhythm and occasional rhyme make the poems flow together in spite of their differences.

The emotional impact of the poems are what make them stand out. Because poems allow a story to be told with fewer words, the words that are used are powerful. They get straight to the point, and in this case, they get straight to the point of teenage girls and their roller coaster emotions. In the poem, “I Don’t Get It,” Sophie explains how she just can’t understand how she used to think the way Dylan’s (her first love) sneakers always squeaked when he walked was so cute. She says, “I used to feel like I was floating / a few inches above the ground / whever he was squeaking along / next to me. / But now when I hear those / noisy Nikes of his, / I feel like / I want to scream.” She just doesn’t get it - how she can be totally, completely in love one day, and find him so annoying the next.

Sones gives Sophie’s character a voice that is hauntingly familiar to any reader who is either currently a teenage girl or who used to be one. She portrays the nervousness of a first date, the jealousy of good friends, the weird reality of realizing you just don’t like a boy anymore, and the joy of finding what really matters in people. Sophie finds that her true love is Murphy, the geek who is “challenged in the looks department,” and who she’s terrified to tell her best friends about. She realizes that when she first met Dylan, she wanted to kiss him all the time, but the more she got to know him, the less she wanted to kiss him. “But with Robin it’s the other way around. / The more I get to really know him, / the more I want to kiss him.” She decides that’s the way it is with real love - a stunning realization for a teenage girl.

While there are no illustrations in this book, there is no need for them. The poems themselves provide enough imagery for illustrations to form in the reader’s mind. However, the reader will realize at the end of the novel that the book cover illustration is a picture of Murphy’s bulletin board from his bedroom. This adds a very creative, intriguing touch by Ms. Sones.

Poem Used to Support Critical Analysis:

I Don’t Get It

By Sonya Sones

I used to think it was so cute

the way Dylan’s sneakers always

squeaked when he walked.

I liked teasing him about them.

Called them his squeakers.

Loved being able to hear

him coming a mile away.

When I’d hear that squeak of his

heading in my direction,

my heart would dance right up

into my throat.

I used to feel like I was floating

a few inches above the ground

whenever he was squeaking along

next to me.

But now when I hear those

noisy Nikes of his,

I feel like

I want to scream

I want to stomp on his toes.

I want to trip him up and run away.

I just don’t get it.

I Don’t Get It by Sonya Sones is a story in itself about how fickle people can be. It shows how quickly we can fall in and out of love, and how something as simple as squeaky sneakers can be a beautiful noise or a treacherous one depending on our current state of emotions.  

I would introduce this poem by asking students to brainstorm a time when their thoughts of someone or something changed - whether their thoughts went from good to bad, or from bad to good. I would have them write their thoughts down and then I would ask a couple students to share their experiences. Then, I would read them the poem out loud and have them reread it on their own. We would discuss the subject of the poem, what changed for the character in the poem, and why. I would have students use this poem’s form and style to write their own poem about a time when something changed for them. Their poem could be about love, like this one, or it could be about anything else. Their poems should exemplify the change of emotions that took place in their experience.

Red Sings from Treetops: A Year in Colors by Joyce Sidman and Pamela Zagarenski

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Bibliography:

Sidman, Joyce, and Pamela Zagarenski. Red Sings from Treetops: A Year in Colors. New York: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2009. ISBN 9780547014944

Review and Critical Analysis:

Red Sings from Treetops by Joyce sidman is a book of poetry that explores seasons in a uniquely colorful way. Starting with spring and ending with winter, Sidman’s portrayal of the seasons takes readers on a sensory-filled journey through a year in colors. Each season is described with a series of six or more poems. In the poems, colors are personified, with each color representing one or more objects. The poems speak of some colors you would expect, such as green in spring and brown in fall, but they also include some surprising colors like gray in summer and green in winter.

