Announcer> This program is dedicated to Walter de la Mare, an English poet and novelist.

The author of many works for adults.

He also devoted attention to young readers.

His many books for children include collections of original verse like Peacock Pie , as well as poetry anthologies like the classic Come Hither .

De la Mare felt too much distinction was made between literature for adults and literature for children.

He once pointed out, "Only the rarest kind of best in anything can be good enough for the young."

♪ Oh I can believe ♪ ♪ in everything I read ♪ ♪ A little boy blue ♪ ♪ a lady with a shoe ♪ ♪ and a dish run off ♪ with a spoon ♪ ♪ Well Hickory Dickory Dock ♪ ♪ a scholar he's late ♪ to school ♪ ♪ And I like a cow ♪ ♪ I jump over the moon ♪ ♪ Ennis Rees> "The Men and the Oyster."

Two men on a beach discovered an oyster.

And one of them snatched it and shook off the moisture.

But it was claimed by the other man, too, and neither could make up his mind what to do.

So when a third man happened along, they asked him to judge the one in the wrong and say to whom the oyster should go.

Very well, he said, I think I know.

And taking his knife he opened the shell.

Ah, yes, said he, I know very well with that he swallowed the oyster down, and looking at each of the men with a frown, he gravely presented a half shell to each that he said as he went down the beach, is justice for all, and don't hold a grudge.

The oyster will cover the cost of a judge.

Rick> This is the American poet, Ennis Rees.

He's just read a poem from his book of Fables From Aesop , all of which are told in verse.

Ennis Rees is our guest today because we want to talk about poetry and especially poetry for children.

Poetry is not easy to pin down, not easy to define.

Poets themselves have often tried to explain it.

Robert Frost once said that, "A poem is a momentary stay against confusion.

Each poem clarifies something."

As far as children are concerned.

A little poetic clarification might be welcome in this confusing world.

And adults who share poems with little kids introduce new ideas, new sounds and new ways of looking at life.

Adult reader> Fish have fins and fish have tails.

Fish have skins concealed by scales.

Fish are seldom found on land.

Fish would rather swim than stand.

<Fish> Yeah, like that fish over there.

Rick> That poem titled "Fish" is from a book called Toucans Two and Other Poems by Jack Prelutsky, with pictures by Jose Aruego.

The poems and the pictures can make learning about animals a lot of fun.

And the fun aspect of verse is important.

If you learn to enjoy poetry as a child.

Chances are, you'll enjoy it for the rest of your life.

Because there are so many books of poetry, choosing ones to share with kids can be a challenge.

In this program, we're going to take a brief look at several different kinds of poetry books, all of which are picture books.

We'll look at anthologies, collections of poems by one author, and some books that feature just one poem.

When you try to find poems to share, you'll want to look for verse that excites you.

Poems that you think you might have liked when you were young.

If you enjoy the meter, the sentiments and the subjects of the verses you read, your enjoyment will probably be contagious.

Children who are introduced to good poetry and who hear it often, will soon enjoy reading it themselves.

But it's dangerous to make any rules about what constitutes good poetry.

Some of it rhymes, some doesn't.

Some poems are long, some short, some deal with ordinary things, others deal with the fantastic.

Some simply play with words.

Emily Dickinson once put it this way, "If I read a book and it makes my whole body so cold, no fire can ever warm me, I know that is poetry.

If I feel physically as if the top of my head were taken off, I know that is poetry.

These are the only ways I know it.

Is there any other way?"

We asked Ennis Rees, how he might define poetry.

Ennis> Poetry is almost invariably a metered or measured thing.

It has a beat.

It has a... very definite rhythm.

And I think the simplest way to think about it, and I find it the most practical way to talk about it with my students is simply to say what the Elizabethans said.

They said, "Poetry is rhyme."

I know, right away you think that is, a very naive definition, but... I really believe it is.

They aren't the only ones who said so.

Gerard Manley Hopkins, in the 19th century, was a highly innovative theorist and in effect said, "Poetry is rhyme as opposed to prose, which isn't."

By that I mean, rhyme is any correspondence in sound.

Not just cat and rat, but study and body consonance, assonance.

Any echoing sound is a type of rhyme.

And starting with Emily Dickinson, at least, poets used off rhyme and half rhyme... a great deal.

