Module 1 Review on Hopkins Poetry Book

Module 1 Poetry Book Review

5663-21 Poetry

Diana Stephens

Opening Days, Sport Poems, selected by Lee Bennett Hopkins, illustrated by Scott Medlock, Harcourt Brace & Company, 1996.

I selected this one because I am a sports fan and participant, and the book was on the shelf in our library. The eighteen illustrated poems nicely span the sports spectrum, from karate to weightlifting, from bike riding to skiing, from baseball and soccer to basketball and football. Feminine gender is included on only two poems, one about running, another about ice skating, which might not be enough to reward a female reader.

The poems effectively met a high standard for imagination, conjuring with sensitivity and realism a basketball moment: “Calms it with fingertips, /Breathes, /Crouches, /Waits, /And then through a stretching of stillness, /nudges it upward.” Another creates the vigorous tone of a tennis match: “Dancers in /a rigorous rite /who with every ardent motion /praise the dark /and primal pulse that pounds and bounces /in the light.” Timeless philosophical insight about the end result of competition is evident: “Games /have been played. /They’re over. /That’s all.”

My favorite poem was humorous and brief. The title is actually longer than the poem: “Thoughts After a Forty Mile Bike Ride,”—“My feet, /And seat, /Are beat.”

The structure and elements of the poems vary widely. The rhyming couplets in “Chair Lift” are effective, “Under your feet, the snowy humps /Of hills go by with jerks and bumps,” but the imagery is trite, “the trees move past in a stiff parade /Like ice cream cones that giants made.” There is a very nice rhythm to “The Swimmer”, and the rhymes are not forced, “Although I have no tail or fin /I’m closer than I’ve ever been /to what fish feel /and think about.” However the title of “Speed!” is an empty enticement, when the thirty-nine words are pretty mundane. It ends like this, “wheels spin /this is speed! /wheels spin /all I need”. The theme and word choice of “Skiing” was mundane: “/and I am the mountain /and the mountain was me.” (And that’s such a great sport with so much scope for poetic imagination!)

The best and the worst poems are by well known poets. There is nothing particularly unique, creative, or even interesting about Walt Whitman’s “The Runner.” (Leave it out!) Gary Soto does his usual job of providing the most interesting metaphors, comparing muscles to apples in “Ode to Weight Lifting.” The opening poem, and maybe the best of them, is Jane Yolen’s “Karate Kid.” She uses personification to accurately portray the state of mind and body when engaging in the sport, “I am wind, /I am wall . . . I am tiger /I am tree,” and offers a nice wrap-up ending to this thinking that refers back to the earlier images, “Not to bully, /Not to fight, /Dragon left /And leopard right. /Wind and wave, /Tree and flower, /Chop. /Kick. /Peace. /Power.” It is nice and tight. If only they were all so interesting.

The whole impression is, it’s okay, mostly. It just doesn’t pull enough together to make me go, “Wow!” The illustrations are not top quality either, with literal, ordinary color drawings of the sport discussed. I really liked the “Chair Lift” illustration, but the poem was cheesy. However, I am reacting from the perspective of an older teenager or adult.

For grades three to five, maybe six, there was a great deal of appropriate vocabulary, and with the nice balance and variety of types of poems and sports, it qualifies for a recommendation. The images and word choice easily sustain enough interest to appeal to the elementary athlete, and the illustrations would not be critiqued by that age either. After reading and looking at the Printz Honor book, Heart to Heart, however, this artsy, athletic heart yearns for more.

Module 1 Poetry Break

Poetry Break Module 1

566321 Poetry

Diana Stephens

Introduction: “Today, I am recommending art books and poetry books, and art-and-poetry-combined-together books. Can a picture inspire a poem?”

After giving students a moment to think and agree, project the following image from the data projector, (which is not in the book, I had to find it,) then quote from the poem, “What is going on here?” and wait for and receive responses.

***George Bellows. (see note below)

Read the poem from the book:

“Ringside” by Ron Koertge,
[from Heart to Heart, New Poems, Inspired by Twentieth Century Art, edited by Jan Greenberg, Henry H. Abrams, Inc., 2001)

It all started when a new teacher held up
this picture and said, “What’s going on here?”
Everybody said how pretty the yellow house
was, the pink blossoms, the blue sky.
I said, “It’s creepy. The sidewalk leads
Right to the cellar.” The teacher beamed
And the McKenzie brothers made fists.

I ran for the library faster than usual.
I asked Miss Wilson for more by the same guy.
She could only find one—Stag at Sharkey’s.

[Show the image in the book and on the screen.]

George Bellows. Stag at Sharkey’s. 1909. Oil on canvas.
(used by permission, www.the-atheneum.org)

I looked at that painting every day. I looked
at every inch. I looked until I was at ringside,
until I was the fighter in the modest black
trunks.

When Bobby McKenzie finally caught me
and bloodied my nose, I put my head against
his and hit him with my right and to my surprise
he winced and went down.

“Stag at Sharkey’s,” I bellowed. He looked
at me like I was crazy, scrambled to his feet,
and ran.

Ask students to summarize what happened and why. Project the poem, and have a student volunteer for each verse, to read it a second time.

Extension: Flip through Heart to Heart briefly to show other images and their poems, occasionally reading a title of an image or a poem to pique interest, asking students to think about how that image might inspire writing a poem. Ask students to look at the art in the books on the tables for an image about which they could write a poem.

“Ringside” by Ron Koertge,
[from Heart to Heart, New Poems, Inspired by Twentieth Century Art, edited by Jan Greenberg, Henry H. Abrams, Inc., 2001)
This is a Printz Honor Book.

***George Bellows. I found this image late at night after along search; I was copying and pasting when my husband came in and started talking, and I neglected to copy the location. BAD. BAD. I have searched back through 51,000 Google images of George Bellows paintings TWICE, (I did it a third time yesterday) but it’s not there now, so I tried the first ten pages of a regular Google search and went through lists of art galleries. After four total hours-NADA. I will take it off if you tell me I should.