The poems in this book are written in free verse. However, Sidman’s use of the occasional internal rhyme has great effect. In summer she says “White clinks in drinks,” and “Green trills from trees, / clings to Pup’s knees, / covers all with leaves.” The unexpected rhyme gives the poems a boost - a little extra liveliness. Sidman also uses onomatopoeia throughout the poems in this book to great effect. Birds sing cheer-cheer-cheer, thunder booms, ice clinks, frog tongues snap, apples crunch, and on and on. The purpose of Sidman’s poems seems to be to alert all of the reader’s senses to the seasons. Her use of onomatopoeia allows the reader to hear the sounds of the seasons.

Sidman’s ability to appeal to all of the senses through the imagery in her poetry is quite impressive. Because of her personification of the colors, the reader has an immediate understanding of the color being described. For example, in spring, red is a cardinal, a leaf, and a worm. In summer, black is the sky, stones, bats, and a raccoon’s eyes. This personification, combined with Sidman’s appeal to the reader’s senses of taste, touch, smell, and hearing, creates an incredible sensory experience. In one short poem, she manages to appeal to all five senses: “In Summer, / White clinks in drinks. / Yellow melts / everything it touches … / smells like butter, / tastes like salt.” The reader is transported to a picnic on a hot summer day, vividly seeing the colors of summer, tasting a cold drink, and feeling, tasting, and smelling melted butter and salt on a cob of corn.

Sidman’s poetry is not the only thing that creates this sensory journey through Red Sings from Treetops. Pamela Zagarenski’s mixed media paintings provide beautiful pictures that perfectly illustrate Sidman’s words. In a book of colors, it’s only natural that bright, beautiful colors fill the pages. However, Zagarenski’s placement and mixture of colors on the pages is truly unique. The images for each color aren’t overwhelmed by that color. Instead, the color is sprinkled on the page, mixed with other colors. For red in spring, red birds are perched on branches, dropping red notes like cherries below. Red worms are being picked up by birds on the road, and a red door says, “come in,” as though the reader is welcome to enter into this season of color. Zagarenski’s illustrations give readers the feel of each season. Somehow she makes summer feel hot and humid, and fall has a crispness in the air.

For people who have not lived in a place with seasons, this book may not have as great an appeal. The images in the poems and pictures for spring and fall might not conjure the same feelings as they do for those who are familiar with all four seasons. However, I did grow up in a place that looked much like this book during each season. Sidman and Zagarenski’s combination of words and pictures took me straight to the best parts of each season. These words and pictures will remain with young readers for many years. This is a book they will return to often. 

Poem Used to Support Critical Analysis:

From FALL:

Red splashes fall trees,

seeps into

every vein

of every five-fingered leaf.

Red swells

on branches bent low.

Red: crisp, juicy

crunch!

First, I would share this poem as part of the whole book. I would read the entire book of poetry to students one time. Then, we would focus on this poem. I would show students the illustrated page while reading the poem a second time. I would ask them what object the color red represents in this poem. I would ask them to find that object on the page (the apples on the tree and on the ground around the tree.) I would then ask them what else is red in fall.

Next, as a class we would choose a color to write about. We would brainstorm about the color first. What objects are that color? What feelings does that color give? Then, we would write a list poem about that color as a class. After this, I would place students into groups and have them choose a color to brainstorm. As a group, they would write a list poem together and share it with the class.

Dizzy in Your Eyes: Poems about Love by Pat Mora

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Bibliography:

Mora, Pat. Dizzy in Your Eyes: Poems about Love. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2010. ISBN 9780375843754

Review and Critical Analysis:

Dizzy in Your Eyes by Pat Mora is a collection of 50 poems about love written in the voice of teenagers. Mora introduces the collection with a letter to readers. In it, she explains that she wrote these poems with the intention of showing the intensity of the teen years - that time in our lives when emotions are turned up, “and some days we look at someone and feel dizzy in their eyes.” With the kind of intensity that comes with teens and love, Mora has chosen the perfect subject to capture her audience’s attention.

