by Mary Wilson
Each week, our family routinely sets aside time to enjoy a Poetry Teatime together. The table is set, the drinks and snacks are served, and poetry is shared aloud. On a typical week we bring favorite books from our own collection or from a recent library trip to the table.
But this week was a bit different. Inspired by Poetry Teatime's interview with Marilyn Singer, we had a themed teatime with Marilyn as our featured author.
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To prepare for our special tea, I requested all of the books available by Marilyn Singer at our local libraries. Thankfully, this creative poet has written a large number of poetry books with diverse themes.
I began our tea time by reading the Poetry Teatime interview with Marilyn to the kids. A podcast was also available, which I listened to on my own, but the kids weren’t up for forty minute podcast. After learning a little bit about our featured poet, we were ready to dig into her books and our snacks!
Right away, my youngest child gravitated toward the book, A Stick is an Excellent Thing: Poems Celebrating Outdoor Play. This book was filled with fun poems for all readers, but it was particularly perfect for my youngest reader. He was able to comfortably read a few poems out loud for us.
Marilyn’s well-known reverso, or mirror poetry, can be found in several books. Her fairy tale reverso poems were found in both Follow Follow and Mirror Mirror. Our family was fortunate enough to also find her most recent release, Echo Echo, at our library. Echo Echo is a book of reverso poems based on stories from Greek Mythology. This wasn’t our first time reading these reverso poems, yet it was fun to revisit them again with more background knowledge of the poet!
Inspired by what we just read, we ended our tea time by attempting some reverso poetry of our own.
Daniel, age 6
May’s coming / I’m waiting
I’m waiting / May’s coming
David, age 9
Have fun / Ripstiking
Ripstiking / Have fun
Patricia, age 11
No! I will
Never!
Will I go back?
It’s over.
I’m safe.
I'm safe.
It's over.
Will I go back?
Never?
No, I will.
My attempt:
Jekyll and Hyde Come to Tea
Poetry.
While reading
we sip tea.
Never will
we stop.
We stop!
Never will
we sip tea
while reading
poetry.
We had a great time, but boy was it challenge to write these poems! The process gave us a whole new appreciation for Marilyn and her creativity.
Hop over to Mary's blog, Not Before 7, to see all their favorite Marilyn Singer books.
