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Poetry Buffet - for all ages April is Poetry Month, and to celebrate, we'll be uploading a new poem each day, so that by the end of the month you'll have a smorgasbord of bite-size poems to sample. Try just one or two, or fill up on all we have to offer!
| "You and Me and P B Shelley" - April 16 |
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For the full text of today's poem, check it out on The Poetry Archive: https://poetryarchive.org/poem/you-and-me-and-p-b-shelley/
Looking for a few more bites of poetry today? Check out the eBooks section of our website and look for these recommended poetry collections (don't forget to have your library card handy to sign in!):
On Overdrive/Libby:
- Complete Stories and Poems of Edgar Allan Poe
- Poems: Three Series, Complete, by Emily Dickinson
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| "Hey World, Here I Am!" - April 17 |
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Today's poem is "Hey World, Here I Am!" by Jean Little, read for you by Val Stevens, CEO for Georgina Public Library.
I said to the World, "I've arrived.
I, Kate Bloomfield, have come at last."
The World paid no attention.
I said to the World, "Hey World, here I am!
Don't you understand?
It's me, Kate Bloomfield."
The World ignored me.
I took myself into a corner.
"Guess what?" I whispered. "I made it.
You know ... Kate Bloomfield."
My Self bellowed, "YeaaaAAY, Kate!"
And spun six somersaults up the middle of Main Street.
The World turned.
"What did you say?" said the World.
I paid no attention.
After all, I gave it its chance.
It's not my fault that it missed me.
This poem is from a collection of poems and prose by Jean Little and Barbara DiLella with the same title, published by Kids Can Press, 1986.
Looking for a few more bites of kid-friendly poetry today? Check out the eBooks section of our website, and look for these recommended poetry collections (don't forget to have your library card handy to sign in!):
On Overdrive/Libby:
- Round, by Joyce Sidman
- The Day I Fell Down the Toilet and Other Poems, by Steve Turner
Want to teach your kids about poetry? Go to our Kids eResources page, look for Kids InfoBits,
and then do a search for the word "poetry. You'll find articles on different types of poems like Haiku and Narrative Poetry.
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| "Dedication for a Plot of Ground" - April 18 |
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Today's poem is "Dedication for a Plot of Ground" by William Carlos Williams, read for you by Erin from Georgina Public Library:
This plot of ground
facing the waters of this inlet
is dedicated to the living presence of
Emily Dickinson Wellcome
who was born in England; married;
lost her husband and with
her five year old son
sailed for New York in a two-master;
was driven to the Azores;
ran adrift on Fire Island shoal,
met her second husband
in a Brooklyn boarding house,
went with him to Puerto Rico
bore three more children, lost
her second husband, lived hard
for eight years in St. Thomas,
Puerto Rico, San Domingo, followed
the oldest son to New York,
lost her daughter, lost her "baby,"
seized the two boys of
the oldest son by the second marriage
mothered them—they being
motherless—fought for them
against the other grandmother
and the aunts, brought them here
summer after summer, defended
herself here against thieves,
storms, sun, fire,
against flies, against girls
that came smelling about, against
drought, against weeds, storm-tides,
neighbors, weasels that stole her chickens,
against the weakness of her own hands,
against the growing strength of
the boys, against wind, against
the stones, against trespassers,
against rents, against her own mind.
She grubbed this earth with her own hands,
domineered over this grass plot,
blackguarded her oldest son
into buying it, lived here fifteen years,
attained a final loneliness and—
If you can bring nothing to this place
but your carcass, keep out.
This poem was printed in "The Collected Poems: Volume I, 1909-1939" by William Carlos Williams, first published by New Directions in 1938.
Looking for a few more bites of poetry today? Check out the eBooks page on our website and look for these recommended poetry collections (don't forget to have your library card handy to sign in!):
Overdrive/Libby:
- The Flame: Poems and Selections From Notebooks, by Leonard Cohen
- The Complete Collected Poems of Maya Angelou
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"The Stolen Child" - April 19
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Today's poem is "The Stolen Child" by W. B. Yeats, read for you by Erin from Georgina Public Library. Enjoy the full text of this poem, and more information about W. B. Yeats.