         Although Pat Mora originally intended to write the poems in this collection in free verse, she took her editor’s suggestion and included many other poetic forms. The collection includes poems written in free verse, tercet, list, acrostic, sonnet, haiku, acrostic, and more. To introduce each new form of poetry to readers, Mora includes its name and definition on the page adjacent to the poem written in the form. Readers will already be familiar with some of them, such as acrostic or sonnet, but many of the poetic forms will be new, such as cinquain and triolet. Mora’s inclusion of these different forms of poetry and their definitions will inspire readers to discover more types of poetry and even write poetry themselves using these forms.

         The poems in this collection are not in a random order. In the letter to readers, Mora explains that as she was deciding the order of the book, she thought of the book as a piece of music. This piece of music has four movements, so the poems in the book are divided into four movements. It moves from love’s initial rush, to love’s heartaches, to love’s healing, and then to falling in love again. Many of the poems include Spanish words or translations, keeping them true to Mora’s Spanish heritage and style, and making them appealing to the latino teen audience.

         Dizzy in Your Eyes is a quick read, but it has the ability to meet teen readers right where they are in the midst of love’s intensity, or to take adult readers back to the time and place when they first experienced love’s intensity. It will allow readers to relive their first heartbreak, like in the poem “The Silence” when a girl asks her childhood friend to the prom, but he invited someone else. Then it will remind readers how it felt to love again, like “Love Haiku” where the teen writer says, “Everything’s in love. / Birds, butterflies, and now me, / dizzy in your eye.” This collection of poetry truly captures the essence of love and the feeling that “No one has felt like this. Ever.”

Poem Used to Support Critical Analysis:

Four-Letter Word

Like breathing, I started when I was born,

    started loving. I didn’t know its name,

    but I knew pleasures: eating, warmth.

One day, like a flash of lightning, I linked

    the four letters, the feeling, with the word.

    The word was never the same.

Very soon, I could list loves galore:

    sunshine, Mom’s smile, Dad’s laugh, our house,

    my bed, jeans, friends; the taste of peppermint,

    music that lifted me soaring off the floor.

Ever since I met you, the word, the same four letters

    became a private place

    your face takes me,

    ours the only keys

    to the invisible door.

Pat Mora’s use of a variety of poetic forms in this collection of poetry makes it an excellent resource for teaching poetry in the young adult classroom. Teens love “love poetry,” so the poems would be appealing and interesting to students simply because of that. Mora’s writing is inviting for teens, so it would go well to use this book to teach poetry to young adults.

During a poetry unit, as each form is taught, I would choose a different poem from the book that is written in that form. We would read the poem together (along with many others written in that form) and students would write a poem of their own using that form. I would share Mora’s poem, “Four-Letter Word,” in the same way. During our focus on acrostic poems, I would introduce this poem. Students would then choose a subject for their own acrostic poems. After peer-revision, students would create and illustrate a final product to share with the class and put on display in the classroom.

Dinothesaurus: Prehistoric Poems and Paintings by Douglas Florian

Image retrieved from www.amazon.com

Bibliography:

Florian, Douglas. Dinothesaurus: Prehistoric Poems and Paintings. New York: Atheneum Books for Young Readers, 2009. ISBN 9781416979784

Review and Critical Analysis:

Douglas Florian presents a collection of dinosaur poetry that is a creative mix of humor and information from beginning to end. In it, he celebrates dinosaurs of all kinds from the times Triassic and Jurassic. The first poem in the collection introduces readers to the beginning of dinosaurs, saying “The dinosaurs / First lived outdoors / During the time Triassic.” The final poem offers possible explanations for their extinction, ending with “What made the dinosaurs extinct? / What do you say? What do you think?” In between these beginning and ending poems are 18 page spreads, each featuring a dinosaur, a poem, and a painting. The contents at the beginning of the book tells readers on which page to find each poem.

Each of Florian’s dinosaur poems is uniquely silly. In the Iguanodon poem, Florian says he wouldn’t want to come upon an Iguanodon, but if he ever did, “I’d wanna / Ask that big IguanoDON: / Where is IguanoDONNA?” In the Baryonyx poem, he tells about what lare and heavy claws the Baryonyx had. He ends it with saying, “If Bary you should ever meet -- / Ask him to scratch your back.” These are only a couple examples of the silliness these poems contain.

