More than 11% of American adults read or listen to poetry for pleasure. That’s more than 29 million people. And it doesn’t include people who listen to the lyrics of music or sing the words of songs. Poetry may seem like something extra or inessential, but it brings pleasure and growth to millions of us, and many of us wouldn’t have had that chance unless someone had introduced us to poetry. If you want to bring poetry into your kids’ lives, why not seize the opportunity to explore poems that celebrate the American spirit with this excellent collection of poems edited by Ryan G. Van Cleave. Of Thee I sing: Poems that Celebrate Our American Spirit does not actually include “My Country, ‘Tis of Thee,” but it does have the national anthem and the Battle Hymn of the Republic.
The poems
It also includes “The New Colossus,” the poem on the Statue of Liberty, “America the Beautiful,” and “The Ride of Paul Revere.” But in addition to the patriotic poems and songs you might expect to find, there are also many more that may be new to you. Some are familiar but probably not as views of the American spirit.
Many of these poems are written by well-known poets, which provides a good opportunity to get to know about important poets like Robert Frost, Emily Dickinson, and Edgar Allen Poe, who wrote the poem shown above.
Carl Sandburg îs another famous poet, and he has two pieces in this book. We like seeing his “Chicago” here, as well as the many other poems from different places that show the variety of places and the diversity of our great nation. This poem, like many others in the book, also brings up the flaws and failings of America as well as the things to celebrate. We’re reminded that the Founding Fathers strove to create “a more perfect union, and that we continue to do so today.
How to use this book
Each poem comes with a sidebar that discusses the poem and its message and history. There’s a question to consider, and each one would make a good writing assignment. In the example above, for Walt Whitman’s “I Hear America Singing,” the question asks the reader to remember the satisfaction of working hard on a project. That makes a great journal entry, paragraph, or essay. but the author goes on to ask the reader to take that question to a friend or family member and discuss it. Recent research confirms the importance of human connections, and it’s nice to see ideas on how to build those connections.
The sidebar also includes definitions of some words that are likely to be new to students. These definitions can help to clarify the meaning of the text. But they may also be frontier words for your kids, in which case this is a great chance to add them to their working vocabularies.
Frontier Words: The Secret to Increasing Vocabulary
You can work through the book by reading the poem and the background, then checking the poet’s brief biography in the back of the book. Use the “Consider” section to discuss and write about what you’ve learned and discovered.
If you want to go a little further, here’s an outline of how to read a poem thoroughly:
- Read it aloud once and enjoy the sound and meaning.
- Read it more slowly and figure out the actual observable events described in the poem. For example, “Paul Revere’s Ride” describes Revere’s conversation with a friend, rowing across the river, and riding around alerting people to the attack by the British. “Jazz Fantasia,” on the other hand, describes the sound of a piece of jazz music. Poems often are primarily about thoughts and feelings, not actions and events.
- Take apart at least some of the sentences and consider the reason that the writer chose the words they used. What could they have done differently, and how would that have changed the meaning of the poem?
- Discuss what the poem expresses. With this book, you might choose to discuss what the poem says about America. The collection includes so many different views that there are bound to be some that surprise.
