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Section one, What do poems do? ; Part one, Make you smile : Crunchy / Max Fatchen -- Commas / Douglas Florian -- My mother took me skating / Jack Prelutsky -- Learning / Judith Viorst -- There was a man / Dennis Lee -- Algy / Anonymous -- Ceiling / Theodore Roethke -- Miss McGillicuddy / Mary Ann Hoberman -- Knitted things / Karla Kuskin -- Getting together / N.M. Bodecker. |
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Part two, Tell stories : Peanut sat on a railroad track / Anonymous -- Knowlegeable child / L.A.G. Strong -- Purist / Ogden Nash -- What happened to Lulu? / Charles Causley -- Coyote blue / Judith Mountain-Leaf Volborth -- But only the breeze -- / Constance Levy -- Outlaw / Felice Holman -- Story that could be true / William Stafford -- Mummy slept late and daddy fixed breakfast / John Ciardi -- John Henry / Anonymous. |
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Part three, Send messages : Before starting / Walker Gibson -- Smokescreen / Charles Ghigna -- Subway rush hour / Langston Hughes -- Golf links / Sarah N. Cleghorn -- Spctacular / Lilian Moore -- Childhood / Frances Cornford -- Poor / Myra Cohn Livingston -- Raccoon / Kenneth Rexroth -- Landscape / Eve Merriam -- Word is dead / Emily Dickinson -- Oh, God of dust and rainbows / Langston Hughes -- Time to plant trees / James Hayford. |
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Part four, Share feelings : Christmas morning i / Carol Freeman -- And stands there sighing / Elizabeth Coatsworth -- My brother / Bobbi Katz -- Leave me alone / Felice Holman -- Look out! / Max Fatchen -- Zimmer in grade school / Paul Zimmer -- Losing face / Janet S. Wong -- The 1st / Lucille Clifton -- Listening to grownups qurreling / Ruth Whitman -- Hide and seek / Robert Graves -- Hurt doe / Emanuel diPasquale -- Historic moment / William J. Harris -- Country school / Ted Kooser -- While I slept / Robert Francis. |
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Part five, Help you understand people : People / Charlotte Zolotow -- Puerto Ricans in New York / Charles Reznikoff -- Narcissa / Gwendolyn Brooks -- Knowing one / Jean Little -- Park people / Karama Fufuka -- Myrtle / Ted Kooser -- Two people / Eve Merriam -- Mama's bouquets / Ashley Bryan -- My mother / Valeris Worth -- Dad / Janet S. Wong -- Sundays / Paul B. Janeczko -- grandmother / Ray A. Young Bear. |
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Part six, Start you wondering : Magnet / Valerie Worth -- Key ring / Virginia Hamilton Adair -- Magical mouse / Kenneth Patchen -- Daniel Boone / Stephen Vincent Benét -- White horse / D.H. Lawrence -- Child on the shore / Ursula K. LeGuin -- Boat / Richard Brautigan -- Winter song / Dennis Lee -- Green candles / Humbert Wolfe -- Old stone house / Walter de la Mare. |
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Section two, What's inside a poem? ; Part one, Images : Good hot dogs / Sandra Cisneros -- My fingers / Mary O'Neill -- September / John Updike -- Bull snake rattle / Barbara Juster Esbensen -- Surprise / Richard Brautigan -- Waiting for the storm / Timothy Steele -- Snowy benches / Aileen Fisher -- Peach / Rose Rauter -- Spruce woods / A.R. Ammons -- Runner / Walt Whitman -- This is a night / Elizabeth Coatsworth -- Earthy anecdote / Wallace Stevens. |
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Part two, Word music : Winter ocean / John Updike -- Saying Dante aloud / James Wright -- Flittermice / Patricia Hubbell -- Skaters / John Gould Fletcher -- Rain / Emanuel diPasquale -- Julius Caesar / Anonymous -- Pickety fence / David McCord -- Mice are nice / N.M. Bodecker -- My old cat / Hal Summers -- Stories / J. Patrick Lewis -- Analysis of baseball / May Swenson -- Football / Walt Mason. |
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Part three, Beats that repeat : We real cool / Gwendolyn Brooks -- Ostrich is a silly bird / Mary E. Wilkins Freeman -- Windy nights / Robert Louis Stevenson -- Windy nights / Robert Bennett -- Windshield wiper / Eve Merriam -- I am Rose / Gertrude Stein -- Canis Major / Robert Frost -- Paleface / James Hayford -- Opposite of kite, I'd say / Richard Wilbur -- My half / Florence parry Heide and Roxanne Heide Pierce -- Blackberry sweet / Dudley Randall -- Triolet aganist sisters / Phyllis McGinley. |