None more so than Dickinson herself.

What you find is what Freud would have called "an overdetermined language in a poem."

It has more echoing sounds.

As a rule, a higher density of metaphor and figurative speech, a more emphatic rhythm.

And... certainly you have this and all the languages that I'm familiar with which aren't that many.

But I have a notion you find it, generally because it goes with the sort of emotional thrust that you get in poetry.

And... even good free verse, if you'll look at it, free verse meaning lines on the page with a different number of stresses and so on.

No regular rhyme.

If you'll look at the verse, if it's good Whitman, or good William Carlos Williams, a good free verse, which is sort of hard to find.

You'll notice that it is also rhyme, and that it's full of alliteration and half rhymes and off rhymes and full rhymes and the kind of rhythm that brings all that together in a echoing pattern of sounds.

Whereas in a lot of good prose you would go out of your way to avoid all that.

Children just naturally, love rhythm and rhyme.

They jump up and down and make rhymes themselves.

I mean, there's a whole body of children's folklore that's passed on from five-year-old to five-year-old, for hundreds of years.

And it's the one existing body of oral folklore that anybody can observe, because children who cannot read past rhymes on orally from five-year-old, to five-year-old forever.

They change in the transmission some, but it's basically the same rhyme.

And... most rhyme is a mnemonic.

I mean, it's easier to remember often for a child if it rhymes.

And... I don't ask my students to memorize, huge stretches of poetry, but if they like it enough and read it enough and in effect, fall in love with a poem, they will tend to memorize it, themselves.

And children certainly do this, before they can read, of course.

Rick> Poetry is often divided into two basic types, narrative and lyric.

A poem which tells a story is a narrative poem.

Like Ennis Rees' fable poem about the oyster.

A lyric, on the other hand, is usually shorter and often tries to focus the reader's attention on one item, one phenomenon, or one happening.

Lyrics were originally those poems which were written to accompany music, and many retain highly musical quality.

Child reader> I like the quiet breathing of the night, the tree talk, the wind swish the star light.

Day is glare-y loud scary.

Day bustles, night rustles.

I like night.

Rick> This short lyric poem is in the book titled Little Raccoon and Poems From the Woods by Lillian Moore, with drawings by Gioia Fiammenghi.

Another poet, Gwendolyn Brooks, wrote a set of lyric poems which were published in this collection called Bronzeville Boys and Girls .

Her poems, as well as the illustrations by Ronni Solbert, feature black children in an urban setting.

But the universality of the sentiments makes it a book for anyone who's young.

Here's a sample of one of the poems titled "Robert," who is often a stranger to himself.

Child reader #2> Do you ever look in the looking glass and see a stranger there?

A child you know and do not know.

Wearing what you wear.

Rick> Lyric poems are sometimes little celebrations of nature.

And several collections of nature lyrics have been put together for children.

Mary Ann Hoberman wrote all the poems in this book titled Bugs with silly illustrations by Victoria Chess.

Hoberman's verses describe and explain various insects and their habits.

Child> A cricket's ear is in its leg.

A cricket's chirp is in its wing.

A cricket's wing can sing a song.

A crickets leg can hear it sing.

Rick> Aileen Fisher's affection for nature, as well as her love of wordplay, is apparent in the collection of lyric poems titled Out in the Dark and Daylight .

Which features pencil drawings by Gail Owens.

The book is divided into four sections that correspond with the four seasons.

And Miss Fisher's lines can make her readers appreciate the extraordinary in the ordinary.

Child #2> Do you ever think about the grass on the lines you pass?

The green of it, the sheen of it.

...the clean of it when it sparkles like glass?

Do you know what grass is as green space showing wherever you going?

Every blade to be brief, is a leaf.

Rick> The simplicity, the sound and the rhythm of some of these lyric poems makes them appropriate, even for very young children.

In a book titled Bequest of Wings , the author Annis Duff explains how she and her husband frequently shared their love of verses with their children.

She states simply, "It is never too soon to begin to speak poetry to a baby."

She mentions Mother Goose, but she also admits that the sounds of Shakespeare and William Blake and A.E.

Housman were often heard in the nursery at her house.

In her book The Unreluctant Years, Lillian Smith warns parents, teachers, and librarians about unnecessary reluctance with children.