However, silliness is definitely not the only appealing thing about his poems. Florian obviously did his research about each of these dinosaurs. Each poem includes the correct pronunciation of the dinosaur’s name (with its name meaning in parentheses) and conveys factual information about the dinosaur it is written about. I was amazed by how much a child could learn about each dinosaur simply by reading Florian’s poems. Poems include information about the dinosaurs’ physical features, whether it was an herbivore or carnivore, what it was known for, and much more. For example, the Stegosaurus poem says, “Ste-go-SAUR-us / Her-bi-VOR-ous / Dined on plants inside the forest. / Bony plates grew on its back, / Perhaps to guard it from attack.” The Tyrannosaurus rex poem says, “Some forty feet long. / Some fourteen feet tall. / Its back limbs were strong. / Its front limbs were small. / Its eyesight was keen. / Its hunger voracious …” The poem goes on with a simplistic, yet detailed, description of one of the most well-known dinosaurs, the T-rex.

In addition to the information given about each dinosaur the poems, Florian supplements each poem by including a “Glossarysaurus” at the end of the book. Here, readers can find even more information about the age of the dinosaurs, the end of the dinosaurs, and about each dinosaur featured in the book. This information includes some name meanings and other interesting facts about each dinosaur. On the final page of the poetry collection, Florian includes a list of “Dinosaur Museums and Fossil Sites” that are located throughout the United States and Canada that children could visit to learn more about dinosaurs.

One of the most appealing things about this book of dinosaur poetry is that each poem’s style is unique. While most of the poems have some sore of rhyme scheme, there are also some written in free verse. Not one poem’s style seems the same, so as the reader turns the pages for the first time, they never know what they’re coming upon. Some poems are written in first person and some are written in third person. The Plesiosaurs poem, written in first person, says, “We’re PLEASE-ee-oh-sawrs. We’re car-ni-vores. / We swim in deep seas, unlike dinosaurs … But we aren’t vicious, we’re very polite -- / We always say PLEASE before we might bite.” This book is a great dinosaur adventure.

Each page spread contains collage art illustrations of the dinosaur to go along with the poem. The humor of the illustrations is no less than that of the poems. The Tyrannosaurus rex, “Its hunger voracious,” spits out huge mixture of real food and paper clippings to show his voracious appetite. The Plesiosaurs are all saying “Please” before they take a bite. Deinonychus, who “could ruin your whole day” is surrounded by newspaper clippings of every day of the week. Micropachycephalosaurus is featured as a small dinosaur in comparison with his hugely long name. In addition to this, mixed into each humorous collage is some type of word art - cut out letters, newspaper clippings, and more. Florian’s mixture of art and poetic information is quite remarkable in this collection of poetry.

Poem Used to Support Critical Analysis:

Giganotosaurus

JIG-ah-not-oh-SAW-rus (giant southern lizard)

One hundred million years before us

Lived the Giga-not-o-saurus.

Gigantic, titanic, enormous, colossal --

What once was humongous is no just a fossil.

When it was hungry or got into fights,

It opened its jaws and took giga-bites.

I would use this poem to begin a unit on poetry. I would have already talked to students about different purposes of poetry. Today we would be talking about informative poetry - poetry that its purpose is to give readers information.

I would ask students what some of their favorite dinosaurs are, or which dinosaurs are the most well-known. I would ask them if they have ever heard of the Giganotosaurus. Likely, students will not have heard of it. This is one of the things that is great about Douglas Florian’s book of dinosaur poetry. He features many lesser-known dinosaurs. I would slowly pronounce the Giganotosaurus’s name and ask students to repeat it after me. I would read them the poem and ask them what they learned about this dinosaur from the poem. Then we would turn to the Glossarysaurus to read more about the Giganotosaurus. We would review how poems have many different purposes, and one of their purposes can be to give information.

As a follow-up activity, students would choose from a list of topics to briefly research and then to write a poem about. They would present their poems to the class to teach their classmates about that topic.