SIDMAN POETRY

Sidman, Joyce & Rick Allen. Dark Emporer & Other Poems of the Night. Boston, New York. Houghton Mifflin Books for Children. 2010.

ISBN: 978-0-547-15228-8

Dark Emperor & Other Poems of the Night is a collection of poems surrounding the lives and habits of nocturnal animals. The poems in this book combine just the right amounts of poetry and science which will capture the interest of children and adults alike.

The book begins with the poem “Welcome to the Night” which invites the reader to explore the nighttime world of the forest and ends with the poem, “The Moon’s Lament” which discusses the end of the night. In between these poems, the reader will find many informative facts and interesting tidbits about nocturnal animals such as the owl, cricket, bat and many others. For example in the poem “Dark Emperor,” we find that owls have large eyes and extraordinary hearing to find prey – “What fills the cool moons of your mesmerizing eyes? What waves of sound funnel towards those waiting ears?”

 Each poem takes up two pages with the poem appearing on one page and an illustration and more detailed notes on the second page. The poems do not seem to be in any special order except for the first and last poems. The poems have varied rhyming schemes or none at all and the book does contain one concrete poem which shares its title with the book.

Rick Allen’s illustrations are made using relief printing which gives the reader an added illusion of actually being in the forest. The detail he uses for each animal illustration aligns with the factual details in the poems. On the verso page of the book, the relief printing process is briefly detailed and at the end of the book is a glossary of words which defines some of the words the reader may not know. This is a wonderful book to be used for studying nocturnal animals and fungi.

SPOTLIGHT POEM:

“The Mushrooms Come”

From moss and loam

the mushrooms come.

From bark on trees,

from crumbling logs,

from musty leaves,

the mushrooms come.

From vast pale networks

underground

they shoulder up

without a sound;

they spread their damp

umbrella tops

and lose their spores

with silent pops.

Unbuttoning the forest floor,

the mushrooms come,

the mushrooms come.

Like noses pink

in midnight air,

like giants’ ears,

like elfin hair,

like ancient cities

built on cliffs,

the mushrooms come,

the mushrooms come.

I would begin a discussion on nocturnal animals and have the students name some nocturnal animals. I would explain to the students that animals are not the only things considered nocturnal. I would share this poem and using the notes provided in the book, I would give the students additional information about the mushrooms. I would also guide them in performing the poem in a variety of ways to include using two or three voices and an ensemble for the repetitive phrase “the mushrooms come.” Also using specific instruments from the music classroom, the students could “orchestrate” the second paragraph.

To further this concept, the students could work in groups to gather information on other nocturnal fungi or plants and present their findings as a presentation using web 2.0 tools or writing their own poem and performing it as a group.