Biographical Poetry Book Review

BECOMING BILLIE HOLIDAY

Weatherford, Carole Boston. Floyd Cooper ill. BECOMING BILLIE HOLIDAY. Honesdale: Wordsong, 2008.

Ms. Weatherford grew up hearing the music of Billie Holiday. She stated in the afterword that BECOMING BILLIE HOLIDAY is a "fictional verse memoir" that "imagines her legendary life from birth to young adulthood." Ms. Weatherford used the titles of Ms. Holiday's hit songs as titles for her poems.

The fictional verse memoir includes historical information on the racism in the South and how Ms Holiday had to suffer racial slurs and harsh treatment. Billie though the South was bad that was until she visited Detroit. She faced a more personal kind of racism. It was against “her.” In the poem “Do You Know What It Means to Miss New Orleans?" you can feel the pain she must have had to endured.

Say what you will about the south:
The worst racist I came up against
Was not deep down in Dixie
But way up in Detroit with Basie’s band.
The boss at the Fox Theater claimed
I was too high yellow,
Too light-skinned, to share
The stage with black musicians
And might be mistaken for white.
The one condition for the show to go on:
that I darken my skin with greasepaint.
I smiled to keep from throwing up
and never missed Harlem more.

The story moved quickly with the precise words to paint realistic scenes of Harlem, a child being raped, prison, abandonment, the Apollo, and even a hanging. Poetry eliminates the added words or pages and gets to the heart of the moment. Mr. Cooper's illustrations reflected the period of time but I doubt that his choice of style would connect or engage teens in the story. I didn't like the blurred lens effects.

Two stories are presented; one about the life of Billie Holiday from birth to her mid-twenties and one that presented the struggles Blacks suffered even after slavery. Weatherford added imagery and information that leads to knowledge. Blues and Jazz singers tell their stories through song. The last poem, "Coda: Strange Fruit," sums up Ms. Holiday's life as it was presented in the novel. The last two stanza are powerful.
"When the waiters stopped service
the room was pitch black
except for a spotlight on my face,
and I stood completely still,
preforming "Strange Fruit,"
how could I not shed tears?

When I arrived at Cafe Society
a girl singer with a string of hits
and departed the star of the hour,
how could I not claim:
This is my song?

The Afterword, Biographies, and list of Further Reading and Listening are great resources to complete the book. A reader looking for a biographical verse memoir would not be disappointed in reading "BECOMING BILLIE HOLIDAY."

Note: What is a fictional verse memoir? It combines elements of the novel, biography, oral history, persona poem, and one-woman show into a unique genre. The fictional verse memoir is ideally suited to Billie Holiday's sassy, soulful and sophisticated style.

http://www.becomingbillieholiday.com/

Book Review:
School Library Journal--In this fictionalized memoir, Weatherford has composed nearly 100 first-person narrative poems that detail Holiday's life from birth until age 25, the age at which she debuted her signature song, "Strange Fruit." The poems borrow their titles from Holiday's songs, a brilliant device that provides readers with a haunting built-in sound track. Weatherford's language is straightforward and accessible-almost conversational. ....Cooper's sepia-toned, nostalgic, mixed-media illustrations provide an emotional counterpoint to the text. Resembling old photographs seen through a lens of aching hindsight, they make explicit the pain that Weatherford studiously avoids giving full voice to in her poems.

Math Poetry Book Review

MARVELOUS MATH: A BOOK OF POEMS

Bennett, Lee Hopkins. MARVELOUS MATH: A BOOK OF POEMS. New York : Simon & Schuster, 1997.

Math is all around us everywhere. Most people use some form of math each day. Mr. Bennett presents a collection of poems that connect math to every day events in our lives. The poems are written by poets that use various styles (rhyme and free verse, ect.). Ms. Barbour's watercolor illustrations complete the poems with characters dressed in bright colors and silly outfits. Children will enjoy the full pages of common and strange items. It's nice to see more than the use of only numbers.

