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Check It Out: In Poetry Month, go to library

By Jan Johnston
Published: April 23, 2017, 6:01am

Roses are red

Violets are blue

April is poetry month

Let’s all say yahoo!

The next Emily Dickinson I am not, yet even with that terrible attempt at poetry, I sense a definite poetical movement in the air. National Poetry Month is upon us, and it’s time to rhyme — or go all blank verse if you choose. From odes to limericks, sonnets to haiku, the spotlight is on poetry all month long. Of course the library has many volumes of poetry for your reading pleasure. If Robert Frost helps you feel less lost, go to the library. If Edna St. Vincent Millay makes your day, go to the library. Maybe you go all weak in the knees whenever you read elegies? Go to the library. When “Madam, I’m Adam” causes a long giggle spasm (not to mention a greater appreciation of palindromes — reading the same backward as forward), you know what I’m going to say. Go to the library.

To celebrate National Poetry Month I have selected a delightful picture book that happens to be full of chickens and poetry. Yes, you read that right. “Count Your Chickens” by Jo Ellen Bogart prompts wee ones to focus on counting — counting chickens, of course — but there’s a whole lotta rockin’ rhymin’ going on too. There are “Chicken pilots flying planes / Chicken engineers on trains” as well as “Chicken grannies knitting socks / Chicken chicks with chicken pox.” The illustrations are adorable, and readers of all ages will have fun looking for little chickens (keep an eye out for chicken pox chicks — tiny red spots and all!), and other chickens dressed as clowns, farmers, chefs, musicians, and even special cluckers wearing special pink underwear.

Buk buk bwok!

Poetry can be edifying; it can be profound. Chicken poetry can be both of these things (don’t you think?), but most of all it’s lots of fun. Who can resist saying this out loud: “Chicken punks with funky feathers / strut their stuff in studded leathers”? And when you come across “Chicken clowns in floppy shoes / Moody chickens sing the blues,” take a close look at the moody poultry and decide if they resemble a certain famous singing duo (here’s the answer: the Blues Brothers).

So, go forth, poetry lovers, and revel in the joy of double dactyls, iambic pentameter, confident consecutive consonance — really, whatever “rocks your socks,” poetically speaking.


Jan Johnston is the collection development coordinator for the Fort Vancouver Regional Library District. Email her at readingforfun@fvrl.org.

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