She says, "In giving poetry to children, it is well to remember that they understand far more than they can express.

Children apprehend by intuition and imagination that which is far beyond their limited experience."

When we talked with Ennis Rees, he also commented on how children may react when exposed to good literature.

Ennis> If you make something interesting enough, a child is going to respond to it and... it's the interest and the fun of it that count, not how long the words are or how difficult the words are.

If anything, they like challenges like that.

They don't- They are embarrassed by anything you would be embarrassed by, you know, it's talking down to a child is to give him a book that says, "see spot run" and then says that over and over in about 16 ways, you know, that would put anybody to sleep and make them- And the message you're really conveying is reading is a boring thing, you know.

Where if you come to a child with... verse that rhymes and is full of action and fun- Dr.

Seuss, is that way.

So is Robert Louis Stevenson's poems for children.

A. Milne, any of... of lots of rather good poets, de la Mare is another one.

The child will respond to rhythm and to rhyme and to the action of the story.

And he'll see that this is, a really fine thing.

I mean, children have obviously fine sensibilities, I mean, the finest, in some ways.

Rick> Some of the most popular and oft-remembered verses of childhood are narratives.

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow wrote the classic "Paul Revere's Ride" in 1861, yet it still excites young children who are quickly drawn in by the lines, "Listen my children, and you shall hear of the midnight ride of Paul Revere."

Joseph Low designed a picture book in 1973, which features the Longfellow narrative.

Even before Longfellow wrote about Paul Revere, a professor of biblical studies in New York, composed a long narrative poem for his six children.

And it may be the most familiar narrative in the English language.

In 1822, that Professor, Clement Moore read the poem aloud to his family on Christmas Eve.

He called it, "A Visit From St.

Nicholas."

Many artists have illustrated the poem.

Some have been more careful than others in following the text.

T.C.

Boyd's engravings were featured in a book titled Santa Claus , first published in 1848.

Boyd's St.

Nicholas is a wild rogue in a fur hat and knickers.

And although the character is never called "Santa Claus" in the poem, these pictures by Boyd apparently had an influence on later depictions of Santa.

In 1864, the narrative was printed in this unusual toy book fashion, with folding pages.

The color lithography has been attributed to the cartoonist Thomas Nast.

In this version, the right jolly, old elf wears a yellow suit.

Careful reading of the Moore poem shows that he never specifies what color of clothing the peddler like character was wearing.

By 1912, when Jessie Willcox Smith created a picture book version of the poem titled "Twas the Night Before Christmas," the rhyming couplets were already old favorites.

Her pictures emphasized that Moore wrote, "He was dressed all in fur from his head to his foot."

And her St.

Nicholas is obviously a very short elf, when he stands next to the narrator.

Arthur Rackham's illustrations were printed first in 1931, under the title "The Night Before Christmas."

His version of the little old driver, so lively and quick, is dressed all in red, with skinny legs and big feet.

At the end, when Rackham shows the narrator next to St.

Nick, it's apparent that he too saw the Saint as a truly tiny elf.

By 1942, when Everett Shinn published his illustrated edition of the poem, St.

Nicholas had begun to look like the modern Santa Claus.

Shinn included his vision of the creatures who were not stirring, not even the mice in their fork-poster bed.

In 1948, Grandma Moses painted a set of primitive illustrations for the poem, some of which seem unfaithful to the text.

When St.

Nick and his coursers fly up to the housetop, there are still several creatures stirring downstairs.

Tasha Tudor's version of The Night Before Christmas was printed in 1975.

The eight reindeer in her paintings are realistic but tiny, as is St.

Nick, a wee elf not much bigger than a cat.

In 1980, Tomie dePaola created this picture book based on the poem.

His folk art illustrations feature a roly-poly St.

Nick who flies over a New Hampshire town, based on the one where dePaola lives.

In 1981, Greg and Tim Hildebrandt produced yet another version, featuring Santa as a jolly old man in what has become his classic suit.

He may have to take off his mittens to lay his finger aside of his nose.

While some poems, like "A Visit From St.

Nicholas," obviously fit into the category of narrative verse, there are others that don't fit easily into either the lyric or narrative category.

