Normally, at the beginning of each month, I have an audition for the poets who meet the minimum requirements that I have established for the upcoming month ahead. I review notebooks from years’ past and look and my calendar to predict themes I might anticipate while navigating the waters of the month ahead, and then I put out an all call listing the job description.

Typically, there are only a few poets that will raise their hands and volunteer their time with me, not knowing where things might go. I’ve written about this process before when Hazel Hall joined me in January of 2022 or when Rosemerry Wahtola Trommer swept me away in the September I turned 57. I share my monthly notebooks filled with Poetry Guide conversations and how I weave their poems into my lives on Instagram, too, if I’m feeling like sharing. Often, I do not – it’s a personal practice and I’ve seen the eye balls of others roll when I explain what I’m spending my time on. It’s all imaginary, of course.

This month, Shel Silverstein was already standing in line for the March Poet Guide position in mid February. He must’ve seen me trudging through February will all of those poems from Kate Baer and knew that we were need to liven things up a bit. Oh, but what I ride Kate and I had! So much fun!

The day Mr. Silverstein showed up was on a day my daughter was describing how challenging it was for her to encourage my grandson to love reading. He’s in second grade and sadly, drowning in decodable books and nonsense word lists being sent home – and being timed daily in both. I asked her to videotape him reading a book and send it to me (because this grandma lives in Minnesota and he lives in Texas), I needed to hear his voice reading.

Let me tell you what he COULD do and then we’ll get to Shel Silverstein.

Even though the paper book was nothing to brag about, he was excited to read for the video. He kept looking at my daughter’s phone to be sure it was capturing his brilliance. He knew every high-frequency word he came to, with automaticity. He knew to pause at punctuation. He was able to read almost every word except for a few I saw him ask his mother about. He knew when he did not know a word. He had strategies for word solving and then looked at his mom for assurance. He had intonation in his voice and put stress on the right words for meaning. I saw him reread and search for understanding when something did not make sense, did not look right or sound right. He did not give up. He read the whole book with commitment.

I told this all to my daughter and then mentioned that what he needs to learn next is phrasing.

Reading word by word was slowing down his rate, which results in low the ORF scores of which seems to be the key assessment tool used in his classroom. My daughter sighed that they told him he needed to read “faster”. (I promised myself not to go off the rails here. It’s doesn’t take a brain surgeon to see what is causing what here.)

Well, who best to call on but Shel Silverstein when your goal is to liven up the reading party AND to model and practice phrasing! Just read of these lines!

And how about these?

I do believe he’ll fall in love with Shel and be begging for more of his books. For now, this grandma sends the books his way and feeds not only him with the song and silliness of language, but me as well.

Shel is magic for us both.

I’m doing the 31 Day March Slice of Life over at Two Writing Teachers along with many other fabulous teacher-writers and others who just wish to challenge themselves to 31 days of writing and sharing with the world. If you’d like to read a few lovely posts from others, head over to today’s entries!

Images from: 
shelsilverstein.com
harpercollins.com