MODULE 1     INTRODUCING POETRY

SCHOOL POETRY

Dakos, Kalli and G. Brian Karas. If You’re Not Here, Please Raise Your Hand:Poems About School. New York. Aladdin Paperbacks. 1995.

ISBN: 0-689-80116-5

If You’re Not Here, Please Raise Your Hand: Poems About School is book of poems dealing with elementary school life which anyone who has ever attended public school will enjoy. Whether it be humorous poems such as “It’s Gross To Kiss” and "It’s Inside My Sister’s Lunch” or more moving poems such as “J. T. Will Never Be Ten” or “Were You Ever Fat Like Me?,” there is something in this book which will remind the reader of their school days.

Many of the poems in this book are rhyming in nature which will appeal to elementary age students. The subject of the poems will also appeal to readers because I can guarantee that almost every student has done something in one of these poems such as push someone else in line, or wished they were somewhere else during class. Teachers also will relate to the poem, “A Teacher’s Lament,” which is about the frustrations of students not turning in their homework and the excuses they give. The poems are definitely compatible with the purpose of this book which was written to capture the excitement and school life of young children.

G. Brian Karas’ illustrations are black and white caricatures of elementary aged children and teachers and are drawn to suit each poem. I especially enjoyed the illustration for the poem “Math Is Brewing and I’m in Trouble.” It portrays a student in the science lab with a cauldron, mixing numbers and math books which align with the words of the poem and jumpstarts the imagination.

Numbers single,

Numbers double,

Math is brewing

And I’m in trouble.

If I could mix a magic brew,

Numbers, I’d take care of you!

The table of contents makes it easy to access specific poems quickly. The poem title on each page is a great advantage also because sometimes more than one poem appears on a page or a new poem begins at the end of another. Each poem in the book was written by the same poet, Kelli Dakos. She is the author of several other books of poems about school such as Our Principal Promised To Kiss A Pig and Put Your Eyes Up Here, and Other School Poems.  

 SPOTLIGHT POEM

Call the Periods

Call the Commas

By Kalli Dakos

Call the doctors Call the nurses Give me a breath of

air I’ve been reading all your stories but the periods

aren’t there Call the policemen Call the traffic guards

Give me a STOP sign quick Your sentences are running

when they need a walking stick Call the commas Call

the question marks Give me a single clue Tell me

where to breathe with a punctuation mark or two

To introduce this poem to the class, I would post it on the projection screen and read it just as it is with no periods, no commas and no breath. After reading it, I would question the students on what was wrong with the way I read it. After exploring their answers, I would ask the students that if the poet had used punctuation to show me where the punctuation would be and which punctuation marks would be used. We would then read it again with the punctuation they put in.

When I did this, I would be sure and emphasize that it was the poet’s intention to leave the punctuation out and why.