The images in Robert Frost's "Stopping by Woods On a Snowy Evening," for example, seem to suggest a story but the tone of the poem is lyric and contemplative.

In 1978, Susan Jeffers created illustrations to accompany the Frost Poem, and she pictured the narrator character as a man in plaid who happens to look like Santa.

Another type of poetry that doesn't seem to fit distinctly into either the realm of narrative or lyric verse is nonsense poetry.

The Englishman Edward Lear, who published his first Book of Nonsense in 1846, is usually credited with starting a sort of nonsense tradition for children.

He created hundreds of short poems and wrote many limericks as well as comic alphabets, all of which he illustrated with frantic pen and ink drawings.

His invented words, his silly combinations of words, and the rhythms of his lines are still popular with children and illustrators alike.

In 1968, Nancy Ekholm Burkert drew a set of elaborate illustrations for "The Scroobious Pip," a poem which Lear had never bothered to finish.

For this edition, Ogden Nash, a 20th century master of nonsense verse, filled in the few pieces of the poem which Lear had omitted.

Also in 1968, Edward Gorey illustrated Lear's poem called "The Jumblies," about a strange traveling tribe that went to sea in a sieve, they did.

In 1970, Arnold Lobel illustrated Lear's poem called "The New Vestments."

Which is the funny tale of an old man in the kingdom of Tess who invented a purely original dress.

Basically, he wears food instead of fabric, and his clothes are eaten by various beasticles, birdlings, and boys who are attracted by his outrageous garb.

Lear created most of this nonsense poetry for various children, whom he knew.

Many other writers have continued to create outrageous rhymes, with a young audience in mind.

The Danish author-illustrator N. M. Bodecker wrote this volume, titled Let's Marry Said the Cherry and Other Nonsense Poems .

His fine line drawings accompany a variety of limerick like rhymes.

Including this one about the island of rum.

Child #3> The Island of Rum is exceedingly glum.

Except in July, when the butterflies come howling along the butterflies come at the end of July to the island of rum.

Rick> Nonsense verse may not be as simple and silly as it first appears.

Ennis Rees talk briefly about the irony of nonsense.

Ennis> It's very hard to write verse, that's really nonsense.

If you look at it, there's always this pattern of structure and meaning and... something comes out that is meaningful.

If you ask a child or ask yourself, or ask anybody, make me up a sentence of nonsense, you'll notice that it doesn't come out nonsense.

So, it comes out... In a way, that you can make some sense of, that has some meaning.

And... and nonsense verse where that meaning level is, low and the sound, wordplay is high.

They enjoy the sounds and the wordplay and, sufficient meaning, I think comes through to, satisfy the child.

A lot of people would say that very difficult modern poetry is nonsense, but a lot of people like it.

Even before they studied it and understood it well.

Rick> Anybody who wants to enjoy poetry needs only to remember the words of Walter de la Mare, who said, "A poem may have as many different meanings as there are different minds."

Children will listen to poetry even when the meaning of the words isn't perfectly clear.

The English poet Samuel Coleridge once wrote, "Poetry gives much pleasure when only generally and not perfectly understood."

A librarian, or a teacher, or a parent who hopes to make poetry an exciting and pleasurable experience should remember that poems aren't just intellectual exercises.

Ennis> A poem is more like an apple than it is like a... philosophical treatise.

I mean, it's something that has to be experienced physically.

I mean, it's got to be heard, and, it's the sound that counts and the rhythm and so on.

And, you know very well that you can enjoy poetry, that you don't completely understand, intellectually.

I remember loving "The Waste Land" as an undergraduate, and I'm sure I didn't understand half of what I was reading.

And... but I loved reading it over and over until I would really memorize certain parts of it.

And, Oh, "Mother Goose" is that way.

Look at "Mother Goose" and a lot of those rhymes.

They're pretty baffling, a lot of them, as to what they mean.

But the sound is so intriguing, and the rhythm is so much fun that, children will say them over and over.

Rick> Children who like certain poems may ask to hear them over and over again, as well.

Luckily, there are so many different poetry books that you should have little trouble finding ones that you yourself enjoy over and over.

You may want to look for Wallace Tripp's hilarious book of nonsense verse titled A Great Big Ugly Man Came Up And Tied His Horse To Me .

The book is nearly as irresistible as the title.

