Children's poetry is tricky stuff -- we wanted something short enough to be memorable, but not too treacly. A while ago I found a copy of Kate Greenaway's Under the Window at a library booksale. I pulled that off the shelf hoping that I could find some simple poem for Julia. I wasn't overly impressed -- the pictures were charming, but the verse was too twee to be worth the effort of memorization. I have a fondness for A Child's Garden of Verses by Robert Louis Stevenson, but Darwin doesn't always care for the shortest poems therein. (As it turns out, we did find one by Stevenson that we liked for Julia -- see below.) Right now our favorite poetry anthology for the girls is Classic Poetry: An Illustrated Collection, but the poems are too long for the girls to easily master in a week.
In the end, we consulted The Oxford Book of English Verse and The Oxford Book of Children's Verse to select a poem for each girl. For Eleanor we found "Morning Prayer" by Ogden Nash:
Morning PrayerJulia's was an old classic (though I'd always thought it was just an old nursery rhyme):
by Ogden Nash
Now another day is breaking,
Sleep was sweet and so is waking.
Dear Lord, I promised you last night
Never again to sulk or fight.
Such vows are easier to keep
When a child is sound asleep.
Today, O Lord, for your dear sake,
I'll try to keep them when awake.
There Was a Little GirlWe practiced during the week and had a formal recitation on Sunday evening. For this week we have two new selections.
by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
There was a little girl
Who had a little curl
Right in the middle of her forehead.
When she was good
She was very, very good,
But when she was bad she was horrid.
Eleanor:
How doth the little crocodileJulia:
Improve his shining tail
And pour the waters of the Nile
On every golden scale!
How cheerfully he seems to grin,
How neatly spreads his claws,
And welcomes little fishes in,
With gently smiling jaws!
--Lewis Carroll
Rain
by Robert Louis Stevenson
The rain is raining all around,
It falls on field and tree,
It rains on the umbrellas here,
And on the ships at sea.
7 comments:
The 1961 edition of Childcraft had two poetry volumes of which I was very fond, both as a kid and when I was reading poetry to our youngsters.
I think that regularly reading poetry to children is just as important as having them memorize it. For one thing, it exposes them to poetry that is too long for them to handle on their own and helps them internalize the forms and rhythms.
You might also try a good Mother Goose collection, one that has some of the more uncommon rhymes.
I have a copy of The Annotated Mother Goose -- which also includes rhymes you probably DON'T want the girls memorizing such as:
Spit Cat, Spit,
Your tongue shall be slit,
And all the Dogs
In our Town
Shall have a bit,
because you will get such odd looks when your girls chant them in public. :)
(It also says that in more modern versions the first line is "Tale Tale Tit" making it 'a horrible warning to tattletales of what might be done to them, to which the editor of the later Mother Goose's Melody appended the maxim: "Point not at faults of others with a foul finger.'" Nothing like a nice strong moral!
Check out also the Oxford Book of Poetry for Children, the edition edited by Blishen. Later editions are self-consciously "children's poetry," but the Blishen edition is primarily memorizable poetry that the editor happened to like as a child, though seldom intended for children.
Some of Offspring #1's favorites for memorization were indeed the kind that got odd looks in public, especially her top choice, which ends "...and when your heart begins to bleed/ O then you're dead and dead indeed!"--which she always delivered enthusiastically.
Good recommendations both. I'll look for that edition of the Oxford Book of Poetry for Children. As it happens, I also have an Annotated Mother Goose. The problem is, every time I sit down with it, I get caught up in reading it and nothing gets done.
Love this idea!
Here's my favorite poem from my very early memorization days:
Don't-Care didn't care,
Don't-Care was wild.
Don't-Care stole plum and pear
Like any beggar's child.
Don't-Care was made to care,
Don't-Care was hung.
Don't-Care was put in the pot
And boiled till he was done.
Neat! I've been wanting to do this with Emma for awhile, but I've been lacking the discipline to actually sit down and pick something. I just packed all my children's poetry books (*sniff sniff* I hate packing books!) so somehow I don't think it is going to happen too soon. But it is definitely part of the plan for when we start school in the fall.
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