Poetry Friday - When I was Very Young

Personal Journeys Through A.A. Milne's Poetry
When I was very young, I was presented with two slim volumes of poetry by A.A. Milne by a maiden cousin I called, Aunt Charlotte.

She was very much like Gone With The Wind's Aunt Pittipat and she was very sweet to me.

The volumes were. When I Was Very Young and Now We Are Six. They represent the poetry inspired by A.A. Milne's son, Christopher Robin, and his friends.

Nearly 50 years after the gift, I still reread the poetry; they strike a chord with me. At the time they were written, they reflected childhood innocence and introspection. Most of the poems are deceptive as they are far more sophisticated than one would expect.

In my future posts, I'll share something personal connected to one of the poems.

Today, I think I'll start with one of his lesser-known poems, but one that describes the idyllic weeks I spent at my Aunt Hopie's (Charlotte's sister) summer home, Cove Cottage at Gloucester Banks, on the banks of the York River in Virginia. My father and I used to go down to the beach (the river is an estuary and we were very near Chesapeake Bay, so there was a beach) to take walks and gather crabs and clams. The wind could be fierce and I remember seeing whitecaps on the water.

Aunt Charlotte had inscribed a personal message on the page of this poem:

Sand Between the Toes

I went down to the shouting sea,
Taking Christopher down with me,
For Nurse had given us sixpence each-
And down we went to the beach.

We had sand in the eyes and the ears and the nose,
And sand in the hair, and sand-between-the-toes.
Whenever a good nor'wester blows,
Christopher is certain of
Sand-between-the-toes.


The sea was galloping grey and white;
Christopher clutched his sixpence tight;
We clambered over the humping sand-
And Christopher held my hand.

We had sand in the eyes and the ears and the nose,
And sand in the hair, and sand-between-the-toes.
Whenever a good nor'wester blows,
Christopher is certain of
Sand-between-the-toes.


There was a roaring in the sky;
The sea-gulls cried as they blew by;
We tried to talk, but had to shout-
Nobody else was out.

When we got home, we had sand in the hair,
In the eyes and the ears and everywhere;
Whenever a good nor'wester blows,
Christopher is found with
Sand-between-the-toes.


****************************************

Visit more Poetry Friday participants at A Wrung Sponge
Past Post: Poetry for School and Soul: Growing Up With Poetry

It's Spring!

Chansons Innocentes: I
by E. E. Cummings
in Just- spring when the world is mud- luscious the little lame balloonman whistles far and wee and eddieandbill come running from marbles and piracies and it's spring when the world is puddle-wonderful the queer old balloonman whistles far and wee and bettyandisbel come dancing from hop-scotch and jump-rope and it's spring and the goat-footed balloonMan whistles far and wee

Figure It Out Friday #6 - Portland Head Light, Lafayette & Longfellow

Here's the answer to Figure It Out Friday #6

I thought this would be simpler;

Quite frankly I was astounded that no one recognized Henry Wadsworth Longfellow or Lafayette! Perhaps I should have shown the older Longfellow and the younger Lafayette, but I thought showing Lafayette as a mature man would be better, after all, a full length portrait of him as he appeared in 1824 hangs in the United States House of Representative chamber! I wasn't sure though, that anyone would have recognized Longfellow as a young man without his beard! (The reason for the beard is a tragic story. I've given some sites at the end that you can consult about that.)

What they had in common was the Portland Head Light lighthouse in South Portland, ME in 1825. (I had posted 1824 as a clue since that was the date Lafayette arrived in the US.)

Portland Head Light on Cape Elizabeth is perhaps the most photographed lighthouse in the world and one of my personal favorite places to visit. (I have taken several Quebec City-bound bus tours that I picked up in Boston on unannounced side excursions to see it and then had lunch in Portland..)

Now here is the connection:

Portland Head Light

In 1797 George Washington directed that four lighthouses be built and Portland Light was one of these. He directed that masons build these lighthouses of rubblestone because the government was poor and the materials were to be taken from fields and shores. Because the Federal government was being formed, it looked as if the lighthouses would never be built, however, Alexander Hamilton did eventually authorize appropriations and work could be resumed. The engineers and masons took four years, but Portland Head Light was completed in 1790 and it was first lighted with Whale oil on January 10, 1791. Portland Head Light still stands as one of the first four lighthouses in the United States,. None of them have ever had to be rebuilt. It has remained a source of pride for the citizens of the Portland area as well as Maine.

