Home of the Brave Discussion: Poetry

Again, more apologies for the lack of updates! Here in Augusta, we celebrated our 100th Anniversary with an Open House last week. We'll finish up our Home of  the Brave discussion today and start our next book, The Reformed Vampire Support Group by Catherine Jinks (author of Evil Genius).

As I mentioned in our last post, Home of the Brave is written in a much different style than the other books we've read so far. Poetry tells the tale.

If you've ever met me, you probably know that poetry isn't really my thing, which made reading this book close to impossible for me! Hopefully some of you didn't have the same issues.

I do enjoy some poetry though. Today I'm going to share a few of my favorite poems, and I encourage you to share some of yours, whether they're from Home of the Brave or from somewhere else.

I'm Nobody, Emily Dickenson
I'm nobody! Who are you?
Are you nobody, too?
Then there's a pair of us -- don't tell!
They'd banish us, you know.

How dreary to be somebody!
How public, like a frog
To tell your name the livelong day
To an admiring bog!


Where The Sidewalk Ends, Shel Silverstien
There is a place where the sidewalk ends
And before the street begins,
And there the grass grows soft and white,
And there the sun burns crimson bright,
And there the moon-bird rests from his flight
To cool in the peppermint wind.

Let us leave this place where the smoke blows black
And the dark street winds and bends.
Past the pits where the asphalt flowers grow
We shall walk with a walk that is measured and slow,
And watch where the chalk-white arrows go
To the place where the sidewalk ends.

Yes we'll walk with a walk that is measured and slow,
And we'll go where the chalk-white arrows go,
For the children, they mark, and the children, they know
The place where the sidewalk ends.


(Apollo) Rick Riordan
Dreams like a podcast
Downloading Truth in my Ears
They tell me cool stuff.


The last poem is from the Battle of the Labryinth (I think...without checking), part of the Percy Jackson series by Rick Riordan. Percy meets the god Apollo, who among other things, is the god of poetry. Throughout the books, he continually makes up (really bad!) haiku, like the above. Haiku is one of my favorite "quick" poems and are fairly easy to make up! Just remember the 5-7-5 rule. 5 syllables in the first sentance, 7 syllables in the second sentance, and 5 syllables in the last.

Haiku were created by the Japanese, and then the form migrated over the world. Originally hauki was used to describe the weather or nature, but you can use them to describe anything! I once wrote a series of haiku about the greek underworld for a Creative Writing class (which I will begrudingly share, even though they are awful), which shows that each sentance doesn't have to be full, they can flow together.

Greek Death (A series in Haiku)

The angel of death,
Thanatos, winged death god
leads you down to hell.

Delivers you to
Charon, boatman of the River Styx
Pay him a copper

Passing through the gates,
Cerberus’s three heads watch
low growl in their throats.

“End of the line, Jack.”
Hades and Persephone
are waiting for you.


What kind of haiku can you come up with?

Happy reading (and writing!),
Samma

Edit:
I was listening to my iPod the other day and this song poped up on my shuffle. I can't believe I forgot about it! Here's a live version I found on YouTube. The band is called "Tally Hall". I encourage you to check out some of their other music; they're quite good!