(alive?)
and on my bulletin board
is a list you gave me
of so many poets
whose books I can read
and also on my bulletin board
is the funny poem-picture
of the cat chair
by Mr. Chris Raschka
(alive?)
and that poem
by Mr. Lee Bennett Hopkins
(alive?)
about growing up
to
be
a
writer.
I now have
a treasure of words
in
my
room.
MAY 5
SILENT SOUNDS OF MOM
(INSPIRED BY MR. EDGAR ALLAN POE)
BY JACK
See her hands in the air
waving here waving there!
What flickering formations
those compositions dare!
How she sing sing sings
in a swish and a bound
bringing sound sound sound
To the silence of the air
to the silentabulation of the hush
and the hums
of the air, air, air, air,
air, air, air—
of the humming and the hushing
of the air.
MAY 9
POETS’ DAY
It was grandilicious
finding pictures
of so many poets
and putting them
on the wall in our classroom
all those poets
looking back at us
and beside them
some of their poems
so many words
and images in our heads
and although I wish
they were all alive
and that Dwayne hadn’t written
DEAD
next to the dead ones
their words are all still
there
waiting
for
someone
to
read
them
those ineffable effable
words
thrumming like
purrrrrring
in
our
heads.
MAY 16
LOVE THAT CAT
(INSPIRED BY MR. WALTER DEAN MYERS)
BY JACK
Love that cat,
like a bird loves to twitter
I said I love that cat
like a bird loves to twitter
Love to call her in the morning
love to call her
“Hey there, Skitter McKitter!”
MAY 19
The fat black cat
has been coming to our back door
Moirrrr?
she says
as if asking a question
I pour milk in the bowl
and the fat black cat
slurp slurps
and then sits back
staring at me
her tail slapping slowly
on the ground
shisk shisk
Moirrrr?
Skitter
skitters up
and leaps forward
her front paws
occasionally landing
in the bowl
and
the fat black cat
licks the top
of Skitter’s head
and then turns
and saunters away
apparently
MAY 23
Thank you for saying
more nice things
about me
to my parents
last night
when we read our poems
at school.
My mother doesn’t usually
come to these things
because she can’t hear
what’s going on
but when you said
I could sign for her
this is what she
said (signed) to me:
“I love that Miss Stretchberry.”
And although I was embarrassed
to stand up in front of everyone
and sign all those words
for my mother—
too many eyes on me—
and it was very hard
to keep up with everyone
speaking so fast—
when I saw my mother’s face
it felt good to me
it felt good to me
it felt good
to
me.
JUNE 5
THIS IS JUST TO SAY
I will listen
for you
I will hear
all the sounds
in the world
all the
delicious
ineffable
effable
sounds
all the
thrumming
and
humming
and
tintinnabulating
sounds
I will hear
all the sounds
in the
world
and I will write them down
so you
can
hear
them
too.
BOOKS ON THE CLASS POETRY SHELF
Adedjouma, Davida, ed. The Palm of My Heart: Poetry by African American Children, illustrated by Gregory Christie (Lee & Low, 1996).
Adoff, Arnold. Street Music: City Poems, illustrated by Karen Barbour (HarperCollins, 1995).
Alarcón, Francisco X. Iguanas in the Snow and Other Winter Poems/Iguanas en la nieve y otros poemas de invierno, illustrated by Maya Christina Gonzalez (Children’s Book Press, 2001).
Bryan, Ashley. Sing to the Sun (HarperCollins, 1992).
Cormier, Robert. Frenchtown Summer (Delacorte, 1999).
Eliot, T. S. Old Possum’s Book of Practical Cats, illustrated by Edward Gorey (Harcourt, 1982).
Esbensen, Barbara Juster. Swing Around the Sun: Poems, illustrated by Cheng-Khee Chee, Janice Lee Porter, Mary GrandPré, and Stephen Gammell (Carolrhoda, 2003).
Fleischman, Paul. Joyful Noise: Poems for Two Voices, illustrated by Eric Beddows (HarperCollins, 1988).
Frost, Robert. The Poetry of Robert Frost, edited by Edward Connery Lathem (Holt, Rinehart, 1969).
George, Kristine O’Connell. Little Dog Poems, illustrated by June Otani (Clarion, 1999).
