Apostrophe: Poems of Address

I’ve done a number of posts for Wild Rose Reader about mask poems—which I love to write. My elementary school students enjoyed writing them too. My students also enjoyed writing poems of address in which they’d speak to the sun or moon or a planet…to a tree…or to different kinds of animals.

For the last Poetry Friday of National Poetry Month, I’d thought I’d turn to my attention to apostrophe—or poems of address.

Following is a poem of address that I wrote a couple of years ago for my unpublished collection entitled Docile Fossil—which contains poems about extinct animals, fossils, the La Brea Tar Pits, and dinosaur dung. In How Come? I’m talking to a woolly mammoth in hopes of finding out how the huge prehistoric mammal became extinct.

How Come?

Woolly mammoth,
Big
Behemoth
Prehistoric pachyderm,
What did you in,
You hairy hulk?
A teeny tiny
Infinitesimal
Microscopic
Deadly germ?
A minuscule bacterium?
Hmmm?

Elephant is still extant…
Hippo, rhino, tiny ant,
Kinkajou and caribou…
Gnat and gnu are living, too.

How come YOU
And mastodon
Are D-E-A-D
Dead and gone?


And here’s a poem of address in which I talk to a honeybee:

Bee,
busying yourself
in a bright pink peony,
save a sip of nectar
for me.

I originally wrote the following poem, Talking to Giraffe, as a point-of-view/mask poem. I kept tinkering with it—but it didn’t work no matter how much I tweaked it. So, this week, I tried rewriting it as a poem of address. I think the poem's more successful with my speaking to the giraffe rather than my speaking in the voice of the giraffe.

Talking to Giraffe

You are taller than tall.
You’re the tallest of all
The creatures that live on the land.

You can nibble the leaves
From the tip-tops of trees.
Don’t you think being tallest is grand?

Why, your head is so high
That it touches the sky.
You can wink at the birds as they go flying by.

You can you nuzzle the clouds,
Drink the first drops of rain.
You must have a great view from your lofty domain.

Do you like being tall…
The tallest of all
The creatures that live on the land?

With your head at that height
The whole world is in sight!
You MUST think being tallest is grand!


Here’s my Things to Do If You Are a Pencil list poem rewritten as a poem of address:

You’re looking sharp
in your slick yellow suit
and your pink top hat!
Get ready to rock and roll and write.
Get into the groove.
Listen for the right rhythm.
Then tap your toes on the tabletop
and dance a poem
across the page.

More Poems of Address

Hey You!: Poems to Skyscrapers, Mosquitoes, and Other Fun Things, selected by Paul B. Janeczko and illustrated by Robert Rayesky, is a wonderful anthology of poems of address.

Browse inside Hey You! and read the following poems of address:
Invocation by George Ella Lyon
A Mote of Dust by X. J. Kennedy
Sneakers by Joan Bransfield Graham

Monday Poetry Stretch - Apostrophe at The Miss Rumphius Effect

Poetry Stretch Results - Apostrophe at The Miss Rumphius Effect

Old Man Ocean by Russell Hoban

Dinosaur Bone by Alice Schertle

Skyscraper by Dennis Lee

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At Blue Rose Girls, I have a Favorite Poem Project video of Theodore Roethke's The Sloth. The poem is recited by a fifth grader named Katherine Mechling.

The Poetry Friday Roundup is at Great Kids Books.