This poem was first printed in “The Wanderings of Oisin, and Other Poems” published by Kegan Paul and Co. in 1889.
Looking for a few more bites of poetry today? Check out the eBooks page on our website, and look for these recommended poetry collections (don't forget to have your library card handy to sign in!):
On Hoopla:
- The Best of Robert Service, by Robert W. Service
- 100 selected Poems, by E. E. Cummings
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| "Ickle Me, Pickle Me, Tickle Me Too" - April 20 |
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Today's poem is "Ickle Me, Pickle Me, Tickle Me Too", by Shel Silverstein, read for you by Ella, age 6.
Ickle Me, Pickle Me, Tickle Me too
Went for a ride in a flying shoe.
"Hooray!"
"What fun!"
"It's time we flew!"
Said Ickle Me, Pickle Me, Tickle Me too.
Ickle was captain, and Pickle was crew
And Tickle served coffee and mulligan stew
As higher
And higher
And higher they flew,
Ickle Me, Pickle Me, Tickle Me too.
Ickle Me, Pickle Me, Tickle Me too,
Over the sun and beyond the blue.
"Hold on!"
"Stay in!"
"I hope we do!"
Cried Ickle Me, Pickle Me, Tickle Me too.
Ickle Me, Pickle Me, Tickle too
Never returned to the world they knew,
And nobody
Knows what's
Happened to
Dear Ickle Me, Pickle Me, Tickle Me too.
This poem is from a collection of poems by Shel Silverstein called "Where the Sidewalk Ends", published by HarperCollins, 1974.
Want to listen to Shel Silverstein sing this poem? Check out the eResources section of our website, scroll down to the Music section, and look for Freegal (don't forget to have your library card handy to sign in!).
Then search for "Where the Sidewalk Ends" and listen to the whole audio-book for free!
Looking for a few more bites of kid-friendly poetry today? Check out the eBooks section of our website, and look for these recommended rhyming picture books:
On Tumblebooks:
- Felicity Floo Visits the Zoo, by E. S. Redmond
- A Camping Spree with Mr. Magee, by Chris Van Dusen
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"Halfway Down" by A.A. Milne - April 21
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Today's poem is "Halfway Down" by A.A. Milne, read for you by Erin from Georgina Public Library.
Halfway down the stairs
Is a stair
Where I sit.
There isn't any
Other stair
Quite like
It.
I'm not at the bottom,
I'm not at the top;
So this is the stair
Where
I always
Stop.
Halfway up the stairs
Isn't up
And isn't down.
It isn't in the nursery,
It isn't in the town.
And all sorts of funny thoughts
Run round my head:
"It isn't really
Anywhere!
It's somewhere else
Instead!"
This poem was included in the collection “When We Were Very Young” published by Methuen & Co. Ltd., 1924.
Looking for a few more bites of kid-friendly poetry today? Check out the eBooks section of our website, and look for these recommended poetry collections (don't forget to have your library card handy to sign in!).
On Hoopla:
Forgive Me, I Meant to Do It: False Apology Poems, by Gail Carson Levine
Bedtime Rhymes, by Clare Beaton
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"Refusal to Mourn the Death, by Fire, of a Child in London" - April 22
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Today's poem is "Refusal to Mourn the Death, by Fire, of a Child in London" by Dylan Thomas, read for you by Erin from Georgina Public Library:
Never until the mankind making
Bird beast and flower
Fathering and all humbling darkness
Tells with silence the last light breaking
And the still hour
Is come of the sea tumbling in harness
And I must enter again the round
Zion of the water bead
And the synagogue of the ear of corn
Shall I let pray the shadow of a sound
Or sow my salt seed
In the least valley of sackcloth to mourn
The majesty and burning of the child's death.
I shall not murder
The mankind of her going with a grave truth
Nor blaspheme down the stations of the breath
With any further
Elegy of innocence and youth.
Deep with the first dead lies London's daughter,
Robed in the long friends,
The grains beyond age, the dark veins of her mother,
Secret by the unmourning water
Of the riding Thames.