Giovanni, Nikki. The Sun Is So Quiet, illustrated by Ashley Bryan (Henry Holt, 1996).
Greenfield, Eloise. Honey, I Love and Other Love Poems, illustrated by Diane and Leo Dillon (HarperCollins, 1978).
Greenfield, Eloise. Night on Neighborhood Street, illustrated by Jan Spivey Gilchrist (Dial Books, 1991).
Greenfield, Eloise. Under the Sunday Tree, paintings by Mr. Amos Ferguson (HarperCollins, 1988).
Grimes, Nikki. A Pocketful of Poems, illustrated by Javaka Steptoe (Clarion, 2001).
Hesse, Karen. Out of the Dust (Scholastic, 1997).
Hopkins, Lee Bennett. Been to Yesterdays, illustrated by Charlene Rendeiro (Wordsong/Boyds Mill, 1995).
Hopkins, Lee Bennett. Good Rhymes, Good Times, illustrated by Frané Lessac (HarperCollins, 1995).
Hopkins, Lee Bennett. Pass the Poetry, Please! 3rd ed. (HarperCollins, 1998).
Hughes, Langston. The Dream Keeper and Other Poems, illustrated by Brian Pinkney (Knopf, 1994).
Janeczko, Paul B., ed. A Poke in the I, illustrated by Chris Raschka (Candlewick, 2001).
Janeczko, Paul B., ed. Stone Bench in an Empty Park, photographed by Henri Silberman (Orchard, 2000).
Koch, Kenneth. Rose, Where Did You Get That Red? Teaching Great Poetry to Children (Vintage Books, 1990).
Kuskin, Karla. The Sky Is Always in the Sky, illustrated by Isabelle Dervaux (Laura Geringer/HarperCollins, 1998).
Kuskin, K
arla. Toots the Cat, illustrated by Lisze Bechtold (Henry Holt, 2005).
Levy, Constance. Splash! Poems of Our Watery World, illustrated by David Soman (Orchard, 2002).
Little, Jean. Hey World, Here I Am!, illustrated by Sue Truesdell (HarperTrophy, 1990).
Livingston, Myra Cohn, ed. Cat Poems, illustrated by Trina Schart Hyman (Holiday House, 1987).
Livingston, Myra Cohn. Cricket Never Does: A Collection of Haiku and Tanka, illustrated by Kees de Kiefte (McElderry Books, 1997).
Livingston, Myra Cohn. I Am Writing a Poem About . . . : A Game of Poetry (McElderry Books, 1997).
Moore, Geoffrey, ed. The Penguin Book of American Verse (Penguin, 1983).
Myers, Christopher. Black Cat (Scholastic, 1999).
Myers, Walter Dean. Brown Angels: An Album of Pictures and Verse (HarperCollins, 1993).
Nye, Naomi Shihab, ed. Salting the Ocean: 100 Poems by Young Poets, illustrated by Ashley Bryan (Greenwillow, 2000).
Nye, Naomi Shihab, ed. The Tree Is Older Than You Are (Simon & Schuster, 1995).
Sandburg, Carl. Grassroots: Poems by Carl Sandburg, illustrated by Wendell Minor (Browndeer, 1998).
Silverstein, Shel. A Light in the Attic (HarperCollins, 1981).
Sones, Sonya. Stop Pretending: What Happened When My Big Sister Went Crazy (HarperTempest, 2001).
Thomas, Joyce Carol. Brown Honey in Broomwheat Tea, illustrated by Floyd Cooper (HarperCollins, 1993).
Williams, Vera B. Amber Was Brave, Essie Was Smart (Greenwillow/HarperCollins, 2001).
Woodson, Jacqueline. Locomotion (Putnam, 2003).
Worth, Valerie. all the small poems and fourteen more, illustrated by Natalie Babbitt (Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 1994).
Yolen, Jane. Bird Watch: A Book of Poetry, illustrated by Ted Lewin (Putnam, 1990).
Excerpt from Love That Dog
Read an excerpt
from Sharon Creech’s
companion novel
LOVE
THAT
DOG
Why do you want
to type up what I wrote
about reading
the small poems?
It’s not a poem.
Is it?
I guess you can
put it on the board
if you want to
but don’t put
my name
on it
in case
other people
think
it’s not a poem.
DECEMBER 13
I guess it does
look like a poem
when you see it
typed up
like that.
