Kinds of Poetry

Poetic Form

Guyku:  A Year of Haiku for Boys

Raczka, Bob.  Guyku:  A Year of Haiku for Boys. Boston, Massachusetts:  Houghton Mifflin Books for Children. 2010.

ISBN  9780547240039 

SUMMARY:  This book of Haiku poems for boys is divided by seasons of the year, beginning with spring.  Each season is a Haiku poem representing activities boys would participate in during each season.  The poems’ themes are nature and boys playing outdoors, such as flying a kite and fishing.  This fun collection of Haiku should appeal to beginning readers from first to fourth grade.

CRITICAL ANALYSIS:  Haiku poetry is formed by using five syllables in the first line, then seven for the second line, and five again for the last line.  All these poems are written about boys participating in activities outdoors in nature.  The book is all about fun.  The activities are all about things boys like to do.  Dividing the book by seasons is a great way to showcase nature and activities outdoors.  There is no table of contents and the poems have no titles. They are simply divided by spring, summer, fall, and winter.

The illustrations by Peter H. Reynolds are simple and fun.  They all are displayed in a central muted color, with brown or gray charcoal included.  The font is also one that children will like, it is not typed, but printed and looks like children might have written the poems themselves.

This book is a fun way to introduce Haiku to young students.  Haiku is also a great way to introduce writing poetry to children, because it follows a set pattern and is easy to understand.

POETRY EXCERPT: 

This poem is taken from the section of spring poems. 

“With baseball cards and

Clothespins, we make our bikes sound

Like motorcycles.”

EXTENTION ACTIVITY:  I would explain about writing Haiku poems and read the book to students.  We would then have students come up with their favorite outdoor activity and write a Haiku poem.  You could have them write one for each of the seasons.  For girls, we would make up our own book of poetry called “Girlku.”  They would also come up with their favorite activities to write about.  The classes could make their own books and each student could talk about their favorite activities to introduce their poem or poems.  Then, they would share their poems with the class. 

RESOURCES:

Raczka, Bob.  Guyku:  A Year of Haiku for Boys. Boston, Massachusetts:  Houghton Mifflin Books for Children. 2010. 

Images by Google Images.