After the first death, there is no other.
This poem was printed in “The Poems of Dylan Thomas”, published by New Directions in 1952.
Looking for a few more bites of poetry today? Check out the eBooks page on our website, and look for these recommended poetry collections (don't forget to have your library card handy to sign in!):
On RBdigital:
- The Sonnets, by William Shakespeare
On Hoopla:
- Chicago Poems, by Carl Sandberg
- Poems by Walt Whitman
Find more information about Dylan Thomas and his work, his biography and many more poems.
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"Willoughby Wallaby Woo" - April 23
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Today's poem is "Willoughby Wallaby Woo" by Dennis Lee, read for you by Cayden (age 3)
Willoughby, wallaby, woo.
An elephant sat on you
Willoughby, wallaby, wee.
An elephant sat on me
Willoughby, wallaby, wash
I'm feeling kind of squash.
Willoughby, wallaby, woo
And I don't know what to do This poem appeared in Dennis Lee's very first collection of poetry for children, "Wiggle to the Laundromat", published by New Press, 1970, and again later in the collection "Alligator Stew", published by MacMillan, 1974.
To learn more about Dennis Lee and hear him read a selection of his poems, head over to the Children's Poetry Archive: Looking for a few more bites of kid-friendly poetry today? Check out the eBooks section of our website, and look for these poetry collections for kids (don't forget to have your library card handy to sign in!)
On Overdrive/Libby:
- Alligator Pie, by Dennis Lee
- Noisy Poems for a Busy Day, by Robert Heidbreder
- The Book of Nonsense, by Edward Lear
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"I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud" by William Wordsworth - April 24
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Today's poem is "I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud" by William Wordsworth, read for you by Erin from Georgina Public Library:
I wandered lonely as a cloud
That floats on high o'er vales and hills,
When all at once I saw a crowd,
A host, of golden daffodils;
Beside the lake, beneath the trees,
Fluttering and dancing in the breeze.
Continuous as the stars that shine
And twinkle on the milky way,
They stretched in never-ending line
Along the margin of a bay:
Ten thousand saw I at a glance,
Tossing their heads in sprightly dance.
The waves beside them danced;
but they Out-did the sparkling waves in glee:
A poet could not but be gay,
In such a jocund company:
I gazed—and gazed—but little thought
What wealth the show to me had brought:
For oft, when on my couch
I lie In vacant or in pensive mood,
They flash upon that inward eye
Which is the bliss of solitude;
And then my heart with pleasure fills,
And dances with the daffodils.
This poem was first printed in “Poems, in Two Volumes”, published by Longman, Hurst, Rees, and Orme in 1907.
Looking for a few more bites of poetry today? Check out the eBooks page on our website, and look for these recommended poetry collections (don't forget to have your library card handy to sign in!):
On Overdrive/Libby:
- Poems, by Robert Frost
- Forever Words, by Johnny Cash
Find more information about William Wordsworth and his work, to read a full biography and listen to more of his poems.
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"I died for beauty" by Emily Dickinson - April 25
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Today's poem is "I died for beauty" by Emily Dickinson, read for you by Erin from Georgina Public Library:
I died for beauty, but was scarce
Adjusted in the tomb,
When one who died for truth was lain
In an adjoining room.
He questioned softly why I failed ?
"For beauty," I replied.
"And I for truth, — the two are one ;
We brethren are," he said.
And so, as kinsmen met a night,
We talked between the rooms,
Until the moss had reached our lips,
And covered up our names.
This poem was printed in “Poems by Emily Dickinson” published by Roberts Brothers in 1890.
Looking for a few more bites of poetry today? Check out the eBooks page on our website, and look for these recommended poetry collections (don't forget to have your library card handy to sign in!).
