I was thinking about my issues with perfectionism today. I sometimes set an impossible standard for myself and then have to reevaluate what is feasible to do. I also have to often remind myself that we are all imperfect and that that is not only okay but wonderful that this imperfection gives us opportunities to grow, continue to improve, and to support those we love. Here is one of my poems where I played with this idea.
What We Are Is Enough
When we love, we love imperfect people,
Because they are the people available to love
When we help, we reach with imperfect hands
Because they are what we have to reach with
When we receive we take in the pain and joy of the world with an imperfect heart
I dream a world where man No other man will scorn, Where love will bless the earth And peace its paths adorn I dream a world where all Will know sweet freedom’s way, Where greed no longer saps the soul Nor avarice blights our day. A world I dream where black or white, Whatever race you be, Will share the bounties of the earth And every man is free, Where wretchedness will hang its head And joy, like a pearl, Attends the needs of all mankind- Of such I dream, my world!
By:Langton Hughes
This poem was taken from the opera Troubled Island which Langston Hughes wrote with the composer William Grant Still. I love this poem’s vision of how the world should be: filled with kindness, celebrated diversity, and peace. When I talk with children about this poem I ask them who else had a famous dream? They all say quickly, “Martin Luther King, Jr” with great enthusiasm! This then sparks conversation about the I Have a Dream speech as well. Both Hughes and King spoke of how the world should be. The good news is we call can help create that better world, one kind act at a time.
I love how the Introduction begins in the book Poetry for Young People – Langston Hughes. It starts, “From the 1920s until his death in 1967, Langston Hughes was probably the foremost poet among African Americans. His importance for later African-American literature has been immense, for he sought to not only ‘sing’ of Black America in his poems, but also to do so in its every day language.” I am grateful to have heard his experience and voice which brings to life the problems he faced and yet also great joy and hope for the future. The poems in this collection are accessible for children as young as nine. Also, the illustrations by Benny Andrews are spectacular.
From Langston Hughes I have learned to believe in the beauty and importance of having dreams for oneself and for the world. I have also learned more from him about the fight for equality, which he eloquently reveals through his verses. He is a joy to teach to children and his poems provide a great way to start a conversation about what we can do to make the world better.
Activities for Parents and Teachers:
Read the poem with children in your life and ask them what they think about his dream? What dream to they have for the future?
Provide a copy of Langston Hughes poem and the I Have a Dream speech to read to children. I recommend the I Have a Dream children’s book with the speech and beautiful illustrations by Kadir Nelson. Ask the children, “What similarities there are between the two and where are they different?”
Learn about the Harlem Renaissance and share some of the history with children in your life. New York City in the 1920s was home to incredible African -American writers and artists and there needs to be a lot more awareness in the United States of the great books, art, and plays they created.
Questions for the Day for Discussion or Journaling:
Poetry for Young People, Robert Louis Stevenson is for readers ages eight and up and it is a great introduction to poetry for children because the poems are from the perspective of children.
I love the pure joy the poem’s speaker is sharing in The Swing. We all need fun recreational activities, as seen in this poem, to help us recharge and experience joy and serenity. Robert Louis Stevenson had serious health problems throughout his life, but he didn’t let that stop him from creating beautiful stories and poems that celebrate play and a child’s imagination.
As a young child, I loved to swing and started writing poems. His poetry inspired me and reminded me of the importance of creativity. Today, I think his poems are more important than ever as a window to a world not filled with smart phones and video games. Adults and children still need to enter a world of play separate from technology and his poems can spark conversation and acitivties with children around this subject.
Activities for Parents and Teachers:
Ask children what they like to do for fun. Then ask them what they like to do for fun that doesn’t involve a phone, computer or any other type of technology.
Ask them to write two sentences or a poem about an activity that they like to do that doesn’t involved technology.
Questions for the Day for Discussion or Journalling:
What are the activities that brought me joy as a child?
What recreational activities bring me joy today? Can I do more of them to help me relax and recharge?
Whenever I am overwhelmed by my daily challenges, I can look at pictures of our solar system, nebulas, and galaxies for a reminder of how vast the mysteries of the universe are and how I need to keep things in perspective.
I also use poetry to think about the seen and unseen world and let my imagination flow. In addition to thinking about the size of the universe, I remember when I was in high school learning about the universe within each of us – tiny organisms that we cannot see without a powerful microscope. To those organisms we are the solar system, nebula or galaxy!
Years after the biology class, I wrote the following:
The Storm
What if, inside the eye of a needle, whole worlds existed?
People in little steel towns with silver soil that could not be cultivated
reaching for strands from the giant worm that periodically blacks out their sky.
What if, inside the binding of a book, a community lived?
People hunting dust mites for food and living in musty darkness, attributing the
movement of the book to an earthquake, living out their lives in the smell of ancient stories.
How would your perceptions change?
Creatures, scientists say, live on people’s eyelashes, and
when we cry they experience a salty storm.
They harm no one, and go on with life, content that what they see isn’t what they get,
not knowing the massive giant they rest upon, not knowing what the storms mean.
By: Amanda Cook
Always, I am humbled and amazed at the vastness of the universe and all the life that is around me that I cannot see. No matter what is bothering me today, I need to remember that there is beauty all around us.
There is a charming book I read in programs for children ages 4 – 8 called “I’m Gonna Like Me – Letting Off a Little Self-Esteem.” The book is filled with great illustrations by Laura Cornell and was written beautifully by Jamie Lee Curtis. I particularly like that the speaker loves herself not only for her talents, but also when she makes mistakes.
