The background here is that my daughter’s new violin teacher asked her to memorize a poem and recite it “with feeling.” (Can you beat that? He is so awesome!) Lena picked “Bear Song” by Kay Ryan, because she thought it would be easy to memorize. Here it is:

If I were a bear
with a bear sort of belly

that made it hard
to get up after sitting

and if I had paws
with pads on the ends

and a kind of a tab
where a tail might begin

and a button eye
on each side of my nose

I’d button the flap
of the forest closed.

And when you came
with your wolf and your stick

to the place that once was
the place to get in

you’d simply be
at the edge of the town

and your wolf wouldn’t know
a bear was around.

Eh? The flap of the forest? Your wolf and your stick? Your wolf? It’s a strange little poem, ain’t it? The belly, paw pads, and button eyes suggest maybe a teddy bear, but the second half of the poem, with the wolf and the stick and the YOU feels almost menacing. Naw, couldn’t be.

Lena found “Bear Song” in an anthology called Poetry Speaks to Children. It has a wide variety of poems, many of which are obviously written for children (R.L. Stevenson, A.A. Milne, Roald Dahl, Margaret Wise Brown, etc.). Others are by “grownup” authors (Shakespeare, Poe, Sylvia Plath, Blake, Rilke, etc.). Still others (like Kay Ryan) I’d never heard of. However, the fact that the poem is in a children’s anthology makes me want to give it a gentle interpretation. Yeah, must be a teddy bear. Maybe even a puppet — a wolf on a stick? And the flap of the forest could be, I dunno, the scenery of the puppet show. Still makes no sense, but the illustration kind of bears out (ha ha) that reading. You can click on the image to see a full-size version.

But wait! This book comes with a CD! Duh, we could actually listen to the author read the poem! Wonder if that would make a difference to my understanding (or lack thereof). So we popped the CD into the player, hit track 9, and… whoa! I’ve uploaded it here. Listen if you can (I’ve never uploaded an audio file before), and then come back.

It has a whole different meaning now, doesn’t it. It’s a real bear, and you’d best not disturb it. “You” are a hunter, and your wolf and stick are your hunting dog and rifle. Or, since this is a children’s anthology, maybe it’s a grumpy kid, feeling bearish, who wants to be left alone, and you and your wolf and stick are the grownups who keep bothering you. Either way, this poem definitely has a dark side. And the illustration, I now realize, is crap.

So, next question: who the heck is Kay Ryan? Well… it turns out she is the current Poet Laureate of the United States. Her profile at poets.org describes her poems as “compact, exhilarating, strange affairs, like Erik Satie miniatures or Joseph Cornell boxes” and the New York Times says she is “known for her sly, compact poems that revel in wordplay and internal rhymes.” Yes, I think both quotes could apply to “Bear Song,” don’t you? Even better, though, is this hilarious article that she wrote about the one and only time she attended a writers’ conference:

It turns out I have an aversion to cooperative endeavors of all sorts. I couldn’t imagine making a play or movie, for instance; so many people involved. I don’t like orchestral music. I don’t like team sports. I love the solitary, the hermetic, the cranky self-taught. Make mine the desert saints, the pole-sitters, the endurance cyclists, the artist who paints rocks cast from bronze so that they look exactly like the rocks they were cast from; you can’t tell the difference when they’re side by side.

Ha ha, I love this woman! What a kindred spirit! Except for the bit about orchestral music, I agree with everything she said. Especially *ahem* the “cranky self-taught.” Knowing this about her, the meaning of “Bear Song” becomes even clearer, doesn’t it. Yes indeed, she’s a grumpy old bear lady who just wants to be left alone. No doubt about it.

I wish I didn’t need all this extra information in order to be able to understand a poem, though.

I created this little graphic myself because I couldn’t find anything “official” at ALA. Feel free to download it (control- or right-click) if you like. And Tango Makes Three tops the list of challenged books this year.

While we’re on the topic of banned books, I came across a cute article titled “Why We Shouldn’t Still Be Learning Catcher in the Rye.” Don’t worry, the author isn’t actually suggesting the book be banned — just replaced on the sophomore English syllabus with something more shocking.

Anyone remember Lotte’s Locket by Virginia Sorenson? I would love to get hold of a copy of this. Little Danish girl goes on an ocean voyage (what is it about me and ships?) and comes to America. I think it was America. She wrote letters to her best friend back home. I loved this book and I wish I could remember it better. I think I read other books by the same author but this was my favorite.

