Curious about Poetry

 

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Ada, Alma Flora and F. Isabel Compoy. Yes! We Are Latinos: Poems and Prose about the Latino Experience. Illustrated by David Diaz. Charlesbridge, 2016. 96 pages. LP: $19.87, ISBN-13: 978-1580893831. Grade Level: 5-6.

Thirteen poems form the core of this poetry collection, each one introducing the reader to a young person including "My Name is Juanita," or "My name is José Miguel," each from a different place and all Latino. The book begins with an explanation of what makes someone Latino--family origins in Latin America or the Caribbean--and the voices of the poems come from these varied geographies. These poems tell a cohesive story of a diaspora of young Latino voices all settling in North America and striving to understand, appreciate, and explain to others their culture. Each is followed by short essays which dive deeper into the themes raised in the verses.

In "My Name is Juanita. I am Mexican. I Live in New York. I am Latina," we follow Juanita through an ordinary, yet extraordinary, autumn morning. As she walks to her school in New York, Juanita remembers the always-green hills, the cobblestone streets, and the flowers of her home town in Mexico. Flowers become a metaphor for the lively, happy friend group of Rosa, Maria, Elena and Lupe, all blooming, all bright and happy, now all left behind.

The poem goes on to contrast this lively Mexican neighborhood with her cold and lonely walk to her school in America:

Finally the long sidewalk

splattered with brown leaves

brings me to the door of this new school

where my language, my sweet Mixtec,

is a secret language

that no one in this school

even suspects exists.

Juanita's well-meaning teacher speaks Spanish with her, but her home and heart language is the indigenous Mixtec, older and unrelated to Spanish. But a surprise awaits: Elena, one of her friends from home, recently migrated, has come to join her class! Finally, Juanita has someone to share memories of her home town with, and someone to speak Mixtec with. After the poem, the authors explain the indigenous roots of Latinos and the importance of indigenous languages to the diaspora.

Yes! We Are Latinos contains black and white block prints throughout to complement the poems and prose. Amongst the explanation about indigenous roots, this print depicts a meeting between the colonizers and native peoples:

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Told from a child's perspective, revealing the every day joys and frustrations of being an immigrant from Latin America, these poems can resonate with young readers whether they see themselves, their neighbors or their friends in them. The rich diversity of Latino Americans is presented, their nuanced cultures and heroic histories celebrated. Taken together with the explanations which accompany each poem, this collection is perfect for a middle grade and middle school library.

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Brooks, Gwendolyn. Bronzeville Boys and Girls. Illustrated by Faith Ringgold. Harper Collins Publishers, 1956. 48 pages. LP: $16.99, ISBN: 9780064437721. Ages 4-8.

Timmy and Tawanda

It is a marvelous thing and all

When aunts and uncles come to call,

For when our kin arrive (all dressed,

On Sunday, in their Sunday-best)

We two are almost quite forgot!

We two are free to plan and plot.

"Timmy and Tawanda" is the third of Gwendolyn Brooks' 34 poems, each of which introduces the reader to one or more children from Chicago's Bronzeville neighborhood. Using traditional end rhyme and painting a picture of staid decorum ("all dressed, On Sunday, in their Sunday-best") juxtaposed with happy abandon (" free to plan and plot"!), this poem simply sings of the freedom of a mostly-unrestricted Sunday afternoon. All these brief, rhyming, musical, colorful poems bring a reader right to childhood, its fun and its sadnesses, through the special lens of a child. Nothing seems to have faded with time, though Brooks published Bronzeville Boys and Girls in the middle of the last century. Complementing and uplifting these bouncy poems are Faith Ringgold's bold, bright illustrations:

Image Source: author's

Here are Timmy and Tawanda and their equally excited dog, plotting, planning, kicking the ball straight toward grown kin in their Sunday best. 

The children in Brooks' poems are also thoughtful and insightful--realizing that the excitement of moving away from Bronzeville is tempered by leaving one's friends in "Maurice," that a beloved pet won't judge you when you cry in "Vern," and that hiding disappointment about a frugal Christmas from your dad is a kindness in "Otto". In these and other poems, Brooks shows a respect and empathy for her child readers and listeners. Life is not always rosy, hard times can come but also go. She ends this beautiful collection with "The Admiration of Willie," whose realization that grown ups can be okay leaves the reader with a sense of comfort:

Grown folks are wise

About tying ties

And baking cakes

and chasing aches,

Building walls

and finding balls

and making planes

and cars and trains--

And kissing children into bed

After their prayers are said.

