A Pocketful of Poems

Nikki Grimes takes readers through a year in the life of a young girl living in Harlem. To successfully complete the task of show readers the beauty of Harlem, Grimes uses free verse and haiku. Tiana has words in her pocket and pulls one out to inspire each poem or haiku. As readers, we have the opportunity to meet her mother in the morning, spend a HOT day with Tiana, see her hit a HOMER on Labor Day, and watch an ANGEL catch her as she decorates a Christmas tree. For each spread, Tiana gives us one word that came out of her pocket that describes a time of year or part of a day.

These experiences create a rateable experience, much like Uptown, which I have previously reviewed. As a matter of fact, both books have another commonality besides Harlem. Both books are illustrated with collage. In A Pocketful of Poems, Javaka Steptoe, winner of a Coretta Scott King Award for Illustration, uses a wide range of materials to create charming, fascinating, and memorable images that students would have the capacity to imitate. For example, in a poem titled "Caterpillar," Steptoe uses actual leaves to represent leaves, but to give the illustration a colorful vibe she backs those leaves with blue construction paper.

Not only are the illustrations in this book of poetry interesting and entertaining, but the poems themselves tend to take the show. My favorite has to be from the HOMER page, 21.

"Labor Day-- watch me

smash one last homer, take on

last sip of summer."

Tiana's team jersey is labeled "Sippers" and the collage on the page is scattered with drinking straws. This made me smile; I found it to be simple and clever.

School Library Journal calls this "a playful and thoroughly successful paring of words and pictures." Booklist says that "There's so much vibrant energy and freshness in this collaboration, the book will dance into the hearts of children right away." As usual, they are right; the colors and poems in A Pocketful of Poems are so bright, exciting, and energizing that it is nearly impossible not to relate and enjoy in some fashion. A Pocketful of Poems was nominated for the Emphasis on Reading Award

If completing a poetry program with students, this is a great book to share because you would have the ability to pick out a poem for a specific time of year. For example, if it were Halloween, you could read the PUMPKIN page. Perhaps if you were ambitions and depending on what kinds of classes you teach, you could even have library patrons or students make a paper mache pumpkin or bake a pumpkin pie. Or in the SPRINGtime, you and the students could make a window box of flowers like mama's from the story.

While this kind of sharing is always fun and entertaining, the most useful part of this book comes from the Author's Note on Haiku. Grimes says "The style of haiku depends on the personality of the poet. And while this form of poetry originated in Japan, haiku is as exportable, and as open to universal interpretation, as the American art form, jazz" (page 32). Grimes also explains what a haiku is and encourages others to write some of their own. If teaching a unit on haiku at any grade level, A Pocketful of Poems is a more than useful tool to aide in showing the beauty and simplicity of the poetic form.

Reference:

Grimes, Nikki. A Pocketful of Poems. Illustrated by Javake Steptoe. New York: Clarion Books, 2001.