The light was an imposing and beautiful sight and attracted a number of visitors to it on the rocky Maine promontory overlooking Casco Bay and Portland. It is a romantic vision that juxtaposes the steadfastness of the tower at the edge of treacherous rocks, against capricious weather, and somewhat violent tides. The storms in that area are of legendary proportion; there are many stories and legends of shipwrecks and lives lost.

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

It was this romantic view that compelled a resident of Portland to write poetry and inspired a poem written over thirty years later. Young Henry Wadsworth Longfellow was born in Portland in 1807 . While he loved his city, he spent a great deal of time walking to the lighthouse and yearning for the chance to follow its beam of light to distant shores.

In 1822, he entered Bowdoin College in Brunswick, ME where he met a classmate named Nathaniel Hawthorne, who was to become a lifelong friend; they graduated together.

Lafayette

In February of 1824, the United States by Presidential (James Monroe) and Congressional Proclamation invited Citizen Lafayette to tour the country he helped to create as a nineteen year old officer. Since he had lost most of his inheritance (and title( as a result of the French Revolution, Congress appropriated $200,000 dollars and a township of land to reward him for his patriotism. In addition to that, American citizens were to raise money through subscriptions in order to lavishly to entertain him with feasts, receptions, parades, and other tributes. The culmination of his visit was a reenactment of the Battle of Bunker Hill (Breed's Hill) on its 50th anniversary. Several states extended citizenship to him and his male heirs, thus becoming a citizen of the United States*.

He initially arrived in New York City on August 24, 1824 and spent the next sixteen months spending time with old friends like Thomas Jefferson and touring virtually everyplace in the United States including Maine in June of 1825.

It was at that time that Henry Wadsworth Longfellow crossed paths with Lafayette, who was on his way to visit Portland Head Light.

Lafayette arrived in the United States a poor man, but on December 7, 1825, he returned home a wealthy, honored, and appreciated one

In 1826. Longfellow realized his dream to visit Europe ; he spent three years there and was to become a world traveler. He eventually became America’s uncrowned Poet Laureate.

The first poem below, by Longfellow, probably was inspired by Portland Head Light. it was written in 1837. The second, in my opinion, describes the lives of these two great men.

The Lighthouse
by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

The rocky ledge runs far into the sea,
and on its outer point, some miles away,
the lighthouse lifts its massive masonry,
A pillar of fire by night, of cloud by day.

Even at this distance I can see the tides,
Upheaving, break unheard along its base,
A speechless wrath, that rises and subsides
in the white tip and tremor of the face.

And as the evening darkens, lo! how bright,
through the deep purple of the twilight air,
Beams forth the sudden radiance of its light,
with strange, unearthly splendor in the glare!

No one alone: from each projecting cape
And perilous reef along the ocean’s verge,
Starts into life a dim, gigantic shape,
Holding its lantern o’er the restless surge.

Like the great giant Christopher it stands
Upon the brink of the tempestuous wave,
Wading far out among the rocks and sands,
The night o’er taken mariner to save.

And the great ships sail outward and return
Bending and bowing o’er the billowy swells,
And ever joyful, as they see it burn
They wave their silent welcome and farewells.

They come forth from the darkness, and their sails
Gleam for a moment only in the blaze,
And eager faces, as the light unveils
Gaze at the tower, and vanish while they gaze.

The mariner remembers when a child,
on his first voyage, he saw it fade and sink
And when returning from adventures wild,
He saw it rise again o’er ocean’s brink.

Steadfast, serene, immovable, the same,
Year after year, through all the silent night
Burns on forevermore that quenchless flame,
Shines on that inextinguishable light!

It sees the ocean to its bosom clasp
The rocks and sea-sand with the kiss of peace:
It sees the wild winds lift it in their grasp,
And hold it up, and shake it like a fleece.

The startled waves leap over it; the storm
Smites it with all the scourges of the rain,
And steadily against its solid form
press the great shoulders of the hurricane.