Marilyn Scala, in our Textbook "Three Voices," stated that math is vocabulary and children need to be taught the concept that math is a language.
Math concepts can be challenging to students who have trouble visualizing the concept. Linking the imagery of poetry to math may help children visualize abstract concepts and operations. (Three Voices) The majority of the poems in MARVELOUS MATH ask children to think about the world without mathematics. One of the keys to understanding what’s important is to view life without it. I liked two of the poems that addressed math concepts.

FRACTIONS
Lee Bennett Hopkins

Broken number pieces
disconnected—

a quarter
a half
an eighth

fragmented—

out of order
out of control—

until—

I explore them
restore them

make them
whole
once more
again.

TIME PASSES
Ilo Orleans

Sixty seconds
Pass in a minute.
Sixty minutes
Pass in an hour.
Twenty-four hours
Pass in a day—
And that’s now TIME
Keeps passing away!

Poetry is a good tool to remove the fear of math and allow children to express how they feel about math even if they don't like math. Children will find math less threatening when the connect with the poems in Marvelous Math.

Review
School Library Journal
Grade 3-5. Hopkins pulls together poems on mathematics, providing insights from writers such as Karla Kuskin, Janet S. Wong, and Lillian M. Fisher. Several selections share the predictable theme of the significance of math and numbers. Rebecca Kai Dotlich's title poem, for example, asks questions such as, "How fast does a New York taxi go?" and "How slow do feathers fall?" and suggests how to find the answers: "Mathematics knows it all!" Some take a unique point of view, as in Betsy Franco's "Math Makes Me Feel Safe": "Knowing that my brother will always be/three years younger than I am,/and every day of the year will have/twenty-four hours." Rhymed and open verse styles are represented, as are a variety of tones. David McCord's "Who Hasn't Played Gazintas?" is a playful presentation of spoken language. Barbour's lively illustrations dance and play around the poems. Her boldly outlined watercolor figures, often wearing ill-fitting hats, fill the pages with childlike whimsy. Children will enjoy studying the oddly colored animals, numbers, and stylized, arched-browed people. A delightful collection

Cullinan, Bernice E. Marilyn C. Scala,, and Virginia
C. Schroder. THREE VOICES: AN INVITATION TO POETRY ACROSS THE CURRICULUM. Portland: Stenhouse Publishers, 1995.

Spring Poetry Break

Introduction
Hang a poster that includes clouds, flowers, baseball diamond, skateboards, ladybugs, and centipedes. Ask the kids what season they would see these objects. Turn the poster over and read the poem "Spring Is."

SPRING IS

Spring is flowers
...................showers
.......................plowers.
Spring is watching clouds for hours.

Spring is seeding
....................weeding
.........................centipede-ing.
Spring is great for skateboard speeding.

Spring is hiking
...................biking
......................baseball striking.
Spring's a time to take a liking.

Florian, Douglas. HANDSPRINGS. New York: Greenwillow Books, 2006.

Extension

Children usually say, "Yea, I knew that was about spring." You can then ask them to tell you more spring time things like: birds returning, baby animals, bears and other mammals waking from their sleep, rainstorms, and holiday's like St. Patrick's Day. Let the children read their list and ask them to pick five words from their list and find five words to rhyme with their words.
Mix two sets together and let that pair of kids play a Spring Rhyme Match game or they can make up a poem from their ten rhyming words.

http://thehollyandtheivy.blogspot.com/2009/02/humans-ramble-trees-long-to-walk.html

Book Review--Verse Novel

WHERE I LIVE

Spinelli, Eileen. WHERE I LIVE. Matt Phelan,Ill. New York: Dial Books for Young Readers, 2007.

WHERE I LIVE isn't a story about a house and other material things. It's about living. Ms. Spinelli has taken an ordinary second grader with a major event in her life (moving, good-byes, sadness) and developed a intriguing story. The free verse style works well with this novel.

You are introduced to all the main characters within the first six poems. Diana describes her house, mentions her best friend, describes the sky and lets you know that it is autumn all in the first poem. The story quickly moves along with the wren's nest on the front door, Grandpa Joe's home and broken arm, the birth of her sister and her dad losing his job which causes their move.

Youthful dramatic dialog adds humor to the story. "Rose rolls her eyes. "Nebula is not a word."
..."Okay. If my friend Rose looked up at the sky more often..she would know a nebula when she saw one." Rose throws her pillow at me. "You and your sky!" Good use of dialog. Ms Spinelli provides good visuals throughout the book, "Twink puts in ...three gum balls...and her stuffed rabbit, George."

