Why Poetry? (Monday Poem)

by Lee Bennett Hopkins

 

 

Why poetry?

Why?

 

Why sunsets?

Why trees?

 

Why birds?

Why seas?

 

Why you?

Why me?

 

Why friends?

Why families?

 

Why laugh?

Why cry?

 

Why hello?

Why good-bye?

 

Why poetry?

 

That's why!

 

 

from Falling Down the Page: A Book of List Poems

edited by Georgia Heard, Roaring Brook Press, 2009  

 

 

 

Sure Cure (Monday Poem)

 by Anna Grossnickle Hines

 

 

My sister and I were fighting.

We couldn't get along.

She said I moved her game piece.

I said she was wrong.

She said I was stupid.

I said she was worse 

and made a nasty face at her.

She let out a curse.

 

Mom said, "Stop this bickering

before it comes to blows."

She made us stand together

touching nose to nose.

"How long?" we asked; she answered,

"We'll just see how it goes."

 

We stood there looking cross-eyed

at our noses touching tips

and feeling rather silly

while pinching up our lips

to try to stop the giggles---

mine started in my toes.

It's hard to keep on fighting

when you're touching nose to nose.

 

 

from Peaceful Pieces: Poems and Quilts About Peace

by Anna Grossnickle Hines, Henry Holt, 2011  

After Spending the Morning Baking Bread (Monday Poem)

by Jack Ridl

 

Our cat lies across the stove’s front burners,
right leg hanging over the oven door. He
is looking into the pantry where his bowl
sits full on the counter. His smaller dish,
the one for his splash of cream, sits empty.
Say yes to wanting to be this cat. Say
yes to wanting to lie across the left-over
warmth, letting it rise into your soft belly,
spreading into every twitch of whisker, twist
of fur and cell, through the mobius strip
of your bloodstream. You won’t know
you will die. You won’t know the mice
do not exist for you. If a lap is empty and
warm, you will land on it, feel an unsteady
hand along your back, fingers scratching
behind your ear. You will purr.

from How to Love the World: Poems of Gratitude and Hope, edited by James Crews, Storey Publishing, 2021.

 

Ways to Greet a Friend (Monday Poem)

 by Avis Harley

 

 

Hola is the Spanish Hello,

Italians go for Bon Giorno,

 

Konichiwa is Japanese,

Bon dia is the Portuguese,

 

Kalimera when you meet a Greek,

Bonjour is how the French would speak,

 

Al salaam a'alalykum is the Arabic way,

Apa Khabar they say in Malaly.

 

Ni hao is for the Chinese voice,

Aloha: the Hawaiian choice.

 

Shalom would be the Hebrew tongue . . . .

So many ways Hello  is sung.

 

 

from Falling Down the Page

edited by Georgia Heard

Roaring Brook Press, 2009  

Test Day (Monday Poem)

by Kathi Appelt

 

 

It's never about the things I know:

 

    Where the old turtle hid her eggs

    How many homeruns my brother hit last season

    My mom's favorite colors -- violet and pink

    That chocolate chip cookies need vanilla

    The year my grandfather fought in a war

    The year he didn't come back

    That my great-great-great-aunt learned to drive when she was 68

    What time the moon rose last night

    And what time it set this morniing

    How the thunder scares my ginger-striped cat

    Why the neighbor's hound howls at stars

    Where the grackle built her nest

    What to put in my dad's cup of coffee . . . .

 

            It's never about the things I know.

 

 

from Falling Down the Page

edited by Georgia Heard

Roaring Brook Press, 2009  

 

Creativity (Monday Poem)

by Eileen Spinelli

 

 

An artist takes:

 

colored pencil

piece of yarn

wooden slat from 

some old barn

sidewalk chalk

or spool of wire

can of paint 

or junkyard tire

twig or twine

or river rock

seed or seashell

woolen sock

bar of soap

or paper heart

and turns it

happily

to art.

 

Perhaps you have:

a shard of plate

a hinge from someone's

garden gate

a scrap of quilt

or rusty screw . . . .

 

then you can be 

an artist too.

 

 

from Falling Down the Page

edited by Georgia Heard

Roaring Brook Press, 2009  

 

In My Hands (Monday Poem)

 by Marilyn Singer

 

 

I like to hold in my hand

    a baseball,

    a shell,

    a fistful of sand,

    a feather,

    a letter,

    a red rubber band.

Things that tickle,

Things that trickle.

Things to snap and toss and fold

    or just hold.

 

 

from Falling Down the Page

edited by Georgia Heard

Roaring Brook Press, 2009