The sea-bird wheeling round it, with the din
of wings and winds and solitary cries,
Blinded and maddened by the light within,
Dashes himself against the glare, and dies.

A new Prometheus, chained upon the rock,
Still grasping in his hand the fire of love,
it does not hear the cry, nor heed the shock,
but hails the mariner with words of love.

“Sail on!” it says: “sail on, ye stately ships!”
And with your floating bridge the ocean span;
Be mine to guard this light from all eclipse.
Be yours to bring man nearer unto man.

A PSALM OF LIFE

WHAT THE HEART OF THE YOUNG MAN
SAID TO THE PSALMIST

Tell me not, in mournful numbers,
Life is but an empty dream ! —
For the soul is dead that slumbers,
And things are not what they seem.

Life is real ! Life is earnest!
And the grave is not its goal ;
Dust thou art, to dust returnest,
Was not spoken of the soul.

Not enjoyment, and not sorrow,
Is our destined end or way ;
But to act, that each to-morrow
Find us farther than to-day.

Art is long, and Time is fleeting,
And our hearts, though stout and brave,
Still, like muffled drums, are beating
Funeral marches to the grave.

In the world's broad field of battle,
In the bivouac of Life,
Be not like dumb, driven cattle !
Be a hero in the strife !

Trust no Future, howe'er pleasant !
Let the dead Past bury its dead !
Act,— act in the living Present !
Heart within, and God o'erhead !

Lives of great men all remind us
We can make our lives sublime,
And, departing, leave behind us
Footprints on the sands of time ;

Footprints, that perhaps another,
Sailing o'er life's solemn main,
A forlorn and shipwrecked brother,
Seeing, shall take heart again.

Let us, then, be up and doing,
With a heart for any fate ;
Still achieving, still pursuing,
Learn to labor and to wait.

HAPPY 200^th , Henry!

Note:

* Sir Winston Churchill was the first to gain US citizenship through Presidential and Congressional proclamation)

Educational Tours and Family Holidays:

As this is a blog dedicated to educational student tours, naturally, I would like to urge you, your families, and students to visit Portland Head Light, Portland, Bowdoin College, Harvard, and all the other sights related to Henry Wadsworth Longfellow's 200th birthday. Two of my groups this year will be dining at Longfellow's Wayside Inn at Sudbury, MA after a literary tour of Concord concentrating on the Alcotts and Nathaniel Hawthorne. The Wayside Inn was where Longfellow wrote, Tales of a Wayside Inn which included the very famous, Midnight Ride of Paul Revere. The references contained in the body of the post as well as below will have visitors' information and educational programs.

References and Further Research:

Lafayette in America

Excerpt from a journal immediately before Layfayette departed for Portland

Tributes to Lafayette Idzerda, Stanley J. Lafayette: Hero of Two Worlds: The Art and Pageantry of His Farewell Tour of America, 1824–1825: Flushing, N.Y.: Queens Museum, 1989.

Marquis de Lafayette Collection: Fascinating artifacts and tributes of his visit to America

Longfellow Bicentennial 2007:

Longfellow Society

Maine Historical Society Website

Tribute Blog from Blogspot’s Philobiblos (Wonderful site!)

Longfellow National Historic Site

Postscript: : The reason for the delay in posting this is that I am currently waiting for his exact itinerary from the Maine Historical Society, who are in the process of forwarding me excerpts of his itinerary. When I receive it, I shall add it to this post.

Let's Go Fly a Kite: For School and Soul!

The North and West winds are playing tag!

Although I can't see them, they brush the tops of the bare branches below, they frolic about my buildings, they rustle my plants, and collide not-too-gently, nor silently, into the large windows of my aerie on the fourteenth floor!

It's March!

I'm buoyant with happiness! It's time to get out the old kite, or make a new one!

Although National Kite Flying Month is April, I like to start early, after all, one has to prepare for the 41^st Annual Smithsonian Kite Festival on March 31^st of this year.

Kite flying for me isn't just the pleasurable pasttime of watching my traditional paper diamond with her long, colorful tail waving to me in the sky; it is the exhilarating and tangible relationship I forge with invisible currents of air, we call the wind. It is a tug of war; the wind can be a outrageous thief that endeavors to steal my kite by tossing, twisting, and pulling it from me, turning the once inanimate plane of wood and paper into an unbroken mustang.

