Poetry lifts the veil from the hidden beauty of the world,
and makes familiar objects be as if they were not familiar.
Percy Bysshe Shelley

"You will never be alone with a poem in your pocket," John Adams told his son John Quincy, as the young man set off  to Russia in 1781.  "Johnny" was just fourteen-years-old, but fluent in French, proficient in Greek and Latin, and precocious enough to be commissioned official secretary to the American minister to Russia on that trip.  If pedagogical practice of the period was any measure, young John Quincy Adams probably had a lot more poems in his head than in his pocket.  Poetry memorization was an important part of any young child's education.

On the Core Virtues site, we're featuring classic poems that sing to the heart and celebrate the virtues. If your students learn them "by heart," they will be part of a long pedagogical tradition that will bear fruit in their lives and possibly in their hearts. Literary  critic Brad Leithauser notes “memorized poems are a sort of larder, laid up against the hungers of an extended period of solitude.”  Poems committed to memory can inspire (even save us) in moments of darkness or isolation (just ask Nelson Mandela or Joseph Brodsky, a dissident in the Gulag).  But the treasures of memorized verse are not limited to political exiles.  Poetry memorization allows students to internalize the quality language, cadence, rhyme, and rhythm that "lifts the veil from the hidden beauty of the world."  They are a source of wonder.

May's virtues: Hope, Joy, Wonder

Wonder

Water the wonder
that lives in your brain.

Water your wonder
with questions like rain.

The more you ask
the more you will know.

And watering wonder 
will help wonder grow. 

Wallow in wonder
wherever you go.
​
©️Amy Ludwig VanDerwater

Duck's Ditty

All along the backwater,
Through the rushes tall, 
Ducks are a-dabbling, 
Up tails all!

Ducks' tail, drakes tails,
Yellow feet a-quiver,
Yellow bills all out of sight
Busy in the river!

Slushy green undergrowth
Where the roach swim-
Here we keep our larder,
Cool and full and dim.

​Everyone for what he likes!
WE like to be
Heads down, tales up, 
Dabbling free!

High in the blue above
Swirl whirl and call - 
We are down a-dabbling 
Up tails all!

​Kenneth Grahame

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For parents and teachers who are interested in learning more about the value of memorizing poetry please check out these articles: Memorize That Poem! by Molly Worthen and Why We Should Memorize by Brad Leithauser

Poetry Books

Sing A Song of Seasons: A Nature Poem for Each Day of the Year.
Fiona Waters, editor, Illustrated by Frann Preston-Gannon.
​Nosy Crow, 2018, (K-6) Wonder
This gorgeous, hefty volume is a great way for teachers and parents to infuse poetry into everyday life. Fun and lively illustrations are the backdrop for relatively short, seasonally appropriate poems for every day of the year. (Great for memorizing.) Old favorites, new poems, serious and silly: each inspires wonder and delight at the beauty of nature.  A poetry anthology, rather than a Morning Gathering read-aloud, and a treasure for the classroom or for family to share.

Read! Read! Read!  Amy Ludwig VanDerwater.  Illustrated by Ryan O’Rourke.
Wordsong, 2017 (K-4)
Twenty three poems about reading by contemporary poet VanDerwater.  Each one simply but eloquently reiterating how and why reading is so important in our lives.  A lovely collection that can be read again and again.

Poetry for Young People. Sterling Children’s Books (3-6)
A wonderful series of individual books on great poets of the English language:  Emily Dickinson, Robert Frost, Langston Hughes, William Shakespeare, Walt Whitman, and more. The volumes feature a picture of the poet, several pages of biography, reflections on what may have influenced their poetic style and content, and a selection of poems.  Each poem is fittingly illustrated and accompanied by definitions for words that may be unknown to children. The illustrators have been chosen to complement the style of the poetry. ​

Mirror Mirror. A Book of Reverso Poems. Marilyn Singer. Illustrated by Josee Masse.
Dutton Children’s Books, 2010 (1-4) 
Each poem in this unique collection can be read top to bottom or bottom to top. Charmingly illustrated, each page is split in half with each side matching the up or down poem. This new take on old fairy tales is fun and thoughtful.

The Harp and Laurel Wreath.  Poetry and Dictation for the Classical Curriculum. 
Laura M. Berquist. Ignatius Press, 1999.  Poetry (K-8)
If  you are looking for a marvelous collection of classics by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, Ralph Waldo Emerson, Emily Dickinson, Lewis Carroll, Steven Vincent Benet, Rudyard Kipling, Alfred Lord Tennyson, and many more, this is your (nearly five-hundred-page) volume!   Poetry selections divided into "The Early Years," "The Grammatical Stage," "The Dialectical Stage," and "The Rhetorical Stage."