Today's poetry title explores geography through poems, and readers will be enjoy seeing their world through the eyes of some of America's most beloved poets.
Selected by Lee Bennett Hopkins
Illustrated by Philip Stanton
Poetry
For ages 7 to 10
HarperCollins, 2006, 978-0-06-055601-3
These days, thanks to the internet, email, text
messaging, telephones, cars, fast ships, airplanes and other technology, the
world seems to be smaller than it was, say, in Magellan’s time. We often forget
to think about the fact that the geography of our planet is such that places on
opposite sides of the Earth vary greatly and often have little in common, and
that great forces beneath the Earth’s crust, powers we cannot control, shape
the surface of our planet. We forget that the forces that build mountains and
move continents are more powerful than all the technology that we have created.
Our geographical location is something that affects our lives every day, and
the study of geography is not only important, but it is also fascinating.
In this splendid
selection of poems, poets J. Patrick Lewis, Marilyn Singer, Jane Yolen and
others take us to far off places and into the minds of those who created maps
and explored foreign lands. The collection begins with a poem about “Mapping
the World.” As an artist creates a map of the world, he almost feels as if he
is journeying to the lands he is laying out on his canvas. For example, as Africa’s
outline takes shape he thinks about the fact that it is the place where the
River Nile flows “past ancient folk.” It is where the Serengeti lies and where
people can see Victoria Falls. For the artist, “Geography is like our own /
Room with a view we can’t forget.”
In another poem
Kathryn Madeline Allen imagines what she would do if she were the equator. One
thing she is sure of, and that is that she “would have an attitude,” and why
not? After all, the equator is the only line that runs from east to west for
nearly 25,000 miles. It is the line that “splits the globe in half” and it is
the “only one” to do so.
Marilyn Singer
tells us about explorers that we often forget to think about. In Antarctica,
“where whole mountains are hidden / under ice” humans were not the first ones
to arrive in that freezing place. Long before explorers set foot there, penguins
“laid shambling tracks” in the snow. Similarly, hot and steamy jungles were
explored by creatures with wings or feet long before humans got there.
In this splendid
collection, the poems chosen truly capture how intriguing and fascinating
geography is.