pass on a poem at home
I ask them to take a poem
and hold it up to the light
like a color slide
or press an ear against its hive.
I say drop a mouse into a poem
and watch him probe his way out,
or walk inside the poem’s room
and feel the walls for a light switch.
I want them to waterski
across the surface of a poem
waving at the author’s name on the shore.
But all they want to do
is tie the poem to a chair with rope
and torture a confession out of it.
They begin beating it with a hose
to find out what it really means.
Billy Collins. Introduction to Poetry
home groups
pass on a poem readings are ideally suited to weekday evenings in the home, being very similar to bookclubs. They can be rotated between readers' homes if desired, and some groups like to provide food and drink or snacks. They are even easier to sustain than bookclubs, since the only reading requirement per person per meeting is one poem. Would-be organisers can contact pass on a poem or visit the website for advice on starting up, reading poetry aloud, and any other matters. They may want to use the current theme or poet of the month, or, alternatively devise their own individual readings. They can consult the Resources pages for possible material. The texts of poems read are posted, and some may be selected for inclusion in the forthcoming pass on a poem anthology. Calendars and venues for local groups can be advertised on the Events pages.
bedtime - reading or reciting to your children
use the anthologies listed below to select poems that will soon become firm favourites. Many of these can be found second hand very cheaply in bookshops, markets, church fetes, and online. Hearing poetry, and of course reciting it, can give immense pleasure and security to children, pass them on a treasure for life, and instil in them quite unconsciously a love of and an early, lasting facility for language.
anthologies for children
Lavender's Blue
ed. Caroline Kennedy. A Family of Poems. My Favourite Poems for Children (Hyperion)
The Oxford Book of Nursery Rhymes
ed.Elise Paschen. Poetry Speaks To Kids
ed.Ciardi. You Read To Me, I'll Read To You
ed. Walter De La Mare. Peacock Pie
ed. Joseph.T.Thomas. The Norton Anthology of Children's Literature
ed.Arnold Adoff. I Am The Darker Brother. An Anthology of Modern Poems by Afro-Americans
ed.Arnold Adoff. My Black Me : A Beginning Book of Black Poetry
ed. Barbara Brenner. The Earth Is Painted Green : A Garden of Poems About Our Planet
.tried and tested poems to read to children
Walter de la Mare Old Nod The Shepherd
insomnia
Select from this list to get into the mood for sleep. Try learning some by heart and repeatedly reciting them as if you were counting sheep... 0r download them, possibly repeating the recordings of the longer ones more than once.
Shelley
Keats
Tennyson
Poe
siestas
lie on your sofa or on the grass, put on a cassette or download 90 minutes worth of your own personal poetic luxury from the following list....try interspersing the poems with music.
illness
the writer .... recalls his father reading him '....' as he lay on his sickbed, and remembers that it had the desired effect of making him long for life and health to return. More poetry in this vein might include:
read to your partner
several pass on a poem readers have revealed their habit of reading out loud or exchanging poems they enjoy with their spouses or partners.
go back to school at the kitchen table
get stuck into homework and exams. Poetry is a component of school work at every level and can be turned into a shared pleasure. Read the set texts out loud together, study them, discuss them, decide if they work and if so, why. Replace resistance with enthusiasm...