It may seem silly, but I love A.A. Milnes book of verse for children, Now I am Six. I’ve given a copy of this to all my kids upon the occasion of the birth of their first child. The poems are sweetly beautiful, and also full of a gentle sly humor. I still have a copy in my own library, too.
I had an Aunt who loved reading and she made sure her kids had many children’s books. When her own kids outgrew them, they were passed along to my sister and I. How I wish I still had them all! My mom was not sentimental, and upon my growing up got rid of many beloved tales and anthologies.
The memories of many of them live on.
Really enjoyed this whole stack today. It was soothing to the soul.
I’ve got a copy of that book, but I’ve never even opened it. I’ll have to add that to the mix of books I read my daughter at night. Though she might object to the title; she just turned seven :)
I've always loved reading prose, but it took a very long time for me to warm up to poetry. My mother had dozens of old school-readers, which I read, but I always skipped the poetry section at the back.
But my mother and father, as early boomers who attended school in the '50s and early '60s, both quoted poetry to us as we grew up, some of it poems their parents had quoted. It was my mother quoting 'Silver' by Walter de la Mare, one moonlit evening, that persuaded me that poetry could express things in a way prose could not.
I started reading the poetry in the school readers, and memorizing my favorite ones. Several, like 'Silver' and Robert Frost's 'Stopping by a woods on a snowy evening' were ones my parents introduced me to. But I discovered the delights of nonsense poetry too: Edward Lear's 'The Owl and the Pussycat', Lewis Carroll's 'The Walrus and the Carpenter', Thomas Hood's 'Mixed Metaphors'.
These days, I've been reading the early and modern poets, and enjoying both. I love the devotion in John Donne's Holy Sonnets and 'Hymn to God the Father', while W. B. Yeats' 'Second Coming' might have been written for today.
Why would Psalm 23 relish the benefit of "He makes me lie down in green pastures"? Would it not be more fun to graze? Or, to organize a pick-up baseball game? Who would stomach a half hour of merely lying down? I think I know the answer: do it for your digestion. Take time to chew your cud.
Thank you for this therapeutic post and assignment. It brought me back to One Hundred and One Famous Poems @ 1929, an old college book from my mother who studied it in the late 50’s. I read it in the 70’s as an expat—my Air Force pilot father was stationed in England—crying over the phone with my American best friend over Henry Van Dyke’s “America for Me”—both of us homesick (and melodramatic preteens).
Searching for that book after reading your article was therapeutic too! Who knew so many years later I’d be teaching so many poems from that book (which is shockingly white)! While I’ll always love the poetry of Shakespeare, Wordsworth, Keats, Shelley, Poe, Dickinson, Millay, Frost, and Sandburg—I also love poems by Walker, Neruda, Momaday, Hughes. So thankful teaching did make me learn twice!!
It may seem silly, but I love A.A. Milnes book of verse for children, Now I am Six. I’ve given a copy of this to all my kids upon the occasion of the birth of their first child. The poems are sweetly beautiful, and also full of a gentle sly humor. I still have a copy in my own library, too.
I had an Aunt who loved reading and she made sure her kids had many children’s books. When her own kids outgrew them, they were passed along to my sister and I. How I wish I still had them all! My mom was not sentimental, and upon my growing up got rid of many beloved tales and anthologies.
The memories of many of them live on.
Really enjoyed this whole stack today. It was soothing to the soul.
I’ve got a copy of that book, but I’ve never even opened it. I’ll have to add that to the mix of books I read my daughter at night. Though she might object to the title; she just turned seven :)
Haha!
No one I know today apart from my own family circle is aware this delight exists! I’m almost certain she’ll love it. Hope it’s enjoyed by you both.
I've always loved reading prose, but it took a very long time for me to warm up to poetry. My mother had dozens of old school-readers, which I read, but I always skipped the poetry section at the back.
But my mother and father, as early boomers who attended school in the '50s and early '60s, both quoted poetry to us as we grew up, some of it poems their parents had quoted. It was my mother quoting 'Silver' by Walter de la Mare, one moonlit evening, that persuaded me that poetry could express things in a way prose could not.
I started reading the poetry in the school readers, and memorizing my favorite ones. Several, like 'Silver' and Robert Frost's 'Stopping by a woods on a snowy evening' were ones my parents introduced me to. But I discovered the delights of nonsense poetry too: Edward Lear's 'The Owl and the Pussycat', Lewis Carroll's 'The Walrus and the Carpenter', Thomas Hood's 'Mixed Metaphors'.
These days, I've been reading the early and modern poets, and enjoying both. I love the devotion in John Donne's Holy Sonnets and 'Hymn to God the Father', while W. B. Yeats' 'Second Coming' might have been written for today.
Donne’s Holy Sonnets are a treasure!
Thanks Joel!
Questions coming tomorrow for our interview!
Why would Psalm 23 relish the benefit of "He makes me lie down in green pastures"? Would it not be more fun to graze? Or, to organize a pick-up baseball game? Who would stomach a half hour of merely lying down? I think I know the answer: do it for your digestion. Take time to chew your cud.
Haha, yes. We’re averse to rest. The slower pace of poetry is too rest adjacent :)
Which is odd because it can also be, as Roberts says, work. We just don’t know what to do with it.
Thank you for this therapeutic post and assignment. It brought me back to One Hundred and One Famous Poems @ 1929, an old college book from my mother who studied it in the late 50’s. I read it in the 70’s as an expat—my Air Force pilot father was stationed in England—crying over the phone with my American best friend over Henry Van Dyke’s “America for Me”—both of us homesick (and melodramatic preteens).
Searching for that book after reading your article was therapeutic too! Who knew so many years later I’d be teaching so many poems from that book (which is shockingly white)! While I’ll always love the poetry of Shakespeare, Wordsworth, Keats, Shelley, Poe, Dickinson, Millay, Frost, and Sandburg—I also love poems by Walker, Neruda, Momaday, Hughes. So thankful teaching did make me learn twice!!
Ah, that makes me happy to hear!