When I was in sixth grade I discovered Lois Duncan. Down a Dark Hall and A Gift of Magic were my favorites — oh I would love to read those again. And, in the same genre, A Candle in her Room, by Ruth M. Arthur, along with every other book by her that I could find. Oh, and Jane-Emily by Patricia Clapp. They were all creepy gothic horror stories and I ate them up.

Julie of the Wolves, by Jean Craighead George. My first wilderness survival story. My grandmother gave it to me for my birthday, inscribed “To Julie (no wolves)” — but I would have loved this book even if the main character didn’t share my name. That is, I loved the part where she was out on the tundra with the wolves; the other parts of the story (her “husband,” etc.) were not so good.

Another favorite author: E.L. Konigsburg. I especially loved her two historical novels: A Proud Taste for Scarlet & Miniver, about Eleanor of Acquitaine, and The Second Mrs. Giaconda, about the woman who was the model for the Mona Lisa. The writing was somewhat dry, but the subject matter was fascinating.

I taught myself to read (my mom tells me) when I was about four. She says it was very sudden — I woke up one morning and I could read. I don’t remember this, but I do have two memories from my very early reading life that I thought I would share because they illustrate aspects of my personality that are still very evident today.

First. I remember having a library book called In the Big City. I loved this book. It was a Dick & Jane type book, but a little longer and somewhat more advanced than simply “See Spot run.” I can very clearly remember the pleasure I felt in being able to read it. I also remember loving the pictures. There was one problem though. I misread the word City in the title — I thought the C was hard. I imagined that for some reason the entire story took place within the gaping maw of a giant kitty. I could not understand why they never mentioned this curious fact in the otherwise-banal story.

So, um, what does this say about my personality that’s still evident today? Well, I never asked about the kitty. I figured it out for myself (at least I thought I did), and came up with a crazy theory on my own. To this day, I would rather figure things out on my own than ask someone else. Often, to my detriment. :-P

Second memory. Another library book, a beginning reader called Ann Likes Red. I did not like this book. I didn’t like seeing Ann spelled without the e (my best friend was named Anne), and I did not like the text font, which was either Futura or a look-alike. Of course I did not have the vocabulary at the time to be able to say that I didn’t like the font. But I have a very clear memory of my awareness that I didn’t like the story because I didn’t like the way the words looked on the page. And to this day, of course, I am not only obsessed with typography & design, but I am still, constantly, pondering the relationship between form and content.

I think they came up with some great choices, but I’m surprised that there are no children’s books on the list. Here are a few I would add:

Not a Box. You can’t tell very well from this image, but it’s exactly the color and texture of a cardboard box. Notice the “Net Wt” there, and on the back it has the arrows with This End Up. Very cute & clever.

Another one I’d add is I Saw an Ant on the Railroad Track. In fact, it’s not just the cover. The whole book is terrific. The pictures of Switchman Jack are absolutely marvelous, particularly the one where he’s frozen in horror, his mouth full of sandwich, as he sees the approaching train. I also love the way the perspective changes from page to page — sometimes you’re down low at the ant’s level, other times at Jack’s, and sometimes you’re overhead. Amazingly, my 4yo loves this book too. I can count on one hand the number of books my kids and I have both liked.

One more picture book that I’d add is A Tale of Tulips, A Tale of Onions, which years ago I picked up off a remainder table somewhere. The story revolves around the tulip craze in Holland, the one that led to the world’s first stock market crash. The characters include a tulip grower named Ed Vard Grooter, his daughter Gretel, and a sea captain named Drooter van Zooter. (Say it out loud, I dare you: Drooter van Zooter!) The story includes true love, an ocean voyage, rats, cats, tulips, and onions. It’s got rhymes and puns and it’s based on a real historic event. What more could you ask?

Well, it’s also got some very clever illustrations. In the pictures, all the action takes place on stage. There is no mention anywhere in the text about the events actually being a play, and there’s nothing about the story that would seem to require it. The stage business is entirely gratuitous. And entirely charming. The front cover shows the theater poster, and the back cover shows the actors exiting the stage door. In between you see bits of the audience, the wings, stagehands, scenery, etc. The art adds a whole new dimension to the story. Love it!

What books would you add to the list?