The poems are mostly traditional anonymous rhymes, illustrated with the high spirited animals that often fill books by Wallace Tripp.

Adult reader> If you are a gentleman, as I suppose you be, you need to laugh nor smile, at the tickling of your knee.

How's that?

Rick> In 1974, Shel Silverstein convinced many people, old and young, that poetry was still a lively art.

When he published his collection of poems and drawings titled Where the Sidewalk Ends.

Silverstein deals with unexpected ideas as well as incredible subjects like the boy who turns into a TV set.

He plays with words and rhymes and a zany set of images.

In 1981, Silverstein published another collection titled A Light In the Attic .

In this book, he again creates the kind of madcap verse that should delight adults as well as kids.

Adult reader #2> And this one's called "The Sitter."

Mrs.

McTwitter, the baby-sitter I think she's a little bit crazy.

She thinks a baby-sitter's supposed to sit upon the baby.

Rick> The silly wit in poems like that can make these rhymes fun for everyone who encounters them.

And while you're in a silly mood, you may want to look through William Cole's selection of poems in the volume titled Oh What Nonsense!

Illustrated by Tomi Ungerer.

The rhymes are a hodgepodge of funny puns, strange situations, and nonsensical ideas by a number of eminent poets.

This verse, titled "A Thousand Hairy Savages," was written by Spike Milligan.

Child reader #2> A thousand hairy savages sitting down to lunch.

Gobble, gobble, gulp, gulp, munch, munch, munch.

Rick> Cats and Bats and Things with Wings is a book of poems about animals.

The verse was written by Conrad Aiken and the drawings were created by Milton Glaser.

It's a big, attractive book that features one animal on each two-page spread.

There are familiar animals who are honored with a poem like this lion and this grasshopper.

But there are also wild, exotic beasts like the mandrill.

Adult reader #3> In the mandrill, unrefined beauty and beast are well combined.

How would you like to have that face to look at in your looking glass?

Would you like that?

Would you like to look like that?

And all the other jungle creatures.

What must they think of those strange features?

And that odd name, the mandrill.

Can it be he hopes to be a man.

But that face won't wash off with soap.

I fear poor mandrill has no hope.

What do you think?

Like that?

Want to hear another one?

Rick> If you're trying to show a child how much fun poetry can be, you may have to take some chances and share some poems that may seem outrageous.

The 20th century Scottish poet Edwin Muir once wrote, "I think that children can be enchanted by any poem which opens their mind to the world of imagination, and it does not matter whether the things they find there are terrifying or delightful.

The more genuine the imaginative quality of a poem, the deeper the enjoyment children will find in it."

Some children who don't find much fun in poems may nonetheless enjoy this collection, called Nightmares Poems to Trouble Your Sleep by Jack Prelutsky, with illustrations by Arnold Lobel.

These are dark, weird, scary poems with vampires, witches, trolls, ogres, and werewolves.

Let's listen to the beginning of "The Ghoul."

Child reader #3> The gruesome ghoul, the grisly ghoul, without the slightest noise, waits patiently beside the school to feast on girls and boys.

He lunges fiercely through the air as they come out to play, then grabs a couple by the hand, drags them far away.

Rick> If you're looking for some silly poems that a young reader can read himself, you may want to look at I Met a Man by John Ciardi, with illustrations by Robert Osborn.

Most of the poems include the title phrase "I met a man."

Some, however, are slight variations.

Like this riddle called "Have You Met This Man?"

Adult reader #4> Have you met this man?

He has no head.

He has no house.

But he stays in bed.

He is not too small.

He is not too big.

He has no arms, but he knows how to dig.

He cannot swim, yet he goes to sea without a boat.

Who can he be?

If he knew how, he would say "I am no other sir, than Mr.

Clam."

Rick> Riddles in verse can be lots of fun.

Introducing a whole new world of cleverness and punning.

One of the most amusing collections of witty rhyming questions is this book by Ennis Rees, with drawings by Quentin Blake.

It's titled Riddles, Riddles Everywhere.

We'd like to close with one of those.

Ennis> Hey diddle diddle, the cat in the fiddle.

Of course, you know what that's in.

But do you know, says this little riddle, When beef was the highest it's been.

And the cow jumped over the moon.

♪ ♪ ♪