What My Mother Doesn’t Know by Sonya Sones

Image retrieved from www.amazon.com

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

Image retrieved from www.amazon.com

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

Image retrieved from www.amazon.com

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.

The Crossover by Kwame Alexander

Image retrieved from www.amazon.com

Bibliography:

Alexander, Kwame. The Crossover. New York: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company, 2014. ISBN 9780544107717

Review and Critical Analysis:

“The Crossover” by Kwame Alexander is a story about family and brothers. Two almost 13 year old brothers, Josh (also known ask Filthy McNasty for his mad basketball skills) and Jordan, or JB, are unstoppable on the basketball court. Josh and JB are identical twins, “Two basketball goals at opposite ends of the court.” The only way to tell them apart is that Josh, the narrator of this novel in verse, is the one with long twisted hair in locks. Their dad is a former European league basketball player who teaches them everything he knows about basketball. Their mother is an assistant principal at their junior high school. In the beginning of the book, Josh says Basketball Rule #1 is “In this game of life / your family is the court / and the ball is your heart. / No matter how good you are, / no matter how down you get, / always leave / your heart / on the court.” His family is his life.

The focus of this novel is on Josh and JB’s relationship and how it changes when faced with challenges in basketball and in life. When JB gets his first girlfriend, Josh is terribly jealous that he’s spending way more time with her than he is with Josh and his dad. He eventually takes his anger out on him on the basketball court, busting him in the nose with the basketball. Josh is suspended from basketball because of it, and JB won’t talk to him. Not only this, but their dad’s health is going downhill. He stopped playing basketball because of health problems he won’t talk about, and he doesn’t trust doctors, so he refuses to visit one. In spite of Josh, JB, and their mom urging him to go, his refusal ends in a massive heart attack - yet another challenge for Josh and JB to face and find their way through.

Josh tells this entire story of family and brotherhood in verse. Kwame Alexander mixes several styles of poetry for Josh’s story. When Josh is talking about basketball, his verse is more like rap or hip-hop. In “Dribbling” he says, “At the top of the key, I’m / MOVING & GROOVING, / POPping and ROCKING - / Why you BUMPING? / Why you LOCKING?” These lines are full of speed and energy. The reader can sense the basketball court and imagine being there. However, most poems in the novel are written in free verse. They allow Josh to observe his life and family and all that is going on around him. In “Too Good” he says, “Lately, I’ve been feeling / like everything in my life / is going right: / I beat JB in Madden. / Our team is undefeated. / I scored an A+ on the vocabulary test.” Josh conveys his emotions through this free verse poetry.

The novel is divided into six sections, resembling a basketball game:  Warm-up, First Quarter, Second Quarter, Third Quarter, Fourth Quarter, and Overtime. Josh loves vocabulary, so he includes new vocabulary words and their definitions throughout the book. Words like “pulchritudinous” which means “Having great physical / beauty and appeal,” and “churlish” which means “Having a bad temper, and / being difficult to work with.” Scattered throughout the novel are ten basketball rules that, in reality, pertain much more to the game of life than to the game of basketball. Josh gives Basketball Rule #7 after he busts his brother’s nose. It says, “Rebounding / is the art / of anticipating, / of always being prepared / to grab it. / But you can’t / drop the ball.”

This novel in verse would have great appeal for any young adult - anyone who loves basketball, family, brotherhood, or just a good story. The use of verse to tell the story allows it to be told simply, another appealing aspect of it for youth. This would also be an excellent book for any young adult who has experienced the loss of a parent. It has the potential to help them find their voice and express their thoughts and emotions through poetry.

Poem Used to Support Critical Analysis:

Basketball Rule #10

A loss is inevitable,

like snow in winter.

True champions

learn

to dance

through

the storm.

Alexander includes this poem after Josh’s dad dies. It’s a poem that is more a rule about life and death than it is about basketball. Death is inevitable, but the only way to overcome such a loss is to dance through it - to find joy in the difficulty.

I would focus on this poem after students have read the entire novel. We would re-read the poem and discuss what was happening at this point in the novel. We would revisit some of the other basketball rules included in the book and talk about figurative language. I would ask students questions such as “Is this poem talking about basketball? What else might the poem be referring to? How are basketball and life similar?” I would have students think about their hobbies and interests. How could those things be compared to life? Then I would have them write their own poem comparing that activity to life or death. It could be written in Alexander’s style or in their own style.

