Friday, October 29, 2010

Poetry Friday--Happy Halloween!

Halloween is coming! You can set the stage at your house by reading aloud a few spooky poems. There are tons of books of Halloween poetry for kids, here are some that are currently in print:

An Eyeball in My Garden: And Other Spine-Tingling Poems selected by Jennifer Cole Judd and Laura D. Wynkoop.

Halloween Night: 21 Spooktacular Poems by Charles Ghigna.

It's Halloween by Jack Prelutsky.

Monster Museum by Marilyn Singer.


This first stanza of a poem by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, is pretty spooky even for adults:
The Skeleton in Armor

"Speak! speak! thou fearful guest!
Who, with thy hollow breast
Still in rude armor drest,
            Comest to daunt me!
Wrapt not in Eastern balms,
But with thy fleshless palms
Stretched, as if asking alms,
            Why dost thou haunt me?"

It is a long, narrative poem, that, for me, doesn't live up to the promise of its first stanza, but, if you're interested, you can read the rest here. I think it would make a fun poetry exercise to write an answer to this first stanza's question, and to do it more succinctly than Longfellow has done! Give it a try!

Check out the spooky goings-on at the Poetry Friday Round-Up being hosted by Toby Speed at The Writer's Armchair.

Happy Halloween!

--Diane

2 comments:

Mur said...

Ah, Halloween! The thrill of the chill! Thanks, Diane.

laurasalas said...

Fleshless palms stretched out like a beggar's--delicious!