Matt Phelan's simple gray illustrations connect you to the warmth in the story. The poems could stand alone but the story would be less enjoyable or even dis-engaging without the pictures. The drawings for the poem, "Dad's Latest," presents "believable characters," although the poem could stand alone.

Dad collect jokes
like some people
collect stamps.
Here's his latest:
"what kind of dog
loves to take a bath?"
Twink guesses
"A dirty dog?"
Mom grins.
I shake my head.
"No, Twink," says Dad.
" A shampoodle!"

Spindelli includes some diversity with Rose, an African American and Sam Ling which suggest Chinese, plus he's male. I do agree with the reviewer from Booklist that the Rose's character should have been eased out the story and not just dropped. Diana's grandpa had bought her a computer to e-mail her friend and it ends there. Diana returns to her old home town for the poetry workshop but doesn't visit or call Rose. This doesn't take away from the story but I believe children could disconnect by wondering what happened to "Rose?"

One interesting note about verse novels. Yes, the pages have additional space plus they are actually thicker than regular novels pages. Reluctant readers can work through the thickness quickly. I believe the trend to publish verse novels will continue to grow which is a good thing.

Reviews

Booklist--In a market crowded with novels-in-verse, this one feels a bit facile, and some readers may wish Rose didn't drop out of the picture so completely once a new friend appears on the scene. Teachers, however, will welcome the poems' imagery and symbolism (like the fledglings nesting in, then departing from, Diana's old front door), and Diana's journey from one comfort zone to another will reassure children anticipating their own mad-sad goodbyes.

Similar Books

GROW: A NOVEL IN VERSE by Juanita Havill
HAT THAT CAT: A NOVEL by Sharon Creech

Moden Verse---Poetry Break

Introduction

Has anyone every mentioned a word that made you wonder, "What does it mean?", or "Where did it come from?" or "Why don't you know more about that word?" Poems help us to remember people, places and things.

Indian

Margret mentioned Indians,
And I began to think about Indians--

Indians once living
Where now we are living--

And I thought how little I know
About Indians. Oh, I know

What I have heard. Not much,
When I think how much

I wonder about them,
when a mere mention of them,

Indians, starts me. I
Think of their wigwams. I

Think of canoes. I think
Of quick arrows. I think

Of things Indian. And still
I think of their bright, still

Summers, when these hills
And meadows on these hills,

Shone in the morning
Suns before this morning.

INDIANS by John Fandel
Dunning, Stephen, Edward Lueders, and Hugh Smith. REFLECTIONS ON A GIFT OF WATERMELON PICKLE; AND OTHER MODERN VERSE. New York: Lothrop, Lee & Shepard Books, 1996.

Extension

Read the poem a second and third time. Ask the children to close their eyes and picture the places in the poem. Have them draw a picture that reflects what they hear described in the poem. Let them look through a collection of poems from various authors that describe people and places. Have the children work in pairs and encourage students to read the poems to each other.

Nonsense Verse-Poetry Break

Introduction

Introduce children to the author Jack Prelutsky. Explain a little about his style of writing. Often you say that you don't understand things. Well this author loves to write poems that are fun to figure out. Read from Scranimals a nonsense verse picture book.

POTATOAD

On a bump beside a road
Sits a lowly POTATOAD,
Obviously unaware
Of its own existence there.

On its coarse and warty hide,
It has eyes on every side,
Eyes that fail, apparently,
To take note of what they see.

It does not move, it does not think,
It does not eat, it does not drink,
It does not hear or taste or touch...
The POTATOAD does not do much.

The day is hot, the ground is parched,
And yet it sits as if it's starched.
To pose immobile by a road
Suffices for the POTATOAD.

Prelutsky, Jack. SCRANIMALS. New York: Greenwillow Books, 2002.

Extension

Let the children browse through the assortment of Jack Prelutsky books. Allow time for children to read a poem that they enjoyed. Children can quickly find the root words and see the added letters that change the words. Put the children in small groups to make up new words and let them write poems for homework.