Notwithstanding the strong chill in the air and the whipping winds that continue to greet us each morning on the East Coast, it is Spring, so it is about time that we pay tribute to the season on Thoughtful Thursday. We shall do so with a hodgepodge of poems about Spring. We begin with two poems by classic African [...]
Did you know that April was Math Awareness month? So we at GCP are turning our thoughts to mathematics. We pay tribute to Benjamin Banneker, present some math quotes, and, as April is still Poetry Month as well, present a math based Langston Hughes poem. Enjoy. Benjamin Banneker (1731-1806) was a largely self-educated mathematician, astronomer, compiler of almanacs, inventor [...]
April is National Poetry month, and in honor of this, today's Thoughtful Thursday will feature two poems about writing poetry. John Brehm's "The Poems I Have Not Written", and Billy Collins' "Workshop," use humor to offer insight into the poetry writing process. Enjoy. The Poems I Have Not Written I’m so wildly unprolific, the poems I have not written [...]
Yes, we know it is not Thursday. But we so love Thoughtful Thursday that even though we were not able to post yesterday, we are posting it today. When we were unable to post, the old expression "a day late and a dollar short" rang in our ears. So, we've decided to devote today's Thoughtful Thursday to favorite expressions [...]
Today's Thoughtful Thursday poems are to be read aloud and discussed with your sons. "To PJ" by Sonia Sanchez is a sweet little ode to a two year old that is fun to read aloud, and a good example of how poets play with spelling and grammar in their work. "Michael" by Gwendolyn Brooks is a good poem to [...]
March and April are Spring Break months, and since we at GCP are Spring Breaking as we write, today's Thoughtful Thursday offerings are about vacations. In "Vacation", Rita Dove, who in 1987 became the second African American to win the Pulitzer Prize for poetry and served as Poet Laureate Consultant in Poetry to the Library of Congress from 1993–1995, [...]
An interesting hodgepodge of poetry for today's Thoughtful Thursday. March being Women's History Month, we at GCP want to pay tribute to women, in all of their facets and all of their glory. So we will start with Maya Angelou's classic "Phenomenal Women", and then move onto poems perhaps not so immediately recognizable, but that pack a punch: "For [...]
Today's Thoughtful Thursday features Maya Angelou, the esteemed poet and author. Here are two of her poems which commemorate memorable occasions. The first, "On the Pulse of Morning", was written for and delivered by Angelou at the 1993 inauguration of Bill Clinton. This is followed by the "The Million Man March" poem which she read to the throngs of [...]
In honor of the "My Brother's Keeper" initiative launched today by President Barack Obama and these being the final days of Black History Month, today's Thoughtful Thursday offerings are inspirational poems for and about our boys. The first, a Langston Hughes classic, "I, Too Sing America", reminds them that we all deserve a seat at the table. "Black Boys [...]
Today's Thoughtful Thursday offerings are inspired by "Beastly Boys and Ghastly Girls", a book of humorous poetry about naughty, ill-mannered, even cruel, boys and girls. (It is a great book; hard to find, but worth picking it up if you can locate one.) Most of the poems below are from Shel Silverstein (the author of "The Giving Tree"), who [...]