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 and fruitful pedagogical tradition. 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).  The treasures of memorized verse are not limited to political exiles, though.  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.

July/August

Bed in Summer
Robert Louis Stevenson

In winter I get up at night  
And dress by yellow candle-light.  
In summer, quite the other way,  
I have to go to bed by day.  

I have to go to bed and see         
The birds still hopping on the tree,  
Or hear the grown-up people’s feet  
Still going past me in the street.  

And does it not seem hard to you,  
When all the sky is clear and blue,  
And I should like so much to play,  
To have to go to bed by day?

June

We break with tradition by introducing you, not to a single poem, but to a volume of poetry that completely exemplifies our June virtues of wisdom, wit, and whimsy!

Mr. Mehan's Mildly Amusing Mythical Mammals: A Hypothetical Alphabet.  Matthew Mehan.  Illustrated by John Folley. TAN Books, 2018.   (3-6) Wit, Whimsy, Wisdom
We Mere Mammals have been given a treat.  This sumptuous volume of 26 mildly amusing Mythical Mammals pokes fun at our flaws and our excellences, while making us laugh out loud.  Where did these appealing, perplexing, and preposterous creatures come from? The imagination of Dr. Matthew Mehan and the brush of classically trained artist John Folley.  Mehan's poems (one poem for each letter-of-the-alphabet-mythical-mammal) are meant to be read aloud, and are redolent of Shakespeare, Lewis Carroll, Dr. Seuss, and Ogden Nash. But this is a distinctive voice. Readers of all ages who love poetry will delight in the bumbling Blug ... "slow as a slug...blobular, jolly, gelatinous jug" whose upbeat personality nonetheless lifts him to the air on "the tiniest wings that the world's yet seen: They're both the size of a kidney bean."  The Blug floats through much of the book with his best buddy The Dally (a dodgy dog with ties for ears), who seems to specialize in avoiding suffering.  Many of the poems are about the two friends confronting (and overcoming) sadness.  John Folley has painted the precise medieval inspired letter blocks, and created gorgeous impressionist oil illustrations of such critters as the Sillymede, the Jargontalky,the Innowallah,the Gallant and the Y-It.  This is a family book, and one to treasure from age five to fifty... (and up).  Mehan frankly admits that his goal is to use poetry to uplift and expand the moral imagination.  This volume is a classic and a keeper.

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May

"Hope" is the thing with feathers
by Emily Dickinson

Hope is the thing with feathers
That perches in the soul
And sings the tune without the words
And never stops at all,

And sweetest in the gale is heard;
And sore must be the storm
That could abash the little bird
That kept so many warm.

I’ve heard it in the chillest land
And on the strangest sea,
Yet never in extremity,
It asked a crumb of me.

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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.

The 20th Century Children’s Poetry Treasury. Edited by Jack Prelutsky.
Illustrated by Meilo So (K-6) 
Jack Prelutsky has collected rollicking, fun poems of contemporary poets  – not sugary sweet or moralistic poems of bygone days, but poems about the  feelings of real kids growing up today. Lovely and whimsical watercolors illustrate the 211 contemporary poems.

A Child's Book of Poems. Illustrated by Gyo Fujikawa. Sterling, 2007 (K-2)
Classic children's poems with delightful illustrations. It is unchanged from the original 1970's version you may remember from your childhood.

A Whiff of Pine, A Hint of Skunk. Deborah Ruddell. Illustrated by Joan Rankin. Margaret McElderry Books, 2009. (K-3) Poetry, Wonder
A delightful collection of poems about nature. Consider "Biography of a Beaver" -  Bucktooth Cleaver, Tree Retriever, Building Conceiver, True Believer, Waterproof Weaver, Overachiever, Roll-Up-Her-Sleever – Hooray for the Beaver!  Lighthearted illustrations of the woodland scenes along with the poems make you want to take a walk in the woods.

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."