Hello, 5th grade friends! I miss seeing you all in the Kearns Library. I will be visiting your online class meetings regularly. Also, I will post poems every week during your poetry unit.
Here is a read-aloud of the free-verse book that I always share with my fifth-graders at the end of the school year. I will watch your online graduation, and I will cheer for all of you. Congratulations, class of 2020!
Here is a read-aloud of A River of Words, a biography of the great American poet William Carlos Williams. I've also included one of Williams' poems, and an image of a painting that his friend, the painter Charles Demuth, made in response to it. This painting is owned by the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City.
The Great Figure
Among the rain
and lights
I saw the figure 5
in gold
on a red
firetruck
moving
tense
unheeded
to gong clangs
siren howls
and wheels rumbling
through the dark city.
​
William Carlos Williams
I Saw the Figure 5 in Gold by Charles Demuth
Here is the poem by Lord Byron that we discussed this week. In this, the most famous of Byron's works, he uses a simile to describe his widowed cousin, who was wearing a black dress, to a starry night.
She Walks in Beauty
She walks in beauty, like the night
Of cloudless climes and starry skies;
And all that’s best of dark and bright
Meet in her aspect and her eyes;
Thus mellowed to that tender light
Which heaven to gaudy day denies.
One shade the more, one ray the less,
Had half impaired the nameless grace
Which waves in every raven tress,
Or softly lightens o’er her face;
Where thoughts serenely sweet express,
How pure, how dear their dwelling-place.
And on that cheek, and o’er that brow,
So soft, so calm, yet eloquent,
The smiles that win, the tints that glow,
But tell of days in goodness spent,
A mind at peace with all below,
A heart whose love is innocent!
​
By George Gordon, Lord Byron
Here is the poem of the week, by Emily Dickenson. This poem is a metaphor, which Dickenson uses to create a direct and powerful connection between the abstract concept of "hope" and the physical reality of a bird.
"Hope" is the thing with feathers
"Hope” is the thing with feathers -
That perches in the soul -
And sings the tune without the words -
And never stops - at all -
And sweetest - in the Gale - is heard -
And sore must be the storm -
That could abash the little Bird
That kept so many warm -
I’ve heard it in the chillest land -
And on the strangest Sea -
Yet - never - in Extremity,
It asked a crumb - of me.
​
By Emily Dickenson
Here is the poem by Jessica Greenbaum that we discussed in class this week. Can any of your family members guess this poem's special form?
A Poem for S.
Because you used to leaf through the dictionary,
Casually, as someone might in a barber shop, and
Devotedly, as someone might in a sanctuary,
Each letter would still have your attention if not
For the responsibilities life has tightly fit, like
Gears around the cog of you, like so many petals
Hinged on a daisy. That’s why I’ll just use your
Initial. Do you know that in one treasured story, a
Jewish ancestor, horseback in the woods at Yom
Kippur, and stranded without a prayer book,
Looked into the darkness and realized he had
Merely to name the alphabet to ask forgiveness—
No congregation of figures needed, he could speak
One letter at a time because all of creation
Proceeded from those. He fed his horse, and then
Quietly, because it was from his heart, he
Recited them slowly, from aleph to tav. Within those
Sounds, all others were born, all manner of
Trials, actions, emotions, everything needed to
Understand who he was, had been, how flaws
Venerate the human being, how aspirations return
Without spite. Now for you, may your wife’s
X-ray return with good news, may we raise our
Zarfs to both your names in the Great Book of Life.