Poetry
Sara Grajek
September 23, 2007

Ask a third grader and chances are they can tell you all about Where the Sidewalk Ends. They can tell you about being eaten by a boa constrictor, the recipe for a hippopotamus sandwich, and how everyone who is a "dreamer, a wisher, a liar, a hope-er, a pray-er, a magic bean buyer...." is invited to come sit by Shel Silverstein's fire and listen to his book of poetry. Where the Sidewalk Ends might be one of the best-known works of children's poetry, and it is certainly one of the most popular at Rowan Public Library. On the shelves surrounding Shel Silverstein's classic book are his other collections of poetry as well as those by other poets. Stop by the library someday and check them out.

One of my personal favorites, Please Bury me in the Library by J. Patrick Lewis, is a collection of poems with a literary theme. Selections are titled, "Reading in the Dark," What if Books Had Different Names," and "Summer Reading at the Beach." Full- page illustrations accompany each poem to further enhance them. Butterfly Eyes and Other Secrets of the Meadow, by Joyce Sidman offers a science lesson cleverly disguised as a poetry riddle. Moving throughout the day, from morning to night, this book takes the reader on an adventure through the meadows with poems about grasshoppers, hawks, rabbits, and even a fox.

If you are very brave, you can check out Big, Bad and Scary: Poems that Bite Back illustrated by Wade Zahares. This is a collection of poems by well known authors and poets, with one thing in common; creatures featured in this book all slither, stalk, swoop or bite! Snakes, alligators, lions, bats and sharks are stars of this book and Zahares has done a great job illustrating them. For those seeking a bit of humor, try Frankenstein Makes a Sandwich by Adam Rex. Filled with poems about classic movie monsters, Frankenstein is joined by Count Dracula, the Mummy, and Godzilla. Except, they don't quite act as expected in this collection of tales; the "Invisible Man Gets a Haircut," "Count Dracula Doesn't Know He's Been Walking Around All Night With Spinach in His Teeth" and of course, "Frankenstein Makes a Sandwich."

If reading all of these poems inspires your children to try writing their own and you'd like some advice, read Wishes, Lies and Dreams: Teaching Children to Write Poetry by Kenneth Koch. And don't forget the timeless words of Shel Silverstein, "if you are a dreamer, come in." That is what poetry is all about, and Rowan Public Library's poetry collection can keep you dreaming for as long as you want. So come on in.

Royal Attention
Gretchen Beilfuss Witt
September 17, 2007

Despite our rejection of the British monarchy as a form of government, American audiences tend to be fascinated by the royal family of England. One of the most written about monarchs is interestingly, also the one with the longest reign thus far. While many books and even a movie delve into the life of Queen Victoria, most write about her early and married years. Greg King’s book “Twilight of Splendor” explores her widowed years, particularly the year of her Diamond Jubilee, the 60th year of her reign. His descriptions of her day-to-day life, her residences, and her complicated and manipulative dealings with her relations make very intriguing reading.

The granddaughter of George III, our foe in the Revolutionary War, Alexandrina Victoria was born in 1819. Amazingly, before her birth none of the six sons of George III had any legitimate issue. Even with a throne at stake, few of them were interested in providing an heir. Edward, Duke of Kent and fourth son of George III rose to the occasion by abandoning his mistress, married and successfully produced a legitimate heir a few years before dying. Drina, as she was called in childhood, grew up isolated from almost everyone, including her less than savory Hanoverian relatives. Overprotected by her formidable mother and companionless but for her half-sister, Victoria ascended the thrown on a summer morning in 1837 having just passed her eighteenth birthday.

After a string of older, debauched kings, the British welcomed this morally upright, pristine young queen. “She was a new Gloriana …destined to preside over the greatest period of British prosperity and grown in the modern era”. With her husband Albert and her large family of nine children, Queen Victoria focused on changing the image of the monarchy into the bastion of propriety. Victoria’s influence was vast – she was mother, mother-in-law, grandmother or grandmother-in-law to nearly every royal family of Europe. Kaiser Wilhelm of Prussia was her first grandchild, son to her eldest daughter Vicky (Victoria). Her granddaughter Alix, later Alexandra, married the ill-fated Tsar Nicholas II of Russia. Victoria’s brood and their antics are fascinating. King delights in some interesting details of her private life, for example, it was common for her and her husband to exchange nude figurines and other risqué art as birthday presents. One of her grandsons was rumored to be Jack the Ripper. King’s vivid descriptions of the elaborate costuming at events and the furnishings at each royal residence are also engaging as are the details of royal service, railcars, holidays, and expenditures. It provides a marvelous glimpse into a world long past.

Take a look at other books about the royals – “Diana's Boys: William and Harry and the Mother They Loved” by Christopher Andersen; “The Decline and Fall of the House of Windsor” by Donald Spoto; Hannah Pakula’s “An Uncommon Woman”; “Victoria's Daughters” by Jerrold M. Packard and Robert Rhodes James’ biography of “Prince Albert”, Victoria’s Prince Consort.

“Native Guard” by Natasha Trethewey

September 2, 2007
Betty Moore

New at Rowan Public Library is Natasha Trethewey’s “Native Guard,” winner of the 2007 Pulitzer Prize in Poetry. Now a teacher of creative writing at Emory University and the winner of numerous awards for her poetry, the author was born in Gulfport, Mississippi in 1966.

Trethewey’s slim volume of poems explores both her personal history and Southern history. Her writing reflects on her own experiences of growing up biracial in the South, having both a blond doll and a crèche with a dark baby, seeing a cross burning in her family’s yard. She explores the history of her black mother and white father, who traveled to Ohio to marry, since it was illegal where they lived, in Mississippi. She delves into the history of her feelings of loss and grief at her mother’s death. And one group of poems looks at the Civil War from the point of view of black Union soldiers.

The ten-section title poem looks back to the time during the Civil War when former slaves, members of the Louisiana Native Guards of the Union Army, manned Fort Massachusetts on Ship Island, in the Gulf of Mexico near Gulfport and Biloxi.

“We know it is our duty now to keep/ white men as prisoners—rebel soldiers,/ would-be masters. We’re all bondsmen here, each/ to the other. Freedom has gotten them/ captivity. For us, a conscription/ we have chosen—jailors to those who still would have us slaves.

“Elegy for the Native Guards,” takes the poet by boat to today’s Fort Massachusetts, now part of Gulf Islands National Seashore. “We leave Gulfport at noon; gulls overhead/ trailing the boat….The Daughters of the Confederacy/ has placed a plaque here, at the fort’s entrance--/ each Confederate soldier’s name raised hard/ in bronze; no names carved for the Native Guards--/ 2^nd Regiment, Union men, black phalanx./ What is monument to their legacy?”

She uses language to reinforce her meanings: layers of repetition, phrases mirrored at beginning and end.

Throughout the book, Trethewey sifts through layers and contradictions of the South, bringing up what has been buried. Her mixed feelings stand out in the last lines of the volume: “I return/ to Mississippi, state that made a crime/ of me—mulatto, half-breed—native/ in my native land, this place they’ll bury me.”