Here Is a Poem About...#1

In my I Am Looking for a Poem About... post last Friday, I told blog readers that they could ask me to locate a poem on a specific topic/subject for them. Here are the poems I selected for them.

Jules, Grace, and Vivian, I hope you like the poems I found for you.

A POEM FOR JULES
Jules, you requested my favorite poem about gratitude.

I chose the poem Prayer by the late Myra Cohn Livingston.
Here is how the poem Prayer begins:

Thank you for the sun,
the sky,
for all the things that like to fly,
the shining rain that turns grass green…

Where to Find the Poem
ON THE FARM
Selected by Lee Bennett Hopkins
Little, Brown and Company, 1991
(The poem originally appeared in Myra Cohn Livingston’s book THE MOON AND A STAR AND OTHER POEMS.)


A POEM FOR GRACE
I think the poem you may be thinking of is The Question, which was written by Karla Kuskin. Does this sound like the poem that you’re looking for, Grace?

From The Question:

People always say to me
“What do you think you’d like to be
when you grow up?”
And I say “Why,
I think I’d like to be the sky…”

Where to Find the Poem

DOGS AND DRAGONS, TREES AND DREAMS
Written by Karla Kuskin
Harper & Row, 1980
MOON, HAVE YOU MET MY MOTHER: THE COLLECTED POEMS OF KARLA KUSKIN
Written by Karla Kuskin
Laura Geringer/HarperCollins, 2003


A POEM OR TWO OR THREE FOR HIPWRITERMAMA
Vivian, I am not sure I have found the kind of poem you are looking for—but see if these fit the bill:

From the poem Give Yourself a Hug by Grace Nichols:

Give yourself a hug
when you feel unloved…

Give yourself a hug—
a big big hug

And keep on singing,
‘Only one in a million like me
Only one in a million-billion-thrillion-zillion
Like me.’


Where to Find the Poem

POETRY BY HEART: A CHILD'S BOOK OF POEMS TO REMEMBER
Compiled by Liz Attenborough
The Chicken House/Scholastic, 2001

Each of the next two poems is about a child celebrating himself/herself.

From I Know Someone by Michael Rosen:

I know someone who can
take a mouthful of custard and blow it
down their nose…

I know someone who can
say the alphabet backward…

I know someone who can put their hands in
their armpits and blow raspberries…

I know someone who can
slide their top lip one way
and their bottom lip the other way.
And that someone is
ME.

Where to Find the Poem MY SONG IS BEAUTIFUL: POEMS AND PICTURES IN MANY VOICES
Selected by Mary Ann Hoberman
Little, Brown, 1994


From A Circle of Sun by Rebecca Kai Dotlich:

I’m dancing.
I’m leaping.
I’m skipping about.
I gallop.
I grin.
I giggle.
I shout…

I’m swinging.
I’m singing.
I wiggle.
I run.
I’m a piece of the sky
in a circle of sun.

Where to Find the Poem
HERE’S A LITTLE POEM: A VERY FIRST BOOK OF POETRY
Collected by Jane Yolen and Andrew Fusek Peters
Candlewick, 2007
(You can read my review of the book here.)

A GIRAFFE POEM FOR GRACE

Grace, I know you didn't request a giraffe poem--but you commented on the giraffe poem I posted the other day. You said that you had a "soft spot" in your heart for these tallest of land mammals...so I found a poem entitled Giraffes for you. It was written by Mary Ann Hoberman.

From Giraffes:

I like them.
Ask me why.
Because they hold their heads so high.
Because their necks stretch to the sky…

Because they eat the tops of trees.
Because their legs have knobby knees.
Because.
Because.
Because. That’s why
I like giraffes.

Where to Find the PoemTHE LLAMA WHO HAD NO PAJAMA: 100 FAVORITE POEMS
Written by Mary Ann Hoberman
Browndeer/Harcourt Brace, 1998
ERIC CARLE’S ANIMALS ANIMALS
Compiled and illustrated by Eric Carle
Philomel, 1989