RESPONDING TO POETRY

FREE CHOICE POETRY

Vardell, Slyvia and Wong, Janet.  Gift Tag.  Princeton, New Jersey:  PoetryTagTime.com.  2011.  ISBN 9781837057138

SUMMARY:  This e-book is a collection of poetry written by some of the great poets of our time. Color photographs provide writing prompts for the poems. The poetry in this collection will bring back memories of the holiday season and your own family celebrations. The book begins with a Thanksgiving poem by Jane Yolen and contains 27 other poems.  These poems are about everything from that piece of pumpkin pie on Thanksgiving to cats and New Year’s Eve.  The results are a heartwarming celebration of the winter holidays.  The book is perfect for reading aloud and will appeal to children of all ages.

CRITICAL ANALYSIS:  This e-book was written by many of the best-known poets of our time.  Dr. Vardell and Janet Wong supplied the poets with photographs to be used as writing prompts. The authors also gave the poets some other rules to write by. The poems had to be ten lines or less and no more than 250 characters.  After the poems were collected, the authors supplied a “tag” word to connect the poems to each other.  The first photo is a piece of pumpkin pie.  The author, Jane Yolen, describes how she came up with the poem featured in the book.  This is how the book is organized, and I found the “tag” a clever way to connect all the poems.  I also enjoyed the book’s color photographs which take the place of illustrations.  Each poet has a photograph, then an introduction, and finishes with their poem or poems. The beginning of the book names all the poets that participated.  Some of the poets featured include:  Lee Bennett Hopkins, Margarita Engle, Helen Frost, Douglas Florian, Pat Mora, and J. Patrick Lewis. The poets use free verse, rhyme, and descriptive language to bring their view of the holidays to the reader.  The book contains an introduction which explains the premise of the book.  It also contains a web site about the featured poets called “Meet the Poets.”  It also includes a “Poetry Tag Time” website and poetry blog to learn more.  This book is the third in a series of poetry collections.  The first two books were titled, PoetryTagTime, and p*tag. The end of the book contains a short biography about each poet and includes their web sites. I enjoyed reading the poets biographies almost as much as their poems.

POEM EXCERPT:

Gifts to Give

By Sara Holbrook

“Gifts to give,

Gifts to get, are wishes

Tied with shiny bows.

Clap my hands.

Bulge my eyes.

Smile my lips.

Excitement grows.

Time to give and get?

Is it time? Oh, no.

Not yet.”

EXTENTION ACTIVITY: 

This is a great book for the holidays.  You could have students bring a photo of the holidays from home and have them write a poem about their pictures.  Students could use PowerPoint and make slides for their photos and poems.  The class could put all the files together and come up with a class book.  Students could make copies for home and use it as part of their own family holiday celebration. 

RESOURCES:

Vardell, Slyvia and Wong, Janet.  Gift Tag.  Princeton, New Jersey:  PoetryTagTime.com.  2011.

Images by Google Images.