But I think maybe
it would look better
if there was more space
between the lines.
Like how I wrote it
the first time.
And I liked the picture
of the yellow dog
you put beside it.
But that’s not how
my yellow dog
looked.
JANUARY 10
I really really really
did NOT get
the pasture poem
you read today.
I mean:
somebody’s going out
to the pasture
to clean the spring
and to get
the little tottery calf
while he’s out there
and he isn’t going
to be gone long
and he wants YOU
(who is YOU?)
to come too.
I mean REALLY.
And you said that
Mr. Robert Frost
who wrote
about the pasture
was also the one
who wrote about
those snowy woods
and the miles to go
before he sleeps—
well!
I think Mr. Robert Frost
has a little
too
much
time
on his
hands.
JANUARY 17
Remember the wheelbarrow poem
you read
the first week
of school?
Maybe the wheelbarrow poet
was just
making a picture
with words
and
someone else—
like maybe his teacher—
typed it up
and then people thought
it was a poem
because
it looked like one
typed up like that.
And maybe
that’s the same thing
that happened with
Mr. Robert Frost.
Maybe he was just
making pictures with words
about the snowy woods
and the pasture—
and his teacher
typed them up
and they looked like poems
so people thought
they were poems.
Like how you did
with the blue-car things
and reading-the-small-poems thing.
On the board
typed up
they look like
poems
and the other kids
are looking at them
and they think
they really are
poems
and they
are all saying
Who wrote that?
JANUARY 24
We were going for a drive
and my father said
We won’t be gone long—
You come too
and so I went
and we drove and drove
until we stopped at a
red brick building
with a sign
in blue letters
ANIMAL PROTECTION SHELTER.
And inside we walked
down a long cement path
past cages
with all kinds of
dogs
big and small
fat and skinny
some of them
hiding in the corner
but most of them
bark-bark-barking and
jumping up
against the wire cage
as we walked past
as if they were saying
Me! Me! Choose me!
I’m the best one!
And that’s where we saw
the yellow dog
standing against the cage
with his paws curled
around the wire
and his long red tongue
hanging out
and his big black eyes
looking a little sad
and his long tail
wag-wag-wagging
as if he were saying
Me me me! Choose me!
And we did.
We chose him.
And in the car
he put his head
against my chest
and wrapped his paws
around my arm
as if he were saying
Thank you thank you thank you.
And the other dogs
in the cages
get killed dead
if nobody chooses them.
JANUARY 31
Yes
you can type up
what I wrote
about my yellow dog
but leave off the part
about the other dogs
getting killed dead
because that’s too sad.
And don’t put
my name
on it
please.
And maybe
it would look good
on yellow paper.
And maybe
the title
should be
&
nbsp; YOU COME TOO.
About the Author
Photo credit Lyle Rigg
SHARON CREECH is the author of the Newbery Medal winner WALK TWO MOONS and the Newbery Honor Book THE WANDERER. Her other work includes the novels THE GREAT UNEXPECTED, THE UNFINISHED ANGEL, HATE THAT CAT, THE CASTLE CORONA, REPLAY, HEARTBEAT, GRANNY TORRELLI MAKES SOUP, RUBY HOLLER, LOVE THAT DOG, BLOOMABILITY, ABSOLUTELY NORMAL CHAOS, CHASING REDBIRD, and PLEASING THE GHOST, as well as three picture books: A FINE, FINE SCHOOL; FISHING IN THE AIR; and WHO’S THAT BABY? Ms. Creech and her husband live in Maine. You can visit her online at www.sharoncreech.com.
Discover great authors, exclusive offers, and more at hc.com.
Books by Sharon Creech
WALK TWO MOONS
ABSOLUTELY NORMAL CHAOS
PLEASING THE GHOST
CHASING REDBIRD
BLOOMABILITY
THE WANDERER
FISHING IN THE AIR
LOVE THAT DOG
A FINE, FINE SCHOOL
RUBY HOLLER
GRANNY TORRELLI MAKES SOUP
HEARTBEAT
WHO’S THAT BABY?
REPLAY
THE CASTLE CORONA
THE UNFINISHED ANGEL
Credits
Cover art © 2000 by William Steig
Copyright
Hate That Cat
Copyright © 2008 by Sharon Creech
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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data