It's a blog carnival! About Poetry! It's a Poetry Carnival!
My darling friend Bluebird at Bluebird Blvd. was writing about poetry recently. It's something she often does, bless her heart. It got me thinking, as her posts are wont to do, and I wrote to her about the first poem I memorized. We decided it would be fun for both of us to write about the poems of our childhoods, so that's what we're doing today! This is the book I grew up with. First published in 1959, The Golden Treasury of Poetry was compiled for an audience of children, but not once did it talk down to its audience. With delightful illustrations by Joan Walsh Anglund and poems that ranged from the ridiculous to the sublime, this book was my introduction to the joy and music in language. When I teach poetry, which I seldom do, I talk about how we are hard wired for poetry. What do children like to read and have read to them? Poetry! It's the heart beat, I think. The rhythm in our blood. I, like most children was first attracted to poems that rhyme.