A Child's Verse

Welcome Saturday!  It's been a great week of National Poetry Month prompts and I, Margaret Bednar, am here to help the effort along.  My local "City Arts" center hosted an artistic showing of elementary school age children's artwork from area schools.  Today the challenge is:  A child's verse.   How is this done?  Well, my first smarty pants remark was "Keep it simple, stupid".   But the more I pulled books form library shelves, the more I realized this simply is not true!

Poetry for young children is beautiful in its simplicity of words and ideas but the rhythm and metaphors, based on my own feeble attempts, I was surprised to find rather difficult.

I have posted far more images than I should have (It's been suggested no more than six) so I am breaking a "rule" today.  Rest assured, I did whittle it down to half (with my six year old's drawing thrown in at the bottom - his was not in the show - it graces the side of my refrigerator).  

You may use any of these, or a drawing from another child.  

I enjoyed many an author in my research … Jack Prelutsky, Shel Silverstein, Myra Cohn Livingston, Charolotte Zolotow, Anna Grossnickle Hines, Hilaire Belloc, the list really does go on & on.

… and "Poetry for Children" is a blog "About finding and sharing poetry with young people".  

Two of my favorite children's poems are classics we all know:

The Secret, which is by Anonymous in most books, but I found one who gave credit to Emily Dickinson… (She did write a beautiful poem of this title, perhaps it is a typo)

The Secret

We have a secret just we three,

The robin, and I, and the sweet cherry-tree;

The bird told the tree, and the tree told me,

And nobody knows it but just we three.

But of course the robin knows it best,

Because she built the - I shan't tell the rest;

And laid the four little - something in it -

I'm afraid I shall tell it every minute.

But if the tree and the robin don't peep,

I'll try my best the secret to keep;

Though I know when the little birds fly about

Then the whole secret will be out.

As I child I adored (and still do) Robert Louis Stevenson's "The Swing"

Perhaps we all need a tree swing in our backyard - I don't ever remember being unhappy or stressed while swinging so high and free …

If you follow the links, you will find these authors wrote about a variety of feelings:  loneliness, fear, sadness, as well as the joy of childhood.

Off with you now, simpler is not easier… and you have 24 hours to come up with a new poem.  Link to Mr. Linky … way down at the bottom of this page.   Have fun finding the inner child!  (Remember, Open Link Monday is just around the corner and you may post there as well if you are swamped today).