#60 in an ongoing series of posts celebrating the alphabet
Any poet who so jubilantly sings the praises of the letter A is a poet after my own heart.
from Alphabet by Paul Thurlby (2011)
THE LETTER A
by Darren Sardelli
The letter A is awesome!
It's arguably the best.
Without an A, you could not get
an A+ on a test.
You’d never see an acrobat
or eat an apple pie.
You couldn’t be an astronaut
or kiss your aunt goodbye.
An antelope would not exist.
An ape would be unknown.
You’d never hear a person
say “Afraid” or “All Alone”.
The A’s in avocado
would completely disappear
and certain words would be forgot
like “ankle”, “arm”, and “ear”.
Without the A, you couldn’t aim
an arrow in the air.
You wouldn’t ask for apricots
or almonds at a fair.
Aruba and Australia
would be missing from a map.
You’d never use an ATM,
an apron, or an app.
The arctic fox and aardvark
would be absent from the zoo,
and vowels, as you know them,
would be E, I, O, and U.
There wouldn’t be an A chord
on the instruments you play.
Let’s appreciate, admire,
and applaud the letter A!
~ Reprinted from Blast Off! (The School Magazine, 2016), posted by permissionof the author.
How fun to consider some of the marvelous things we’d miss in the absence of A!
Please help yourself to a friendly cup of hot chocolate and a yummy cookie. If you’ve been extra good this week, take two. 🙂
I think many of you would agree that October is the best autumn month. September can be a little too warm, the vestiges of summer dragging its feet, while November can have its grey, gloomy moments, inviting melancholy. Once we’re past Thanksgiving and rushing headlong into December, we’ve switched into holiday shopping mode, which doesn’t feel autumnal at all.
But October? Peak color, chipper mornings, deep blue skies, the anticipation of Halloween. Kids are happy in October dunking for apples, carving pumpkins, and fulfilling their wishes to dress up as anyone or any thing as they go trick-or-treating.
This month I was happy to discover Jeffrey Bean, a new-to-me Michigan poet who’s written a series of direct address poems beginning with “Kid, this is . . . “
Try this one on for size.
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“Autumn’s Window” by Loré Pemberton
KID, THIS IS OCTOBER,
you can make the maples blaze
just by stopping to look,
you can set your clock to the barks
of geese. Somewhere the grandfathers
who own this town lean down to iron
crisp blue shirts, their faces bathing
in steam, and blackbirds
clamor in packs,
make plans behind corn.
You know this,
you were born whistling
at crackling stars, you snap
your fingers and big turtles
slide out of rivers to answer.
You can swim one more time
in the puddle of sun
in your water glass, taste icicles
already in the white crunch
of your lunch apple. Go
to sleep. I’ll put on my silver suit
and chase the sky into the moon.
~ from The Missouri Review, February 2016
via Madison Safer
About this poem, Jeffrey says:
One thing I love about being a parent is the way it wakes me up to the sensory details of the world. As a father of a five-year-old, I find myself trying to see through my daughter’s eyes, and in doing so I pay even more attention than usual to corn, turtles, flocks of blackbirds, maples, apples, water, etc., noticing the beauty as well as the strangeness in these things. In the series of “kid” poems from which “Kid, this is October” comes, I like the way the mode of direct address allows the father-speaker to catalog many such details in the form of advice, encouragement, pseudo-fables, or, in the case of this poem, as a kind of lullaby. He wants the kid to open up to the world as much as possible and he also wants the kid to go to sleep, which pretty much sums up my experiences with parenthood so far. What has been most interesting to me in writing these poems is the way it puts me in touch with my own childhood. It has made me realize how crucial imagination has been in my life as a kid and how crucial it continues to be in my life as a father.
It’s the same world, but we all see, hear, and feel it differently thanks to the mind’s eye. That’s our human super power, but often we need children to remind us of it.
And now, Kid, This is Mr. Linky. Feed him your poetic goodness. 🙂
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Enjoy your meanderings around the blogosphere, engage in a little fall folderol this weekend, and have a Happy Halloween next Sunday.
Help yourself to a treat.Caramel, anyone?Thanks for joining us!
Have you ever received a cryptic message, only to spend the next few minutes trying to figure out what it actually means?
D.C. area poet Kim Roberts received a text from her housemate that inspired her to write this witty, intriguing poem. So much depends on the sender . . . and what the receiver wants to hear. 🙂
“Still Life with Apple II” by Jos Van Riswick(oil on panel)
POMOLOGY
by Kim RobertsI will eat the apple
read Stephen’s note this morning.
He is volunteering to play Eve.
He wrote, I will eat the apple
—but there are no apples in the house.
We have no lascivious Honeycrisp,
no bonny Braeburn, no upright Baldwin.
We’re out of spry Granny Smiths,
the skulking Northern Spy,
or the mysterious Pink Lady.
Stephen does have an Adam’s apple
and I have an Apple computer,
but you can’t compare apples and oranges.
The note said, I will eat the apple.
Perhaps Stephen’s chasing out the doctors.
Perhaps he’s not falling far from the tree.