The book ends with a question: “I’m gonna like me, I already do, but enough about me, how about you?”
Giving a child a chance to speak up about their abilities, talents and things they enjoy doing is inspiring. I love seeing their faces light up when they share things that mean the world to them.
So many children, and adults, have been told they don’t matter. When we hear this message over and over again from others, we can start to believe it if we forget to value ourselves.
Remember, we are all enough and there are things each of us is passionate about that help us grow, contribute to the world in a positive way, and relieve our stress.
We all need to be reminded of the treasurers within each of us to thrive in this world. One activity I do with children around this issue is to ask them to write on a piece of paper what they love about themselves. Then they get a wooden box to decorate and I tell them to place the word in the treasure box to remember their amazing talent. Here is one child’s work from one of my classes:
Have a great day filled with creativity and high self-esteem!
At the age of 23 I started graduate school at Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh. I had been through a lot of bullying in my life and didn’t trust many people. And here I was, in a new city were I didn’t know a soul. I slowly began to meet people and one day early in my time there, a woman I had met in my classes called me and said, “I free today, want to do something?” “Yes” I replied. At the time it struck me that I wouldn’t have had the courage to make that simple request of someone. We became good friends and to this day I appreciate the fact that she reached out.
Sometimes all it takes is an invitation to open someone up and begin a great friendship. The simple act of invitation is why The Pasture is such an important poem for children and adult alike to ponder. While most people do now live in cities and have different chores, the simple act of the speaker inviting someone into their daily experience is filled with serenity and kindness. Serenity in that there is no complaining about what the speaker has to do and kindness in wanting to share that peacefulness with someone else.
I read this poem for the first time with my parents as a child and I was struck by the gentleness of the speaker and the peacefulness of the world that child describes. In my 30s I taught children in Memphis about Robert Frost and used the Poetry for Young People – Robert Frost book as a reference.
The book is ideal for 8-14 year olds and this poem in particular opens the door to discuss invitations we can make to grow and strengthen friendship. This poem doesn’t end with the other child saying “yes” although I would like to believe she did. However, even if she didn’t, it was well worth the effort of the child speaking in the poem to say, “You come too.” Because an invitation to spend time with someone is a great gift we all can give another human being. It allows us to communicate clearly to another person that they are important and valued.
Activities for Parents and Teachers:
In Poetry for Young People – Robert Frost, a couple of lines of commentary are included about this poem. The book’s editor explains that this poem is an invitation, but also that “Frost is…asking his reader to come into his world —a world of pastures, leaves, spring, and young calves newly born.” Ask children if they would say “yes” to the speaker of the poem and why.
While most of us don’t have access to a farm, invite your children to a green space, a park or national wildlife refuge, to see a grassy area or stream for themselves. Talk about the fish and birds that use the area for habitat. Ask each child to invite a friend to attend, just like Robert Frost did.
Questions for the day for discussion or journalling:
When was a time that someone invited you somewhere fun? How did you feel when they asked you?
Do you know someone who you could get to know better by inviting them to hang out with you?
Daydreaming leads to creative thoughts and great new ideas. I have to admit though that as a child my mind might have wandered a bit too much some days in class. One day in a creative writing class in college I was daydreaming about my daydreaming and began to write this poem. Could the child or children in your life identify with it? Can you?
The Test
“Begin Here.” She said
as I looked down to where she was pointing
on the standardized test in front of me.
Begin Here
The words echoed in my ear as my mind wandered off to a fair at midnight
where I would meet up with my friends and then–
“Begin Here.” She said, this time more sternly.
while she waved her hands in front of my face
as I slowly came back to the room and began
filling in the dots with circular black marks.
(But the truth is I am always running off the page)
If there is one woman I look to for inspiration when things go wrong, it is Maya Angelou. In her poem Still I Rise, she joyously proclaims that when people taunt her she will “rise” and that she knows her worth. I love the image of hard dirt transforming, not to mud she is stuck in, but into light dust that easily floats away.
Maya Angelou had a traumatic childhood filled with violence, racism and abandonment, but she did indeed “rise” to be one of America’s most beloved poets and memoirists. She won multiple awards including the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 2010, which is the highest civilian honor in the United States.
When I teach her poetry to children in The Respect Program, I use the book Poetry for Young People – Maya Angelou. This book is an ideal volume of her work for 8-12 year olds and a great introduction to this remarkable writer.
At the time the book was published, she was the only living author that the Poetry for Young People series chose to honor with a book. She has since passed away, but her beautiful poems will continue to inspire children and adults for generations.
The confident and beautiful rhythm of this poem reminds the reader that we can choose to disagree with the negative voices around us that try to bring us down. In Still I Rise Maya Angelou does not lash out at the person trying to harm her, she just informs them that she has too much confidence to let them bother her.
Activities for Parents and Teachers:
FYI: There is s a verse in Still I Rise about her gender that is explicit. That verse has been removed in the Poetry for Young People – Maya Angelou book so keep that in mind if you find another place with the poem and you want to print it off for children.
Activity 1: Read the child-friendly version with a group of children or a child, asking them to repeat “I’ll rise” or “I rise” each time it appears in the poem. It is a joy to see them get excited about participating!
Activity 2: Ask children: What is Maya Angelou’s approach to dealing with unkind people in “Still I Rise?” Do you agree with her approach? Why or Why not?
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