In today's Poetry Makers series post I wrote about Lee Bennett Hopkins. One of his anthologies is Behind the Museum Door: Poems to Celebrate the Wonders of Museums, a book with poems selected by Lee and illustrated by Stacey Dressen-McQueen.While lots of folks write ekphrastic poetry (poems about art), museums contain such a range of materials, that I find this title a bit limiting for what I am about to propose.
Think about your favorite museum and something inside that fascinated you. I can't choose just one museum, so I'll be thinking about some of my favorite pieces from The Met and the National Museum of Natural History. Whether it's Stegosaurus bones, the Hope Diamond, a hippopotamus named William, a painting by Milton Avery, or a British court dress from the 18th century, there is much to inspire us inside a museum. Do you have a picture in your mind? Good! Now your challenge is to write about something found "behind the museum door." Use any form you like. Leave me a note about your poem and I'll post the results here later this week.
Shrunken Heads in the Museum of Natural History
ReplyDeleteSuch little minds.
Oh, not the ones
In the display cabinets,
But the ones who hide
These gems away.
I used to spend hours as a child
Gazing into the glassy eyes,
Contemplating the sewn-together lips.
“Tell me your stories. . .”
I whispered to them,
Till the tales thrilled through me
Like cold water streams
Over a warm body,
My body, my head, my mind.
@2009 Jane Yolen
Jane, you're amazing! How do you always come up with something so wonderful so fast? Boy, the imagery in this one made me shirver: "Contemplating the sewn-together lips."
ReplyDeleteI can almost hear them breaking free the from the stitches and telling their stories. Hmmm...what would they say?
Tricia,
ReplyDeleteThere's so much going on in the kidlitosphere this April. I can't keep up with reading all your posts here and those at other blogs.
Preparations for Easter and a few other things kept me especially busy for about a week. Maybe I'll have more time now to immerse myself in all the wonderful poetry offerings.
I may try your Poetry Stretch this week. We had a wonderful museum in a nearby community that I visited often when I was young. There were a couple of things there that especially fascinated me.
Such a great prompt! I first thought of these amazing sculptures who seemed alive, rippling muscles and all, but still - as if playing red light green light with the museum guests. Here's a little haiku:
ReplyDeleteStatue Garden
Stone is barely still
Dancing when I turn away
I spin to catch them
-Andy
Tricia, thanks for the prompt! Mine is inspired by a memory of Picasso's painting Guernica. I've posted it here: Guernica Burns.
ReplyDeleteHi, Tricia - wonderful stretch this week. I've posted a poem about Monet's Woman with a Paraso. It's over at The Drift Record
ReplyDeleteThat's Woman with a Parasol, of course.
ReplyDeleteAnd Jane, I love that Museum of Natural History, too. We have a shrunken head at a shop on the waterfront in Seattle - I go occasionally, to look and feel the shivers - and to have my fortune "told" by an old automaton for two bits.
Tricia,
ReplyDeleteThere was a wonderful museum--the Peabody Museum--in Salem, Massachusetts, that I visited often when I was little. One of the things that fascinated me most there was the American bison--or buffalo as I called it then--that was kept in a large glass case. I remember staring at that bison everytime I was there. I thought I'd write a poem of address to the bison for my poetry stretch this week:
Old Bison,
Once you traveled in a mighty herd
Of migratory beasts.
Furry master of the plains,
You thundered over the ground,
Kicking prairie dust into brown clouds.
I can still see you
Shaking your shaggy mane...
Hear the music of your hooves
Beating across the open land.
Long ago you ran wild and free,
Tahtanka.
Now you remain a prisoner here
Forever caged in glass.
BTW, that museum has been enlarged in recent years. There is even a Chinese house that was brought from China and reassembled on its property in Salem. Today, it's called the Peabody Essex Museum--or PEM.
OK, I decided to scratch together all my "braveness" and try the poetry stretch this week. Here is a poem about one of the first field trips I ever did with kids.
ReplyDelete"WONDERS OF THE MODERN WORLD"
I am a
first year teacher.
We get one
field trip
a year.
Principal and colleagues
give me advice.
If you do it right
they say,
you can
do the museum
in the morning
have lunch
at City Park
then take in an
IMAX show
in the afternoon.
I am all about
doing it right.
That day
my six-year-olds,
marvel over
enormous dinosaur skeletons
google glowing crystals
wander through the digestive system
at the museum
They gobble pbj's
run relays
blow bubbles
and splash
in City Park Fountain.
They romp with dolphins
face off against sharks
try deep sea fishing
and nap a little
in the dark IMAX theater.
Back at school
my world travelers
write or draw
about their favorite part
of our special day.
They loved
peering through
the museum's
ancient heat grates
at their friends
on the floor
below.
Carol Wilcox