Last evening, we were discussing poetry as a family. Dad admitted he loves poetry—which is rare for him, since he hardly has time to read anything other than the Bible. We were discussing different poems—some of the more famous ones like The Song of Hiawatha, Paul Revere’s Ride, and Barbara Freitchie. That last one was one we couldn’t quite put a name to, so in the end Mom got one of our poetry books and read it to us while we ate supper!
Poems are a needful addition to everyone’s lives. The rhythm, speech, and emotions are sometimes even more beautiful than a fiction novel.
Poems tell stories—stories that gracefully flow in harmonious melody, sometimes sad and sometimes joyfully.
Poems bring out emotions in us that we rarely acknowledge any other way.
Poetry is powerful.
Here are some reasons why you need to read poetry to your children:
- Poems develop great language skills. I’m continually in awe at those who can weave such beautiful pictures with a few words—and Lynley Dodd is a great example of introducing youngsters to big(ish) words.
- Poetry lightens moods—there’s just something happy about the rhythm of poems.
- Poetry teaches great reading aloud skills. Poems are naturally compelling in that they make you want to add greater or lesser emphasis to different parts. By having your child read them aloud, they can learn to read other writings more expressively as well.
Poems are beautiful—pictures of gold made out of twenty-six letters. Your home is missing a lot if you don’t have poetry once in a while.
What are some of your family’s favorite poems?
Some of our favorites include:
- Sick, by Shel Silverstein (I could hardly get through reading this out loud the first time, because Mom was laughing too hard!)
- Homework! Oh, Homework!, by Jack Prelutsky
- Daddy Fell Into The Pond, by Alfred Noyes
- The Parsnip, by Ogden Nash
- Experiment Degustatory, by Ogden Nash
One of my all-time favorites is the one that starts out, “I’m hiding, I’m hiding, and no one knows where…”
So perhaps I should have said “some of our newest favorites”? I also like “Whisky Frisky, Hippity-hop. Up he goes. To the treetop!”, “Little lamb who made thee” by William Blake, and “Little” by Dorothy Aldis.
I do really like poetry, especially a lot of A. B. Paterson’s. I have memorized a lot of his and other Australian poetry, and even one of Tolkien’s poems.