Image Source: author's

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Nye, Naomi Shihab. The Flag of Childhood: Poems from the Middle East. Aladdin Paperbacks, 1998. 112 pages. LP: $8.99, ISBN: 9780689851728. Ages 8-12.

Naomi Shihab Nye compiled these 60 poems from authors who live throughout the Middle East including in Iraq, Palestine, Egypt, and Israel. First published in 1998, her view that these poems can help readers "...empathize with distant situations and sorrows and joys" is if anything, even more applicable in today's world. Poetry, she says, "gives us a deeper sense of reality than headlines and news stories ever could."

These are eclectic, evocative poems that vary in tone, length, and style. Common through most of them is a sadness, a longing for something lost, a wish to be somewhere else:

The Train of the Stars by Abdul-Raheem Saleh al-Raheem

The night is a train that passes,

Up on my house I watch it

Its eyes smile to me.

The night is a train that passes,

Carrying moons and stars

Clouds, flowers, 

Seas and rivers that run.

The night is a train that passes, 

I wish, oh, how I wish!

I could take it one day:

It would take me away, 

To see where it's going.

Oh, where's that train going?

Evaluating a poem in translation is tricky because we don't know how beautifully the sounds, the rhythm, the deeper meaning of the words might work together in the original language. But even keeping in mind what might have been lost in translation, this poem can speak to a young reader. Imagery shines through clearly: the smiling night, the moons and stars. The metaphor of night as a train evokes the movement of these celestial bodies across the sky as the night goes on. Each repetition of the title line reinforces the idea of time passing. And most urgent are the concluding lines--the author longs to take that train, take it away from their current reality.

Another short and deeply moving poem is:

My Brother by Mohammed Affif Hussaini

His hair was light-colored

He went to bed early

And woke up early

One day he quietly went away

Just like he arrived--quietly

          He was my brother.

Simple and spare, this poem says everything without any unnecessary words. Hussaini's poem radiates sadness in each line, in the repetition of "early" and "quietly", and especially in the final line. 

Unlike Ada's collection Yes! We are Latinos reviewed above, Nye's poems are compiled from many sources and she leaves them to stand alone. While they shine on their own, for young readers or anyone coming to this book with less awareness of which names and terms go with which cultures and lands, a little background for each poem, right before or after each, could be helpful. Nye doesn't have to give the reader the same detailed paragraphs as Ada does--even just a line about where each author is from, maybe a line or two about the details of their countries, could help set these poems in context. It's understandable that Nye may want to emphasize the commonalities among all the authors regardless of country, religion, or culture. She may also wish to not fix the poems in a particular time or space, beyond the broader Middle East. The title of this collection, The Flag of Childhood, itself testifies to a desire to break out of country-and-religion-specific jingoism and embrace the commonalities of childhood. However, for young readers to understand and more closely empathize with each poem, context can help.

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Salas, Laura Purdie. Lion of the Sky: Haiku for All Seasons. Illustrated by Mercè López. Lerner Publishing Group, 2019. 32 pages. LP: $19.99, ISBN: 978-1-5124-9809-7. Kindergarten through grade 3.

All elements work together to make this picture book of haiku poems appealing. Haiku is a Japanese form of typically unrhymed poetry of three lines. The first line has 5 syllables, the second has 7, and the final line has 5.  These short and sweet poems, one per page, are organized into sections by the seasons and each one is a riddle for example:

Image Source: author's

fire in our bellies, 

we FLICKER-FLASH in twilight--

rich meadow of stars

This poem occurs in the section on summer, and while it may not be hard for adults or older children to guess that Salas is referring to fireflies, young children will be captivated by the riddling element. Twilight, when fireflies are most active, is gorgeously evoked by López's soft illustration mixing, perhaps, pastels and water colors. The nature of their glow is perfectly captured by Salas' words as well--the "flicker flash" of their bellies. Children will listen to or read the haikus, look at the pictures, and from both be able to come up with answers to the riddles, reinforcing traditional and visual literacy.

At the end of the book, Salas explains more about Riddle-kus as she calls them, defines some terms, provides an answer key to each page, and invites young readers to make their own riddle-kus. In this way Lion of the Sky is not only a poetic treat for the eyes and ears, it provides a fun, built-in poetry lesson for teachers and storytellers.