Mary Ann Hoberman, the U.S. Children's Poet Laureate from 2008-2010, and Linda Winston, an anthropologist and teacher have selected quite a collection of science and nature poems in this anthology from a wide variety classic and contemporary poets. The volume is divided in nine loosely themed sections and includes section introductions, footnotes, notes on the poets, an index, and a glossary to help guide readers. The book is accompanied by a cd containing recordings of forty-four of the poems, many read by the poets themselves. References to track numbers on the cd are included in the table of contents as well as on the pages containing the recorded poems.
With so many poems, there is naturally a wide range of styles, forms, and tones to the poems in this collection. From brief but richly constructed haiku to fanciful, lighthearted treatments of animals and plants to solemn and sparse depictions of the world, there is sure to be a poem to appeal to all types of readers. The rhythm, sound, and word choice used in the poems are especially easy to note when listening to the accompanying cd as are the various emotions evoked by the poems.
One of the most appealing aspects of the volume is the inclusion of centuries-old poems alongside poems by the poets of today. As the anthology's selectors make connections and reference to Darwin's work in evolution, the poems themselves represent an evolution of poetic expression over time. Simple, playful poems appear alongside more intricate, though-provoking ones, and the whole, while perhaps too extensive to be consumed in a single sitting, provides a variety of avenues to explore and discover making scientists out of poets and poets out of scientists.
Featured poem:
Procyonidae by Mary Ann Hoberman
If you give a little whistle,
You might meet a cacomistle,
A coati or olingo
Or a raccoon with a ring-o;
I can name them by the dozens
And all of them are cousins
And they're all related to the giant panda!
The kinkajou's another
That is practically a brother
To coatis and olingos
And to raccoons with their ring-os;
And every single one of them
Is different, that's the fun of them
Yet every one's related to the panda!
Now they all have different faces
And they live in different places
And they all have different sizes,
Different noses, different eyeses;
But the family name for all of them
Is just the same for all of them
And each one is related to the panda!
The note accompanying this poem explains that when it was written, the panda was classified in the same animal family (Procyonidae) as the raccoon, and the poem connects the panda to its relatives in that family. In the 1980s, the panda was reclassified based on DNA study into the bear (Ursidae) family. So although the poem is no longer accurate, it represents how what we know and understand about our world can change as science allows us to discover more and more.
Sharing this poem and the story behind its inclusion in the book would be a wonderful introduction to the scientific method, reminding students that our hypotheses and theories about how or why something is the way it is must stand up to evidence.
Another idea would be to share the recording of the poem (and Hoberman's insight into its background) when studying animal families. Ask the students to identify traits or aspects of the giant panda that connect it to the raccoon or bear families. Then ask the students to write an updated version of the poem called Ursidae that connects the giant panda to various relatives in the bear family. Keeping the same rhythm or rhyme scheme as Hoberman uses in the original poem would be a fun idea to help the poems match each other.
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