Pure poetry in motion!

It summons all my strength to hold onto my creation and steer her into a calm, manageable current; and this is accomplished using only string!

Breathless after chases and with hands searing with pain from the tightening cord, I triumphantly win her back, eventually reeling her into a safe landing; I was in total command!

Occasionally, I've suffered the agony of defeat when either the tie was broken, sheet ripped, or my grip failed. An ignominious end can await my kite: impaled upon a lofty limb, entwined in a power line, or drowned in a river. It grieves me to see or contemplate such pitiful sights! Truly.

I started flying kites for the first time while I was visiting family who lived on a sheep farm in Westmoreland County, Virginia. There was sky and space, much more than I was used to in New York City! I was given an instruction book that must have been over a hundred years old, literally; it was worn and I imagine useful to a number of aunts, uncles, and cousins. My younger brother and sister also were involved with the construction of their respective kites and my father's engineering expertise was always called upon. It was through this that I learnt about the rudiments of flight.

My first foray into kite flying was very much akin to learning how to ride my two-wheeler bicycle; there were spills, injuries, and disappointments; but the eventual success was beyond words! I was hooked!

Upon my return to New York City, I realized that I was the only kid in my neighborhood who had ever flown a kite! It seemed to most an almost quaint activity. Immediately I enlisted a couple of close friends (who bought their kites) and we scurried off to some playgrounds and parks. It caught on, and for a while there were about a dozen of us in Rego Park and Forest Hills who spent many mornings and afternoons messing about with kites!

Kite flying is a happy occupation, but it requires knowledge, skill, and quick reflexes. One has to be on top of the situation at all times! The winds are a capricious lot!

As an educational student tour designer and guide, I've tried to convey this to many of my teachers and student groups. Luckily, I was once able to enroll one group in a program at the Smithsonian's Freer and Sackler Galleries called, ImaginAsia, which is intended as a family activity program, but will accept small student groups with advance notice. Ours was a relatively small group of about 30 eighth graders and we designed and decorated our own kites which we flew (or tried to fly) on the adjacent National Mall. The teacher thought it was time well spent and it was the hit of the tour! Certainly our subsequent visit to the National Museum of Air and Space was greatly enhanced by the experience.

I wish I could always find some (or allow) downtime in the usually tight schedules of Washington, DC or New York itineraries. Imagine if students could have the opportunity to fly their class-made kites on the National Mall or Central Park for even an hour! What a great teaching moment! It's good for both school and the soul!

Indeed, there are clubs that would welcome such groups and give instruction. Wings Over Washington Kite Club meets the first Sunday of each month on the grounds of the Washington Monument and welcomes all to watch and experience. If you’re visiting Washington, DC, why not give them a call and try to coordinate something with them during your trip?

While I think that the history of the kite is fascinating, the object of this post concerns the integration of kite flying into k-12 curricula. However it wouldn't be fair not to include some resource to this fascinating history.

The most accurate history of the kite that I could find online is from a British site called, Kites R Us! (Yes, Kites R Us!) It’s an extremely entertaining, informative, and well-researched essay that not only explores social history, as well as the military and practical uses of kites throughout the past two millennia, but also discusses the contributions of such diverse people as Marco Polo; Alexander Wilson; Sir George Cayley; Lawrence Hargrave: and Alexander Graham Bell. Americans have also figured prominently in the development, uses, and technological advances of kites. Some of the most famous Americans cited are Benjamin Franklin, Professor Simon Newcombe, Rear Admiral George Melville, the Wright Brothers, and Paul Garber. (We have to thank Paul Gerber for the Smithsonian Kite Festival.) Unmentioned is the contribution of Marconi!)

But what can your students learn from some paper, wood, and string on a fine spring day?

Plenty!

There are several sites that have teaching plans and curricula developed and ready to be implemented. These range from social and military history, visual arts, math, science, engineering, aerodynamics, language, and physical education. There are some interesting ones from the Drachen Foundation.