Amazing Places by Lee Bennett Hopkins, Chris Soentpiet, and Christy Hale

Image retrieved from www.amazon.com

Bibliography:

Hopkins, Lee B., Soentpiet, Chris, and Christy Hale. Amazing Places. New York: Lee & Low Books Inc, 2015. ISBN 9781600606533

Review and Critical Analysis:

Amazing Places, a collection of poems selected by Lee Bennett Hopkins, invites readers to travel the United States through poetry. The fourteen poems in this book explore some of the nation’s different landscapes, historical sites, and unique cultural destinations. The places in these poems include Denali National Park in Alaska, Harlem’s West 125th Street in New York City, the Grand Canyon, the Liberty Bell, Niagara Falls, and more. The poems in this collection are works by notable American poets, including Joseph Bruchac, Nikki Grimes, and J. Patrick Lewis.

The inside book cover, both front and back, shows a map of the United States. The map highlights the state and location of each poem in the collection. The map is a great source of reference while reading through the poems. The reader can know the exact location of the place they are reading about. There is also a “More About the Amazing Places” section at the end of the book. This section highlights the location for each poem and provides details about the history of each site. Again, this is an excellent resource for readers. After reading each poem, I turned to this section to read more about the amazing place. Then, I returned to the poem to read it one more time, knowing more information about that place. This section helps readers better understand each place being represented by a poem. For me, it brought the poem even more to life. It allowed me to “visit” that place - to feel and sense much of what the writer felt - more fully. When I first read “Niagara” by Prince Redcloud, and then read more about Niagara Falls, I was blown away at the idea of what the first Europeans must have thought at first sight of the Falls. This additional information made the wonder of Niagara Falls even more magnificent.

The poems in this collection are each unique. Some are written in free verse and some rhyme. Each poem’s style somehow reflects the place about which it is written. The poem “Sandy Hook Lighthouse,” by Joan Bransfield Graham, is written in the shape of a lighthouse. The poem “Langston,” by Lee Bennett Hopkins about Langston Hughes, is a simple poem written with few words, much like the style Hughes himself wrote in. The poems represent the mood and emotions of the places they are written about. In “Tree Speaks” by Nikki Grimes, the voice of the tree in the poem allows readers to sense the sights and sounds of the Grand Canyon. The reader can hear the “echo / of the Colorado River rapids / bouncing off red-purple ridges.”

The poems in “Amazing Places” are naturally appealing to young people. They are simple poems that are easily absorbed and understood. They will create curiosity in children about the people and places they are written about, encouraging them to learn more about them (from the information at the back at the book or beyond) and making them want to visit those places someday. They also have the ability to inspire children to write poetry about the place where they live or places they visit.

The poems in this collection are delightfully illustrated in a collaboration between Chris Soentpiet and Christy Hale. Chris Soentpiet created the rough sketches for the illustrations. Then, Christy Hale added color and detail to them to bring them to life. Each illustration captures the essence of its poem. “Campfire,” byJanet S. Wong, is illustrated to show Denali at sunset, with beautiful pink and purple shades, to highlight the small mother and daughter roasting marshmallows over the campfire. “A Sunday Trip to Chinatown,” by Alma Flor Ada, brings the streets of San Francisco’s Chinatown to life. The colorful signs and buildings show how vibrant and overflowing with Chinese culture this part of town is. Soentpiet and Hale’s illustrations will attract children to this collection of poetry.

Poem Use to Support Critical Analysis:

Langston

by Lee Bennett Hopkins

Who would have known

a young lad

delivering

door-to-door newspapers

in a small town

would one day

see people the world over

carrying his papers -

his reams of poems -

poems about -

rainy sidewalks,

stormy seas,

crystal stair memories,

moon-glimmers,

moonbeams,

but best of all,

    his dusts of dreams.

“Langston” by Lee Bennett Hopkins pays tribute to the great poet, Langston Hughes, and to Lawrence, Kansas where he lived from 1903 until 1915. The city of Lawrence has recognized him in several ways, and Hopkins discusses this at the end of the book.

Before introducing this poem, I would introduce the students to Langston Hughes. We would learn about his life, the Harlem Renaissance, and his writing. We would read a few of his poems and discuss and the style he wrote them in. I would introduce the poem “Langston” at the end of students’ learning about Langston Hughes. I would ask them how it relates to all they have learned about Hughes. I would also ask them how this poem is similar to one or more other poems written by Hughes. How did Hopkins wholly honor and reflect Langston Hughes in this poem? As a follow-up activity I would have students write a poem that reflects this same simple style of poetry. The poem could also be about Hughes or about someone or something else.