On Overdrive/Libby:
- Rime of the Ancient Mariner and Select Poems by Samuel Tayler Coleridge
- Phantasmagoria and other Poems by Lewis Carroll
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"When You Are Old" by William Butler Yeats - April 26
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Today's poem is "When You Are Old" by William Butler Yeats, read for you by Erin from Georgina Public Library:
When you are old and grey and full of sleep,
And nodding by the fire, take down this book,
And slowly read, and dream of the soft look
Your eyes had once, and of their shadows deep;
How many loved your moments of glad grace,
And loved your beauty with love false or true,
But one man loved the pilgrim soul in you,
And loved the sorrows of your changing face;
And bending down beside the glowing bars,
Murmur, a little sadly, how Love fled
And paced upon the mountains overhead
And hid his face amid a crowd of stars.
This poem was printed in “The Collected Poems of W. B. Yeats”, published by Collier Books in 1989.
Looking for a few more bites of poetry today? Check out the eBooks page on our website, and look for these recommended poetry collections (don't forget to have your library card handy to sign in!):
On Hoopla:
- Scattered Poems, by Jack Kerouac
- The Love Poems of Rumi, by Jalal al-Din Rumi
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| "The Cremation of Sam McGee" - April 27 |
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Today's poem is "The Cremation of Sam McGee" by Robert W. Service, read for you by Joseph Connors from Connors Music:
There are strange things done in the midnight sun
By the men who moil for gold;
The Arctic trails have their secret tales
That would make your blood run cold;
The Northern Lights have seen queer sights,
But the queerest they ever did see
Was that night on the marge of Lake Lebarge
I cremated Sam McGee.
Now Sam McGee was from Tennessee, where the cotton blooms and blows.
Why he left his home in the South to roam 'round the Pole, God only knows.
He was always cold, but the land of gold seemed to hold him like a spell;
Though he'd often say in his homely way that 'he'd sooner live in hell'.
On a Christmas Day we were mushing our way over the Dawson trail.
Talk of your cold! through the parka's fold it stabbed like a driven nail.
If our eyes we'd close, then the lashes froze till sometimes we couldn't see;
It wasn't much fun, but the only one to whimper was Sam McGee.
And that very night, as we lay packed tight in our robes beneath the snow,
And the dogs were fed, and the stars o'erhead were dancing heel and toe,
He turned to me, and 'Cap,' says he, 'I'll cash in this trip, I guess;
And if I do, I'm asking that you won't refuse my last request.'
Well, he seemed so low that I couldn't say no; then he says with a sort of moan:
'It's the cursed cold, and it's got right hold till I'm chilled clean through to the bone.
Yet 'taint being dead - it's my awful dread of the icy grave that pains;
So I want you to swear that, foul or fair, you'll cremate my last remains.'
A pal's last need is a thing to heed, so I swore I would not fail;
And we started on at the streak of dawn; but God! he looked ghastly pale.
He crouched on the sleigh, and he raved all day of his home in Tennessee;
And before nightfall a corpse was all that was left of Sam McGee.
There wasn't a breath in that land of death, and I hurried, horror-driven,
With a corpse half hid that I couldn't get rid, because of a promise given;
It was lashed to the sleigh, and it seemed to say: 'You may tax your brawn and brains,
But you promised true, and it's up to you to cremate those last remains.'
Now a promise made is a debt unpaid, and the trail has its own stern code.
In the days to come, though my lips were dumb, in my heart how I cursed that load.
In the long, long night, by the lone firelight, while the huskies, round in a ring,
Howled out their woes to the homeless snows -O God! how I loathed the thing.
And every day that quiet clay seemed to heavy and heavier grow;
And on I went, though the dogs were spent and the grub was getting low;
The trail was bad, and I felt half mad, but I swore I would not give in;
And I'd often sing to the hateful thing, and it hearkened with a grin.
Till I came to the marge of Lake Lebarge, and a derelict there lay;
It was jammed in the ice, but I saw in a trice it was called the 'Alice May.'
And I looked at it, and I thought a bit, and I looked at my frozen chum;
Then 'Here,' said I, with a sudden cry, 'is my cre-ma-tor-eum.'
Some planks I tore from the cabin floor, and I lit the boiler fire;
Some coal I found that was lying around, and I heaped the fuel higher;
The flames just soared, and the furnace roared - such a blaze you seldom see;
And I burrowed a hole in the glowing coal, and I stuffed in Sam McGee.