However, the most compelling reasons for using kites in and outside the classroom are within an essay bentitled, The Key to Opening Doors , by teacher Christine Ricatte. I couldn't put it any better. This is also part of the The Drachen Foundation website.

This foundation will actually pay teachers an honorarium of $100.00 USD if they choose a lesson plan that one has designed and will attribute development and copyright of the lesson to the respective teachers with the posted materials. The foundation also offers grants. In addition, they have a wonderful program called Kites in the Classroom. And if you are lucky enough to live in the Seattle area, they support a study center and offer classes. Students learn a number of disciplines with a definite fun factor.

Planning and hosting a themed kite festival is a wonderful way of integrating science with history, art, and language arts. The kites could represent great Americans, artists, poetry, or prayers.

Such festivals exist around the country. In February of 2004, in honor of Lewis and Clark and the Corps of Discovery and the Native American people they met on their epic trek, a major exhibit of art kites created by twenty-eight of North America's premier kite makers, began a three year display at Billings Logan International Airport, in Billings, Montana.

Twenty-eight quotes and subjects were selected from the Journals of Lewis and Clark and artistically interpreted, reflecting the best of contemporary kite building. These kites are stunning, showing a wide range of style, shape, size and color, while accurately referencing historical notations and incidences that happened between 1803 and 1806.

I spoke with the curator of this exhibit and President of Sky Wind World, Inc. , Terry Lee, and unfortunately she is dismantling the Kite Art: Visions of Lewis and Clark exhibit as you read this, but it will replaced with another called, Big Sky Sculpture, which features complex cellular kites. If you contact her, you'll be able to tour it with her at the Billings airport. She still has copies of the CD concerning the Lewis and Clark exhibit. The CD costs $25 and the profits go to promote math and science programs for Native American reservation schools in Montana. Contact her at: skywindworld@mailcan.com or email her directly at: tzlee@myfastmail.com. She and her husband are quite involved with the Smithsonian kite festival and perhaps we might see each other there!

I'll leave you with one of my favorite stories: It is about the 15 year old boy, by the name of Homan Walsh who, in January of 1848, won a contest which eventually enabled the first bridge to be built across the Niagara Gorge. He started young, could read the wind, and was a particularly determined young man. Well, you'll just have to get the details from the link; your students will love it! (I shall be using it on my trip to Niagara Falls with the La Crescenta, CA group in April.)

There are some other wonderful stories concerning kites that can be found at the same Bell Atlantic site.

The moral of this posting: Consider starting a kite program in your class or school and then, take it on the road!

But as for me, it’s time to go fly a kite, whistling my favorite song from Mary Poppins! Won't you join me?

For Billy Collins

By Joyce Carol Oates

Some-
thing there
is in the American
soul that soars with
kites that soar! Some-
thing alive with the roar
of the wind lifting the kite
that soars above rooftops, tree-
tops, and awestruck heads! And yet—
Something there is not in the
American soul to adore the
kite that fails to soar.
I've seen it, I've
feared it, and
so have you.

The kite whose tail
is tattered in the
TV antenna.
The kite that rises
thrillingly
at dawn
then crashes
vertically
at your feet.

in a
heap

The Educational Tour Marm

Sky Wind World, Inc Photos of Lewis and Clark exhibit:

NASA sites:

http://www.grc.nasa.gov/WWW/K-12/airplane/kite1.html

http://www.grc.nasa.gov/WWW/Wright/airplane/shortw.html

American Kite Club:

http://www.aka.kite.org/

Web quest for high school math:

http://lhs.lexingtonma.org/Teachers/King/kiteproject/kiteintro.htm

C

Poetry: For School and Soul - Growing Up With Poetry

Growing Up With Poetry

Islands and peninsulas, continents and capes,

Dromedaries, cassowaries, elephants and apes,

Rivers, lakes and waterfalls, whirlpools and the sea,

Valley-beds and mountain-tops - - are all Geography!

The capitals of Europe with so many curious names,

The North Pole and the South Pole and Vesuvius in flames,

Rice-fields, ice-fields, cotton-fields, fields of maize and tea,

The Equator and the Hemispheres - - are all Geography!

The very streets I live in, and the meadows where I play,

Are just as much Geography as countries far away,

Where yellow girls and coffee boys are learning about me

One little white-skinned stranger who is in Geography!

