National Poetry Month: Limericks and Concrete Poems

Earlier in this National Poetry Month of April, I posted about book spine haiku.  Besides haiku, two other poetry forms you might remember from your childhood are limericks and concrete poems.  While the Tarleton Libraries have many books with adult versions of these poetic forms, this post focuses on a few children's books in our Curriculum Collection, used by future teachers, on the lower level of the Dick Smith Library on the Stephenville campus.

Limericks usually tell a story about a person, in an exaggerated way meant to make the limerick funny. A limerick must have five lines. Lines 1, 2, and 5 must rhyme with each other. Lines 3 and 4 must rhyme with each other, as well. Limericks are also written in anapestic meter, which means that in each three-syllable word or phrase, the emphasis is always on the third syllable. Lines 1, 2, and 5 each contain three anapestics, or eight to ten syllables, and lines 3 and 4 contain two anapestics, or five to seven syllables.¹


These poems often start out with "There was an old [someone] of [somewhere]."

Edward Lear, of course, is the master of limericks, particularly nonsense for children.  Edward Lear from the Poetry for Young People series, edited by Edward Mendelson and illustrated by Laura Huliska-Beith, contains a number of his limericks.

Another fun book is Grimericks, written by Susan Pearson and illustrated by Gus Grimly, contains 20 "grim limericks" (hence the title) with ghoulish characters pictured throughout.

More examples of limericks in the library's collections are here:  https://zeus.tarleton.edu/login?url=https://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&bquery=limerick&type=1&site=eds-live.

In concrete poetry, the words of a poem are arranged on the page to form a visual image that relates to the subject of the poem.²

Sometimes the poems clearly forms shapes.  Joan Bransfield Graham's Flicker Flash, with illustrations by Nancy Davis, has poetry about light.  The arrangement of words in the poem “Firefly” is in the shape of a firefly.


The first poem in the book A Poke in the I is called "A Seeing Poem," and the words in the poem create an image of a light bulb above a person's head.  In later poems in this book, selected by Paul Janeczko with illustrations by Chris Raschka, the imagery is even more subtle.

More examples of concrete poetry in the library's collections are here:  https://zeus.tarleton.edu/login?url=https://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&bquery=%26quot%3bconcrete+poetry%26quot%3b+OR+%26quot%3bconcrete+poems%26quot%3b&cli0=FC&clv0=Y&type=0&site=eds-live.


¹Comstock, Nancy. "Limerick." Salem Press Encyclopedia of Literature, 2014. EBSCOhost, https://zeus.tarleton.edu/login?url=https://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=ers&AN=98402281&site=eds-live.

²Fuller, Melynda. "Concrete Poetry." Salem Press Encyclopedia of Literature, 2017. EBSCOhost, https://zeus.tarleton.edu/login?url=https://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=ers&AN=87321587&site=eds-live.

Book Spine Haiku: Libraries and Poetry

In honor of National Library Week and National Poetry Month, here is a relevant book spine haiku:

Lost in a good book,

here lies the librarian,

the lifelong reader.

-by Amanda Pape

Book spine poems are formed by arranging books so that the titles on their spines make a poem (and no, it doesn't have to rhyme). Sometimes they're composed of many books, but book spine haiku uses only three books.

A haiku is a traditional Japanese poem divided into seventeen phonic units, the equivalent of syllables. The English version of a haiku is an unrhymed poem with seventeen syllables, arranged in three lines of five, seven, and five syllables, in that order.¹

So the challenge for book spine haiku is to find three books with titles fitting those limits that work together to create a poem that makes some sense. The Haiku Handbook: How to Write, Share, and Teaching Haiku, in the Reference collection on the main floor of the Dick Smith Library, provides some tips on technique that might help if you are challenged to create a book spine haiku.

More examples of haiku in the library's collections are here:  https://zeus.tarleton.edu/login?url=https://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&bquery=SU+haiku&cli0=FT1&clv0=Y&type=1&site=eds-live

¹Rholetter, Wylene. "Haiku." Salem Press Encyclopedia of Literature, 2014. EBSCOhost, https://zeus.tarleton.edu/login?url=https://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=ers&AN=87322448&site=eds-live.

Maya Angelou (1928-2014)

Maya Angelou (1928-2014), was one of the most well-known persons of the 20th and 21st century.  She was a poet, autobiographer, playwright, educator, actress, dancer, singer, show-host, lecturer, feminist, political activists, and leader.

I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings (E185.97 .A56 A3 1970), Angelou's first authobiography, which was nominated for the National Book Award is part of the collection at the Dick Smith Library.  Many of Angelou's autobiographies, as well as poetry, were inspired by her childhood in the years when discrimination and segregation were strong.  The strength of her close-knit family along shines through in her poems as illustrated by this poem,

Touched by an Angel

We, unaccustomed to courage

exiles from delight

live coiled in shells of loneliness

until love leaves its high holy temple

and comes into our sight

to liberate us into life.

