Books like A Family of Poems: My Favorite Poetry for Children

Last Thursday, I got this hardbound pristine book from a second-hand bookstore. I have always liked to read poetry but there are those that I do not understand. So, when I saw that this book contains poems for children and it is written by Caroline Kennedy (born 1957), the only surviving child of U.S. President John F. Kennedy and First Lady Jacqueline Kennedy, and the tag price was P180 ($4), why not?The book contains the poems that became her favorites when she was a child because these were the poems that her mom, dad, granddad and grand mom used to read to her and her two brothers, John and Patrick. For one, her mother, Jackie Kennedy was a lover of poems. She even has her own poem here. In fact, most of these poems still remind her of the gentle soothing voice of their mother when she was about to sleep. That included the feeling of comfort and safe that even now when she is sad and lonely, she reads these poems to remind her of her mother, Jackie. Some were the favorites of her brothers and reading them reminded her of their sweet childhood memories. Quite timely too. This weekend is the Thanksgiving Weekend in the US. Last Thursday morning, a Filipina called Mo Twister in the radio program Goodtimes and greeted him ”Happy Thanksgiving Day” and Mo responded ”That’s for the Americans, if you are not an American, you should not care.” I disagree with him. We may not have the long weekend (except if you are working in a call center that services the US) but it is nice to step back and think of the things that we should be thankful about. Although I have to admit that I didn’t know anything about the history of Thanksgiving Day in the US. I have American colleagues in the office but I never bothered to ask.Thanks to the book. On one page is this poem that I liked so after reading it, I Googled the title and found the history of Thanksgiving Day. Read on. It is very appropriate for this weekend:IROQUOIS PRAYERWe return thanks to our mother, the earth, which sustains us.We return thanks to the rivers and streams, which supply us with water.We return thanks to all herbs, which furnish medicines for the care of our diseases.We return thanks to the corn, and to her sisters, the beans and squashes, which give us life.We return thanks to the bushes and trees, which provide us with fruit.We return thanks to the wind, which, moving the air, has banished diseases.We return thanks to the moon and stars, which have given us their light when the sun was gone.We return thanks to our grandfather He-no, that he has protected his grandchildren from witches and reptiles, and has given to us his rain.We return thanks to the sun, that has looked upon the earth with a beneficent eye.Lastly, we return thanks to the Great Spirit, in whom is embodied all goodness, and who directs all things for the good of his children. Anonymous What I really liked about this book is that, even if the title says that it is for children, this does not include your usual nursery rhymes. Rather, I found a lot of poems that are quoted in many literatures and I did not have any inkling where they came from like the poem about Mr. Mistoffelees, a character in the opera Cats. And I also read the full text of poems where familiar phrases came from like ”And miles to go before I sleep.” is from Robert Frost poem entitled Stopping By Woods on a Snowy Evening. These are the poets whose works I really enjoyed reading in this book and I swear I will look for their books and read more of their poems: Edna St. Vincent Millay, Emily Dickinson, William Butler Yeats, Robert Frost, A. A. Milne, Ogden Nash, Dylan Thomas, Rainer Maria Rilke, T. S. Eliot, Basho, Christina Rossetti, Lewis Carol, William Blake, Rudyard Kipling, Alfred Lord Tennyson, E. E. Cummings, Robert Browning, William Wordsworth, William Shakespeare, Pablo Neruda, Thomas Hardy, Jacqueline Bouvier (yes, she has her own poem here!), Federico Garcia Lorca, Sandra Cisneros, J. R. R. Tolkien, Seamus Heaney (yes, I like his poem here better than in “Seeing Things”), Slyvia Plath and Jorge Luis Borges.But my personal favorite is the strange but brilliant ”FROM COEUR COURONNE ET MIROIR” or FROM IMAGINE ANGELS by Cullaume Apollinaire (1880-1918), a French poet who wrote a collection of poems called “Calligrammes” with the words of the poem written in such a way that they form relevant figures. This particular poem included in the book forms a circle and it is very clever. Well thought of. I was just blown away.