Word: poem
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When the funny man with the big round glasses comes bouncing into the classroom at Manhattan's P.S. 61, the sixth-graders burst into applause. "Hi there, poets," says Kenneth Koch. "How about a Christmas poem today?" He suggests all sorts of ideas: "Like what would the ocean do if it really cared about Christmas? Or the eagles, sparrows and robins-what would they do? The apes in in Africa, would they swing from the trees? Or Abraham Lincoln, would he shave his beard? The rain? The sun? And the people in Puerto Rico, or China...
...black, brown or yellow Santas testify to the fact that the American melting pot is still bubbling, despite gloomy assertions to the contrary. Some cards even display the extent to which the celebration of Jesus' birth has become a festival for non-Christians. One this year contains a poem called 'Twas the Night Before Chanukah, which ends with a jolly fat man in "a little red yamalke" urging his reindeer into the night...
...REMEMBER the first time I read "The Fish." I was in ninth grade at a new school, very timid and very scared, and I knew nothing about poetry. My favorite poem was "The Midnight Ride of Paul Revere" by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, which my father recited to us frequently because it was written about my brother's birthday. I didn't enjoy reading poems; they were difficult, and I didn't think they were interesting enough to make the difficulty worthwhile. But I had a young and very good English teacher that year, and he put "The Fish" in front...
...sudden I realized what a fish it was, and what a feat it was to catch such a fish, and the poem broke over me like the rainbows that fill its last lines. I was thrilled by this poem that started so quietly, and yet could bring me to a pitch of emotion I had never before experienced in literature. I read it over and over, in wonder, and I am still reading it with the same sense of discovery. "The Fish" taught me my first lesson about the mysteries of poetry. For me, it will always be a mysterious...
...friend stands up and reads a poem composed by some of my grandparents' crowd for the occasion; it ends with "We love you." Lil seems about to cry. "We'll never forget, never!" she calls...