Love arrives

and in its train come ecstasies

old memories of pleasure

ancient histories of pain.

Yet if we are bold,

love strikes away the chains of fear

from our souls.

We are weaned from our timidity

In the flush of love's light

we dare be brave

And suddenly we see

that love costs all we are

and will ever be.

Yet it is only love

which sets us free.

Angelou read her poem, On the Pulse of Morning, at the inauguration of Bill Clinton in 1993.  Only one other person, Robert Frost, has ever been invited to read their poetry at the inauguration of a president. Here is a small portion of this poem:

Here, on the pulse of this fine day
You may have the courage
To look up and out upon me,
The rock, the river, the tree, your country.
No less to Midas than the mendicant.
No less to you now than the mastodon then.
Here on the pulse of this new day
You may have the grace to look up and out
And into your sister's eyes,
Into your brother's face, your country
And say simply
Very simply
With hope
Good morning.

The Dick Smith Library’s collection of books by Maya Angelou includes:

Mother: A Cradle to Hold Me, 

PS3551.N464 M68 2006

                           The Heart of a Woman,

                           PS3551.N464 Z465 1997

Wouldn't Take Nothing for My Journey Now, 

               PS3551.N464 W68 1997

                                  

       I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings, 

                       E185.97 .A56 A3 1970.

Maybe you'll be as lucky as I was when I received one of Angelou's books from my children on Mother's Day a few years back!

Twitter poetry

Here's something cool I stumbled across recently: Pentametron. It's a Twitter bot that crawls Twitter, finds tweets in iambic pentameter, and then arranges them into sonnets. The results can be strange, but it's amazing how well some lines work together.

Oh, and if you check and see one of the library's tweets in a sonnet, be sure and let us know - that would be awesome news!

Book Spine Poetry

Photo from Flickr, taken by teachingsagittarian

In honor of National Poetry Month, I thought I'd post about a particular kind of poetry that fits right in with libraries: book spine poetry! Book spine poems are formed by arranging books so that the titles on their spines form a poem. Sometimes they're composed of many books, but I've also seen book spine poems composed of only a couple books. You can find more examples of this kind of poetry using your favorite search engine, or via a search in Flickr.

Have you created book spine poetry before? Let us know in a comment!

Top 10 Library Poetry Resources, pt. 2

Please see previous blog entry for the rest of the list.

5.WORKS OF POETRY

The General Stacks (Upper Level) are where most of our books that can be checked out are located. The P section covers language and literature. Specific poets or types of poetry (American, British, Italian, etc.) can be located throughout this section.

4. POETRY JOURNALS IN PRINT

In the library catalog on the library's web page, go to Advanced Search. Limit your location to Periodicals and search poetry as a subject. Here is a list of some of our print poetry journals.

3. AUDIO BOOKS

The Lower Level has a large collection of audio books. Here is a list of some of our poetry audio books.

2. POETRY FOR KIDS

Search juvenile poetry as a subject in the library catalog. The results will include over 300 titles in our Curriculum Collection on the Lower Level.

1. POETRY E-JOURNALS

To look through one poetry-based journal at a time, go to www.tarleton.edu/library and click the SFX link on the left, under Databases. Then enter Poe$ under the title tab. This will pull up a list of 20+ e-journals with poems, poets, or poetry in the title or subject categories. (Also included will be journals about Edgar Allen Poe). Click on a title to access the e-journal.

Bonus resource: We have over 400 e-books on poetry in our catalog. To find them, type in poetry as a subject and limit the location to online access.

Top 10 Library Poetry Resources, Pt. 1

Yesterday was World Poetry Day, and April is National Poetry Month. Celebrate by digging into our poetry resources.

10. LITERARY CRITICISM: BOOKS TO CHECK OUT

Go to www.tarleton.edu/library. Under Library Catalog, click "Books, Periodicals,...etc." For a particular poet, type in the poet's name + criticism.
Example: Robert Frost criticism

9. BIOGRAPHY: BOOKS TO CHECK OUT, ONLINE BOOKS, REFERENCE BOOKS

Go to the catalog. Type in the poet's name and biography
Example: Robert Frost biography

8. LITERARY CRITICISM: REFERENCE BOOKS

Go to the catalog. Click Advanced Search Options. Type in the words poetry criticism and change the location to Reference.

Possible resources:
Poetry Criticism PN1010.P499 (71 volumes)

7. LITERARY CRITICISM ONLINE

The Poetry Criticism series is also available online. You can search it by going to our Literature Criticism Online database, clicking on Advanced Search and limiting your results by series. For a specific author, type in the name and select Named Author.

6. MORE DATABASES

JSTOR, Project Muse, and MLA are all good databases for articles about literature. For a full list of literature-related databases, consult our Subject research guide page for English, Literature, and Languages.

And, don't forget to check out our other five resources.