Title: Poetry Speaks: Who I Am
Author: Elise Paschen
Publication Date: 2010
Publisher: Sourcebooks Inc.
This book is a collection of poems about growing up and going through life from a diverse selection of authors. I feel that this is a quality selection for middle schoolers because a lot of young adult novels have a tendency to overly dramatize situations, which can lead to even more insecurity and uncertainty for teens. This is especially true if the youth reading those books are seeing characters react to difficult situations in unhealthy ways. This poetry book focuses on the very real situations that the authors have dealt with, and it has a positive and uplifting focus on self-realization and worth.
While I did not buy the book, I was able to preview the table of contents on amazon and I looked up several of the poems from the anthology and read them individually. I’ve selected this one to share as an excerpt because I feel it is an excellent example of the theme of the book and because it sounds lovely when read out loud!
Molly Peacock’s Good Girl
Hold up the universe, good girl. Hold up
the tent that is the sky of your world at which
you are the narrow center pole, good girl. Rup-
ture is the enemy. Keep all whole. The itch
to be yourself, plump and bending, below a sky
unending, held up by God forever
is denied by you as Central Control. Sever
yourself, poor false Atlas, poor “Atlesse,” lie
recumbent below the sky. Nothing falls down,
except you, luscious and limited on the ground.
Holding everything up, always on your own,
creates a loneliness so profound
you are nothing but a column, good girl,
a temple ruin against a sky held up
by forces beyond you. Let yourself curl
up: a fleshy foetal figure cupped
about its own vibrant soul. You are
the universe about its pole. God’s not far.
Core Integration:
This book could be incorporated in a classroom during a poetry unit. Students would be asked to analyze the poems, and led to discover the theme of the book on their own. Once they had seen some samples of poetry about self-expression, students could write their own poems sharing times that they had faced an issue and overcome it, or times that they felt proud of themselves. Writing poems with a positive focus would help students think about their lives through the lens of positive self-esteem.
- CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.RL.8.2: “Determine a theme or central idea of a text and analyze its development over the course of the text, including its relationship to the characters, setting, and plot; provide an objective summary of the text.”
- CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.RL.8.10: “By the end of the year, read and comprehend literature, including stories, dramas, and poems, at the high end of grades 6-8 text complexity band independently and proficiently.”
- CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.W.8.3.D: “Use precise words and phrases, relevant descriptive details, and sensory language to capture the action and convey experiences and events.”
Related National Health Education Standards and Healthy Behavior Outcomes
- HBO 1 “Express feelings in a healthy way.”
- MEH 1.8.19 “Describe an examples of a situations that require self-control.”
- MEH 1.8.25 “Explain positive and negative ways of dealing with stress.”
- MEH 1.8.29 “Examine the importance of being aware of one’s own feelings and of being sensitive to the feelings of others.”
- MEH 2.8.7 “Explain how the perceptions of norms influence healthy and unhealthy behaviors.”
- MEH 2.8.8 “Explain the influence of personal values and beliefs on individual health practices and behaviors.”
- MEH 6.8.4 “Describe how personal health goals can vary with changing abilities, priorities, and responsibilities.”