As a fourth-grader in the New York City public schools, this poem is how I learned about geography. The year was 1963, and my schoolmarmish teacher, Miss Vera Fastenberg, required us all to memorize and recite it. While I hadn't much trouble with the memorization because I had become accustomed to it with my own family, I did have to look up such exotic creatures as dromedaries and cassowaries; I already knew about elephants and apes.

Forty years later, I still remember this poem and roughly 100 others that the New York City curriculum—not just Ms. Fastenberg—required us to memorize. To this day, I can even recite a line I learned in first grade. Our class had memorized Edward Lear’s Owl and the Pussy Cat, and my line in our playlet was, “So they took it away and were married next day by the turkey who lived on the hill.”

I loved the way Farjeon’s and Lear’s words rolled off my tongue. And I relished the vivid images their rhymes created in my head. These poems have not only enriched my personal life but have come in handy in my professional life, as well. I’m an educational guide and tour designer. Based in Alexandria, Va., I give roughly 22 tours to about a thousand students each year. I take them on visits to Washington, D.C., monuments as well as historical sites up and down the east coast. But I don’t just tell students why a particular memorial is important or give them the CliffNotes version of a historical event. I make statues and stone come alive with poetry. And as teachers see how enthusiastically their students react, I encourage teachers to incorporate poetry into their field trips and classes.

My family background is best summed up by Elias Lieberman’s poem, I am an American. I was brought up in both urban Jewish and Christian rural environments and was blessed by parents who loved literature. Family members, from both sides, read poetry to me as soon as I uttered my first words. Three of my most prized books were, and still are, When We Were Very Young and Now We Are Six (both by A.A. Milne) as well as an anthology of over 700 poems, Favorite Poems Old and New, edited by Helen Farris. Prayers and psalms from the Bible, followed by the dramatic passages and sonnets of Shakespeare augmented my repertoire, all before eighth grade.

Memorization was an acquired skill employed by my family members for diversion as well as discipline. The older generation had neither radio nor television growing up, and going to a movie was a rare treat. Recitation and music were the acceptable outlets; reading was required for both. I was required at times to recite poems for the enjoyment of my family. Once, when I forgot a line, my father chided me that young Winston Churchill (who was nearly at the bottom of his class at Harrow) could recite over 1,200 lines of Macaulay's Lays of Ancient Rome. (I imagined that they were short lines, but have since found out otherwise.) Elderly members of my father's family in the Northern Neck of Virginia could conceivably have matched Sir Winston Churchill; they constantly regaled us with John Henry and other long folk poems and songs. My late cousin, Harvey Bailey, was particularly entertaining and could, at the drop of a hat, recite something that he had learned nearly 95 years ago, when he was a young whippersnapper.

In the summer of 1969, I tried writing poems of my own. That time was particularly magical for me. It’s when I first started to understand and write love poetry, for it was the year of my first boyfriend. It was also the summer of Apollo 11. My family was glued to the television watching the Apollo 11 mission and mesmerized by Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin. “That’s one small step for a man, one giant leap for mankind.” Talk about poetry!

When the astronauts eventually rested, Dad opined that in any other century such a momentous occasion would be marked and celebrated in poetry and song. He lamented whether anyone nowadays would see the poetry in it. Eager to please my father, I rushed upstairs to write something to capture the moment, which has become a family joke:

O! Fain that I would see the day

The moon does not belong to lovers!

Stripped of the lies and myths of past

They of the moon that were truth’s covers.

And three were on that awesome flight

‘Twas such a very brave endeavor

Scientists were victorious;

Now lovers croon about the weather!

Despite this inauspicious beginning, my poetic attempts were not confined to home. I eventually became the literary editor of my high school’s literary arts magazine. While one of my poems included in that publication was given a ‘rave review’ in the school newspaper, another was panned. I persevered, however, and still write a few lines when the spirit moves me.