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Part four, Likenesses : Fireflies / J. Patrick Lewis -- Porch light / Deborah Chandra -- Child frightened by a thunderstorm / Ted Kooser -- House-wreckers / Charles Reznikoff -- Wind and silver / Amy Lowell -- Dreams / Langston Hughes -- stars / Nikki Giovanni -- Epigram engraved on the collar of a dog / Alexander Pope -- Horses of the sea / Christina Rossetti -- Eagle / Alfred, Lord Tennyson -- Splinter / Carl Sandburg -- Dry winter / Jane Kenyon -- Spill / Judith Thurman -- Wind / James Stephens. |
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Part five, Word play : Sing me a song of teapots and trumpets / N.M. Bodecker -- in Just- / e.e. cummings -- My auntie / Colin West -- Plant life / Alan Benjamin -- Song of the pop-bottlers / Morris Bishop -- Chess nut / Charles Ghigna -- Crickets / Myra Cohn Livingston -- Did you eever, iver, over? / Anonymous -- Auk talk / Mary Ann Hoberman -- Notice to myself / Eve Merriam -- I wave good-bye when butter flies / Jack Prelutsky. |
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Section 3, Special kinds of poetry ; Part one, Limericks : Bridge engineer, Mr. Crumpett / Anonymous -- There was an old person of Skye / Edward Lear -- Well, it's partly the shape of the thing / Anonymous -- How akward while playing with glue / Constance Levy -- April fool / John Ciardi -- Piggish young person from Leeds / Anonymous -- There was a young lady from Lynn / Anonymous -- There was a young lady named Rose / William Jay Smith -- There was a young lady of Twickenham / Oliver Herford -- There was an old man from Peru / Anonymous -- Blessèd Lord, what it is to by young / David McCrod. |
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Part two, Takeoffs : Twinkle, twinkle, little bat! / Lewis Carroll -- This is just to say / William Carlos Williams -- Variations on a theme by William Carlos Williams / Kenneth Koch -- Clementine / Anonymous -- In a cavern, in a canyon / Paul Dehn -- Sing a song of sixpence / Anonymous -- Sing a song of subways / Eve Merriam -- Wee four lads / Anonymous. |
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Part three, Songs : Riddle song / Anonymous -- I had a little nut tree / Anonymous -- On top of old Smoky / Anonymous -- Blowin' in the wind / Bob Dylan. |
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Part four, Show-and-spell poems : Dancing bear / Rachel Field -- You can talk about your hummingbirds / Arnold Adoff -- Sidewalk racer / Lillian Morrison -- waterwheels in whirl / Ian Hamilton Finlay -- Fury said to a mouse / Lewis Carroll -- Seashells / Douglas Florian -- For a quick exit / Norma Farber -- Concrete cat / Dorthi Charles -- HANDSAWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWW / Richard Lebovitz. |
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Part five, Finders-keepers poems : GATE / Anonymous -- Yield / Ronald Gross -- Lake was covered all over / Dorothy Wordsworth -- 4-way stop / Myra Cohn Livingston -- Genuine poem, found on a blackboard in a bowling alley in Story City, Iowa / Ted Kooser. |
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Part six, Haiku : Ancient pool / Bashō (trans. by Olivia Gray) -- Bantam rooster / Kikaku (trans. by harry Behn) -- Now the swing is still / Nicholas Virgilio -- out after dark / Penny Harter -- midnight sirens / Penny Harter -- Tunnel / Sylvia Cassedy -- Green cockleburs / Richard Wright -- After weeks of watching the roof leak / Gary Snyder -- Bang! the starter's gun / Dorthi Charles -- August / J. Patrick Lewis. |
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Section 4, Do it yourself; Part one, Writing your own poems. Part two, Ideas : Teddy bear, teddy bear, turn around / Anonymous -- Rope rhyme / Eloise Greenfield -- That old haunted house / Judith Viorst -- On the one-ton temple bell Bashō (trans. by Olivia Gray) -- Do it yourself / Joan Aiken. Part three, Afterword to adults. |
| Abstract |
A collection of poems arranged in such categories as poems that make you smile, send messages, or share feelings; poems that contain "beats that repeat" or "word play"; and special kinds of poems such as limericks, songs, and haiku. |
| General note | Includes indexes. |
| LCCN | 98021572 |
| ISBN | 0316484369 (hc) |
| ISBN | 9780316484367 (hc) |
| ISBN | 0316488003 (pb) |
| ISBN | 9780316488006 (pb) |