Or he’s already eaten from the tree of knowledge:
in Latin, malum means both apple
and evil. I think Stephen is sending a warning.
He means, I will protect you.
He writes, I will eat the apple.
~ Originally published in Poem-a-Day, August 2017 by the Academy of American Poets
“Adam and Eve” by Edvard Munch (1909)
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“Apples in a Basket” by Levi Wells Prentice(oil on canvas)
This is just to say, I’m happy Kim figured out what Stephen was trying to tell her, but . . . what if the sender had been one of mypoet friends? What were they really trying to tell me?
I will eat the apple (we seem to be out of plums) ~ William Carlos Williams
I will eat the apple (I have had too much of apple-picking) ~ Robert Frost
I will eat the apple (peaches are too risky) ~ T.S. Eliot
I will eat the apple (that is all ye need to know) ~ John Keats
I will eat the apple (to peel or not to peel, that is the question) ~ Shakespeare
I will eat the apple (judge tenderly of me) ~ Emily Dickinson
I will eat the apple (a man and a woman and an apple are one) ~ Wallace Stevens
I will eat the apple (a strain of the Earth’s sweet being in the beginning in Eden’s garden) ~ Gerard Manley Hopkins
I will eat the apple (be astonished and tell about it) ~ Mary Oliver
I will eat the apple (to follow my inner moonlight) ~ Allen Ginsberg
I will eat the apple (like a complete unknown)~ Bob Dylan
I will (not only)eat (but hold in my heart) the apple – E. E. Cummings
Now, when Mr Cornelius writes, I will eat the apple,
I know he actually means, I will eat the apple galette.
“Everything in nature is a wonderful miracle!/Isn’t the little bird flying through the big sky a miracle?” ~ Amma
Walk barefoot in the sand and curl your toes in the water. Listen to the “winging, singing, whispery sounds” of earth’s creatures. Marvel at a ballet of butterflies, a sky full of stars. Feel the cool air after a fresh rain.
For Every Little Thing: Poems and Prayers to Celebrate the Day (Eerdmans BFYR, 2021), is a joyous love letter to the world and all we hold dear within it, truly a wonderful way to acknowledge nature’s vast bounty of gifts as well as the friends and family who sustain us.
With about 70 child friendly selections carefully curated by June Cotner and Nancy Tupper Ling, this beautifully illustrated inspirational anthology features 51 diverse voices affirming the spiritual rewards of being present and expressing gratitude for wonders large and small.
Young readers are treated to untold delights from morning to night — ordinary moments throughout the day that happily and surprisingly warrant celebration.
How marvelous to wake up with sloppy puppy kisses, greet the sun that’s bouncing on the bedroom wall like a yellow beach ball, and feel God’s presence everywhere, especially within ourselves. It’s empowering to know that as we experience the world through our own personal lenses, we’re validating our place in it.
MY BEAUTIFUL DAY
by Marion Schoeberlein
I borrowed a poem from the sky,
and music from a bird,
I stole a chime out of the wind,
and from the rose a word,
I borrowed a song from the hills,
a psalm from the silver rain,
I took the footsteps of angels
out of a cobbled lane,
from each little thing I fashioned
something in my own way,
with God's help I put in my heart
a wonderful, beautiful day!
Simple, accessible language and an abundance of sensory details engage readers throughout the book, encouraging them to slow down, look closer, savor, and appreciate. Whether a charming two-line snippet of wisdom or a lyrical five stanza blessing, there’s a welcome positivity and reassurance in the soul nourishing words.
To whet your appetite, wrap your lips around the title poem:
Hard-Boiled Bugs for Breakfast
Hard-boiled bugs for breakfast,
Hard-boiled bugs for lunch,
Hard-boiled bugs at suppertime,
Crunchy! Crunchy! Crunch!
Hard-boiled bugs are tastier
Than spiders, flies, or slugs.
There’s not a doubt about it --
I love those hard-boiled bugs.
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Pretty tasty as long as you don’t get bug legs stuck in your teeth. 😀
Whether you’re a seasoned Prelutsky fan or a curious nibbler with an uncanny appetite for riotous rhymes, inventive wordplay, and preposterously punny poems, this chewy collection of over 100 verses is for you.
Don’t get me wrong. It’s not all about food. Though there’s a respectable smorgasbord of kooky cuisine, kids will find oodles of other subjects infused with Prelutsky’s signature whackadoodle humor to get them giggling and nodding their heads in recognition — poems about faking illness to skip school, lamenting homework, growing light bulbs in a garden, being allergic to your pets, being forgetful or a chronic complainer, even cautionary quips about squeezing electric eels or being carried away by giant bubble gum (there’s a giant Easter Bunny too).
Animals, real and imaginary, also get their fair share of the spotlight. Consider a lizard who can play the mandolin, an inch-tall, pink-tinted purple-dotted elephant who can tie her trunk in knots and play the violin with her tail, a giraffe that gives voice lessons, or a horse that floats in the air. Who wouldn’t love to have any of these pets?
Jama's Alphabet Soup 