As an educational tour designer, I suggest specific poems that complement venues and curricula to both teachers and tour guides. Peregrine White and Virginia Dare, a poem by Rosemary and Stephen Vincent Benét about “the first real Americans” that I memorized as a teenager before visiting Jamestown, has a place on the tour, as does the now iconic line from Apollo 11, especially when I’m at the National Museum of Air and Space. There are several other places during a tour of Washington and Virginia where one could inject a poem or two. Mount Vernon is a spectacular backdrop for the Benéts’, George Washington. The Benéts also composed a poem that helps me introduce President Lincoln and his massive memorial; it’s called Nancy Hanks:

If Nancy Hanks
Came back as a ghost,
Seeking news
Of what she loved most,
She'd ask first
"Where's my son?
What's happened to Abe?
What's he done?"
"Poor little Abe,
Left all alone.
Except for Tom,
Who's a rolling stone;
He was only nine,
The year I died.
I remember still
How hard he cried."
"Scraping along
In a little shack,
With hardly a shirt
To cover his back,
And a prairie wind
To blow him down,
Or pinching times
If he went to town."
"You wouldn't know
About my son?
Did he grow tall?
Did he have fun?
Did he learn to read?
Did he get to town?
Do you know his name?
Did he get on?"

These are relatively simple poems that I learned in fourth grade. I have parts of them written on index cards that I distribute amongst my students to read aloud together. After that, they share their thoughts on how different choices could have changed George

Washington’s life or how they would reply to the questions posed by Lincoln’s mother. Carl Sandburg's, Washington Monument by Night, is another poem that my students love; it can be adapted as a sort of a choral piece. I even suggest they compose a poem describing their impressions of another monument or memorial in D.C.

During our three-hour walks through Arlington National Cemetery, out come more index cards so that the students can recite lines from Bivouac of the Dead by Theodore O’Hara, In Flanders Field by Lt. Col. John McCrae, and High Flight by Pilot Officer Gillespie McGee. This last poem is chiseled into the back of the Challenger Memorial and seeing it touches the students as they learn that the author was killed just days after we entered World War II. (High Flight would also be suitable for the new Air Force Memorial adjacent to the Pentagon.) These poems set the tenor for a solemn visit, as does Hello David by Nurse Dusty at the Nurses’ Memorial, which is part of the Vietnam Veterans’ Memorial.

It's sad that so many of the eighth-graders I have conducted on tour have no knowledge of the Benets. They've never read anything by Carl Sandburg, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, Emily Dickinson, Ralph Waldo Emerson, Robert Frost, Walt Whitman, Alfred Lord Tennyson, William Wordsworth, Alfred Noyes, John Keats, Percy Bysshe Shelley, William Shakespeare, Lewis Carroll, or Edward Lear.

Children are hungry for poetry because poetry expresses inner thoughts and creates indelible images; it might be their first exposure to beauty. It makes them examine themselves as well as use their imagination. Concepts that are philosophical, theological, allegorical, and emotional are all explored and encapsulated in poetry. Poetry aids in personal growth. Ask a child to write a poem, and you will get a revelation about him or her.

Last autumn, as I was bringing a group down the forested mountain at Monticello, I jumped up on a bench to improve my view of the stragglers while holding onto the tree for support. One of the students asked if I were a, “tree hugger”? In fact, I literally was. I told the group that I loved trees, especially in autumn. To keep their attention, I started to wax lyrical and recite a couple of poems by Emily Dickinson and Robert Frost as well as Joyce Kilmer's, Trees. Quoting Kilmer, I told them, “Poems are made by fools like me, But only God can make a tree.” It was their first time hearing these poems, which I had assumed were already part of their cultural literacy and curriculum.

When the whole group was finally gathered, one of the students asked me to recite another poem. I thought Geography would be perfect. The students applauded after I finished. One young man thought that it was a hard poem and must have taken me a long time to memorize. (He probably wondered how I was still capable of remembering it at my advanced age!) They were all stunned when I revealed that I had learned it in fourth grade and it took less than a week.

“That's nothing, would you like to hear me recite the poem for which I received extra credit when I was in fourth grade? It's called, The Highwayman!" For the next five days I recited poetry and taught them folk songs. Goober Peas was the number one crowd pleaser. Soldier, Soldier, Will You Marry Me? was also well-received.

On these trips, my audience often includes teachers and administrators. They, too, appreciate the verses I recite. And they recognize that poetry and song are equal partners with history and civics.

Sometimes I just have to remind them.