A Funeral in the Bathroom: and Other School Bathroom Poems by Kalli Dakos and Mark Beech

Image retrieved from www.amazon.com

Bibliography:

Dakos, Kalli, and Mark Beech. A Funeral in the Bathroom: and Other School Bathroom Poems. China: Albert Whitman & Company, 2011. ISBN 9780807526750.

Review and Critical Analysis:

“A Funeral in the Bathroom” by Kalli Dakos is a book of poetry about the school bathroom. These poems are both funny and somber. Students, teachers, and anyone who has attended elementary school (or an elementary school bathroom) will greatly appreciate this book of poetry. They reveal the elementary school bathroom as a place to escape, as a place where accidents happen, as a place to solve puzzles, and as a place of celebrations and tears. The book includes 41 poems and a Table of Contents that lists the title of each poem and its corresponding page number. Each poem features colorful illustrations that show exactly what is happening in the poem - whether it’s a girl sitting on the toilet reading, a puzzle poem that was taped to the bathroom wall, or a student surfing in the flooded bathroom.

Dakos includes poems of all forms in her book. While many of the poems contain a rhyme scheme, some are written in free verse. Each poem is unique in its number of lines and stanzas. While this is the case, Dakos manages to write each poem in a form that would best portray its subject and character. For example, “The Bathroom Dance” is written in squiggly lines all over the page, as though the poem itself is doing the Bathroom Dance. “Emergency” is written in lines with one word each to create short stanzas. This gives the reader the image that this is such an emergency that the writer can’t say more than one word at a time. He finally yells “Emergency!” and leaves the class immediately.

The poems in “A Funeral in the Bathroom” evoke familiar childhood experiences and memories for all readers. The elementary school bathroom is a place for accidents and emergencies, and Dakos represents those experiences well in her poems. However, she best represents the elementary school bathroom as a place of escape for students. Poems such as “Meet Me in the Bathroom” in which two students plan to fake a stomach ache to get out of class and meet at two o’clock in the bathroom remind readers of small chances to talk to friends in the bathroom and take a break from class. “Bathroom Break” is a simple poem about having a little resting time and a little quiet time during your “tinkle time.”  Kalli Dakos relates to readers in a unique way by evoking these familiar childhood experiences in the school bathroom.

Mark Beech illustrates the poems in this book with bright colors and with characters containing simple features. His bright colors evoke strong emotions to go along with each poem. The simple features on each character allow them to transform into anyone - ourselves or our elementary school friends. His illustrations add humor to the already humorous poems, and they add sobriety to the already somber poems. In “Crying in the Bathroom,” Beech shows a house that is broken in two, with each piece on either side of the poem, to represent the girl’s broken home. The girl is shown with tears flowing below the poem as well. This, and every poem in the book, could not be better represented than through Beech’s illustrations.

Poem Used to Support Critical Analysis:

There Should Be a Place Kids Can Go

By Kalli Dakos

There should be a place

kids can go

when life has dealt

another blow.

There should be a shuttle

to hitch a ride

into the dark

when we need to hide.

There should be a garden

or a room to pray

when pets die

and friends move away.

There should be a tree

kids can climb

when life is a poem

that’s lost its rhyme.

When life is a poem

that’s lost its rhyme,

kids head to the bathroom

all the time.

“There Should Be a Place Kids Can Go” is my favorite poem in “A Funeral in the Bathroom.” The poem talks about kids needing a place to go when days are hard and there’s nowhere else to go. The school bathroom, in some strange way, provides that place for kids, whether it’s to shed a few tears, let out some anger, or just take a deep breath. The last lines, “When life is a poem / that’s lost its rhyme, / kids head to the bathroom / all the time” evoke the essence of Dakos’s book. The school bathroom is more than a place for “tinkle time.” It’s a place of escape.

I would introduce this poem by asking students, before reading, if they have a place they can go (either at school or outside of school) when they need to take a break. We would briefly discuss those places. Then I would ask, “What are some reasons to go to the bathroom besides to go to the bathroom?” After brief discussion, I would read them the poem and have discussion afterwards about the place of escape in this poem. Did students expect the place to go to be the school bathroom?

Afterwards, I would encourage students to write their own poem or short story about a place they go to escape. When do they go there and why?