Then I made a hike, for I didn't like to hear him sizzle so;
And the heavens scowled, and the huskies howled, and the wind began to blow.
It was icy cold, but the hot sweat rolled down my cheeks, and I don't know why;
And the greasy smoke in an inky cloak went streaking down the sky.
There are strange things done in the midnight sun
By the men who moil for gold;
The Arctic trails have their secret tales
That would make your blood run cold;
The Northern Lights have seen queer sights,
But the queerest they ever did see
Was that night on the marge of Lake Lebarge
I cremated Sam McGee.
This poem was printed in “Poems Past and Present”, published by The Hunter Rose Comp. Limited in 1954.
Looking for a few more bites of poetry today? Check out the eBooks page on our website, and look for these recommended poetry collections (don't forget to have your library card handy to sign in!):
On Hoopla:
- Best Canadian Poetry 2019, by Various Authors
- Life and Inspirational Poetry 2, by John Crawford
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"El Dorado" by Edgar Allan Poe, read for you by Erin - April 28
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Today's poem is "El Dorado" by Edgar Allan Poe, read for you by Erin from Georgina Public Library:
Gaily bedight,
A gallant knight,
In sunshine and in shadow,
Had journeyed long,
Singing a song,
In search of Eldorado.
But he grew old—
This knight so bold—
And o’er his heart a shadow—
Fell as he found
No spot of ground
That looked like Eldorado.
And, as his strength
Failed him at length,
He met a pilgrim shadow—
‘Shadow,’ said he,
‘Where can it be—
This land of Eldorado?’
‘Over the Mountains
Of the Moon,
Down the Valley of the Shadow,
Ride, boldly ride,’
The shade replied,—
‘If you seek for Eldorado!’
This poem was printed in The Complete Poems and Stories of Edgar Allan Poe, published by A. A. Knopf in 1946.
Looking for a few more bites of poetry today? Check out the eBooks page on our website, and look for these recommended poetry collections (don't forget to have your library card handy to sign in!):
On Hoopla:
- The Wasteland, Prufrock, and Other Poems, by T. S. Eliot
- Collected Poems, by Allen Ginsberg
Find more information about the life of Edgar Allan Poe and the museum dedicated to him in Richmond, Virginia.
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"Curiosity" by Alastair Reid, read for you by Becky - April 29
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Today's poem is "Curiosity" by Alastair Reid, read for you by Becky from Georgina Public Library:
may have killed the cat; more likely,
the cat was just unlucky, or else curious
to see what death was like, having no cause
to go on licking paws, or fathering
litter on litter of kittens, predictably.
Nevertheless, to be curious
is dangerous enough. To distrust
what is always said, what seems,
to ask odd questions, interfere in dreams,
smell rats, leave home, have hunches,
does not endear cats to those doggy circles
where well-smelt baskets, suitable wives, good lunches
are the order of things, and where prevails
much wagging of incurious heads and tails.
Face it. Curiosity
will not cause us to die—
only lack of it will.
Never to want to see
the other side of the hill
or that improbable country
where living is an idyll
(although a probable hell)
would kill us all.
Only the curious
have, if they live, a tale
worth telling at all.
Dogs say cats love too much, are irresponsible,
are dangerous, marry too many wives,
desert their children, chill all dinner tables
with tales of their nine lives.
Well, they are lucky. Let them be
nine-lived and contradictory,
curious enough to change, prepared to pay
the cat-price, which is to die
and die again and again,
each time with no less pain.
A cat minority of one
is all that can be counted on
to tell the truth; and what cats have to tell
on each return from hell
is this: that dying is what the living do,
that dying is what the loving do,
and that dead dogs are those who never know
that dying is what, to live, each has to do.
This poem was printed in “Weathering: Poems and Translations", published by Canongate, 1978.
Find more poems by Alastair Reid and a short biography.
Looking for a few more bites of poetry today? Check out the eBooks page on our website, and look for these recommended poetry collections (don't forget to have your library card handy to sign in!):
On Hoopla:
- Selected Poems by Gerard Manley Hopkins
- Leaves of Grass, by Walt Whitman
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