April means rain showers, but don't
let them get you down (although we'd be happy here in New York, we need
some rain!), pop down to your local bookstore and pick up some poetry
to mark National Poetry Month.
We're celebrating by posting a poem a week -- as well
as having a poetry
competition -- and maybe doing a couple of other exciting things.
All this poetry may mean we don't get our taxes done on time, but really:
what's more important? Poetry or taxes? I think we all know the answer
to that one!
Hope you enjoyed all these poems -- we'll post more
later in the year (we lvoe poetry all year 'round!), so keep
us on your visiting list!
The Eagle
By Alfred, Lord Tennyson
He
clasps the crag with crooked hands,
Close to the sun in lonely lands,
Ringed with the azure world, he stands.
The wrinkled sea beneath him crawls;
He watches from his mountain walls,
And like a thunderbolt he falls.
Reprinted with permission from Poetry
by Heart, A Child's Book of Poems to Remember, compiled
by Liz
Attenborough, The Chicken House, an imprint
of Scholastic Inc. All rights reserved.
from
London Voluntaries
by William Ernest Henley
For
earth and sky and air
Are golden everywhere,
And golden with a gold so suave and fine
The looking on it lifts the heart like wine.
Reprinted with permission from Leaf
by Leaf, Autumn Poems selected by Barbara
Rogasky, Scholastic Press, an imprint of Scholastic Inc. All rights
reserved.
Summer
by Elizabeth Swados
Tsss
Summer sounds,
Tsss
Concrete and heat
Sneakered feet on tar,
Stepping on a melted candy bar,
Squish
Crunch, crunch
Gravel on the street,
Whoosh
Hydrant waterfall,
Zzzzt
The sun's an orange basketball,
Bonk bonk
Summer sounds,
And then the
Summer's gone.
Reprinted with permission from Hey
You! C'mere: a poetry slam by Elizabeth
Swados, Arthur A. Levine Books,
an imprint of Scholastic Inc. All rights reserved.
The Best Fans in Baseball
by James Proimos
They
threw me out at third.
That's how we lost the game.
I couldn't keep from crying
because I'm the guy they blame.
The team won't speak to me.
The coach said far too much.
And that girl I gave my number to
won't likely be in touch.
But my dad gave me a hug,
and my mom wrote me a poem.
Yeah, they threw me out at third
but now I'm safe at home.
Reprinted with permission from If
I Were in Charge the Rules Would Be Different!
by James
Proimos, Scholastic Press,
an imprint of Scholastic Inc. All rights reserved.
Splash
by Constance Levy
See
how the stream
suddenly leaps
loose and free
from the mountain's brink.
See how it flings
its silvery spray,
singing a rain song
along the way.
Feel how it lands
with bursts of power,
splashing a wonderful
waterfall shower!
Reprinted with permission from Splash,
Poems of Our Watery World by Constance
Levy, Orchard Books, an imprint of Scholastic Inc. All rights reserved.
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