The Uncomfortable Art of Enjoying Poetry
Learning to love things that scare us
by Melissa Woodruff
Last week I was cleaning out our slimy kiddie pool with my 7 year old and we started taking turns saying silly rhyming sentences. It went something like this:
This pool is slimy
Don’t be whiny!
Maybe we’ll find a frog
Hopefully, not a hog!
Mommy, you are so silly
Maybe, but at least my name’s not Billy!
This went on for a significant amount of time and the giggles that ensued were the highlight of my day, probably even my week.
It struck me later that we had just written a pretty lengthy poem, something I didn’t think I would ever be able to do. And I enjoyed it! Granted, it was absolutely ridiculous and nonsensical. But it was something my son and I had done together and may have become a new core memory for me and hopefully him.
I recently listened to a podcast interview between Jonathan Rogers and our own Rachel Donahue and Rebecca Gomez about our newest release Mari in the Margins, a novel in verse. Something Jonathan said during this episode brought me back to this silly construction between me and my son. He said, essentially, “Kids love verse, even if it isn’t any good.”
I know this is an odd thing to hold on to from that episode, as they talked about so many fun and interesting things, but it really struck me how easy creating poetry could be when you’re not trying to make it any good. Not only creating poetry, but enjoying poetry could be that simple.
If you read my last piece here, you saw that I have accidentally been raising kiddos who love to read. Something I have not done accidentally, however, is raise lovers of poetry. Poetry has always been equal parts scary and confusing for me.
It’s always been on my list of things to do: learn to enjoy poetry. I want to love it, and I feel like I should love it. I love lyrics, I love whimsy, I love all things artsy. Poetry feels like it belongs on that list and I should naturally be a person who loves poetry.
Alas, I am not.
I am, however, learning that I can be. Not only can I become a person who enjoys (maybe even enjoys writing) poetry myself, but I could even help my kids learn to enjoy and write poetry, too (and it’s not even that scary).
This journey all started at a Homeschool conference in Greenville, South Carolina. While perusing all the enticing nerdy and bookish things, I spotted a really weird-looking book with the most adorable goblin on it. If you’ve seen our Bandersnatch booth before, you know just the one.
By the time I left the booth, I had not one but two books of poetry in hand and was excited, for the very first time ever, about reading poetry. The weirdly adorable Goblabet is what I like to call gateway poetry. It entices you with its weirdness, mystery and illustrations, to the point you almost forget that it is, indeed, poetry! This is not the book that won me over to poetry though.
It was my dear friend Rachel Donahue and her poetry for moms that finally took me over the edge and into the world of poetry. Her poems in Real Poems For Real Moms spoke right to my momma heart, using language that was both simple and lovely. Lines that didn’t force me to think incredibly hard to form a picture in my head or force an understanding that may or may not have been the intended message. I just got it. And I was obsessed.
I read the entire book in two days. I had never before enjoyed poetry, and I had no idea where to go from there. What I did know, though, was that I had cut myself off from an entire world of literature because what had been put in front of me up to that point was not “my kind of poetry.” The next thought I had was, how can I prevent my kids from having this same experience?
What if my kids naturally love poetry but because it makes me uncomfortable, I’ve avoided it and kept it from them? Don’t we all do this very thing in some aspect of child rearing or another? “This thing is hard for me so if I can avoid showing my kids that I’m not great at something, let’s do that.” I didn’t want to limit my children in this way, and I also didn’t want to limit myself.
Through a series of lovely events, I became friends with the writer and publishers of these gateway poetry books. This has led to more poetry reading and more learning about how to get myself and my kids comfortable with poetry. If you happen to catch Rachel’s workshop on getting your children comfortable with poetry at a conference, please check it out! It truly blessed me, and I was only there to hand out bookmarks!
In her workshop, she shares a list of resources to put in front of your kids to help introduce them to poetry. Some super easy ones that we have enjoyed are:
Goblabet – Ken Priebe
A Child’s Garden of Verses – Robert Louis Stevenson
A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood: Poetry of Mister Rogers – Frank Rogers
Mother Goose’s Book of Nursery Rhymes
The Giving Tree – Shel Silverstein
These are just a few collections that we have read, and in some cases reread, just for fun while my kids were doing their school work or in the bathtub or at bedtime. What has surprised me the most, is that one of my boys is indeed a true lover of poetry. He asks me to read poetry almost every day, and he is only four years old! I never would have guessed that he would be the one to love poetry!
It’s been such a happy journey learning that I am capable of stepping into the once-uncomfortable space of poetry and that I am getting to watch my children fall in love with something so beautiful as the writing of others. I hope that through the years, we will have many more happy impromptu writings during all the slimy chores and that the giggles will continue to highlight my days, weeks, and years.
July 17–20: Sponsor Table at the CiRCE National Conference in Charleston, SC
July 15–31: Open submissions! Learn more
September 10: Red Rex release—Preorder now!
November: Above, Not Up release (preorders open in September)
Preorders opened for Red Rex last week and we couldn’t be more excited about this book! As Glenn McCarty, author of the Tumbleweed Thompson series, put it: “Action, heart, and…dinos? This is an adventure story for young readers to savor!”
Have you seen this cover? If you’ve got a reader who loves adventure, or ancient history, or dinosaurs, or friendship stories, or school stories, or mythology—seriously, this one’s a book for everyone.
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“A poet is a man who is glad of something, and tries to make other people glad of it, too.” George MacDonald, At the Back of the North Wind
Melissa, I’m right there with you on the dubious dance with poetry! I wish I’d had Rachel’s books when I was younger, and my kids were younger, because her poetry is so lovely and I probably would have shared more with them.
My wife and I are expecting our first child in about a week. We are so eager to begin this new adventure together. Poetry is something I love, and while it might not be for everyone, I do secretly hope our daughter will enjoy the art. I'm excited to check out Rachel's book as well as introducing her to the classics.