Poetry

This weekend, Jack participated in his first poetry reading. Come to find out, it was Rod's first poetry reading, too!

Grandpa John, amongst his many other talents, is a poetry lover and a poet. He quotes Milne to Jack pretty regularly, and Jack is very impressed that he can do that without reading it! So last weekend, when we were getting together with grandpa John and his lady-friend, Ann, who is also a poet, it seemed like the perfect time to read poetry to each other.

Jack and I had a blast the week before reading many poems and choosing the perfect poems to read! I was thinking that Jack might to read some Stevenson -- The Swing, perhaps. But no, in honour of Grandpa John, Jack chose to read Milne. He read Tiddley Pom and To Her. I read an excerpt of Longfellow's Psalm to Life and an anonymous peice called When Mother Reads Aloud. Rod read Kiplings If (of course!) and a riotous funny Banjo Patterson piece about a man named Bill on his first bicycle ride whose name I forget (Mulga Bill from Eaglehawk, perhaps?). (I didn't catch the names of the pieces Ann and John read, though I believe several of them were Ann's work.)



It was a little long for Jack. He was interested in and excited by the first round. He was OK with a second round. But when we adults got enthused and started thinking about a third round, he rebelled.



He liked the poetry well enough, but honestly, he wasn't able to follow a lot of it. He enjoyed the rhythm and enthusiasm, but it held the same interest for him as story hour in Swahili. Interesting, but not for a long time.

Mamma's note to self -- one round of poems at a poetry reading is probably enough for a young man. We will prepare one poem each next time and then leave the adults to their enthusiasm and go and and check out the bees and grasshoppers for a while.

I really like that he's getting exposed to good poetry, though. It's yummy stuff.