This Place I Know

Bibliography

Heard, Georgia. This Place I Know: Poems of Comfot. Illus. by Eighteen Various Artists. Cambridge: Candlewick Press, 2006. 978-0763628758

Review

This book is a collection of poems meant to comfort those who have felt loss, tragedy, or loneliness. Even though this collection was first intended for those dealing with the events of September 11, we know that many children face their own tragedies or grievances that they must work through.

The poetry selected have various meanings, some which have concrete meanings such as “Commitment in a City” (Tsuda, p. 22) or abstract meanings like “Ring Around the World” (Wynne, p. 36). Gordon’s poem on page 28 has a predictable and steady pattern with four lines: the first and third carrying four beats and the third having three. It also displays rhyme between the last words of the second and fourth lines with “stone” and “own” (Gordon, p. 28).

Sound has a great influence on poetry. The poem “Trouble, Fly” for instance uses alliteration with “fly like the whistle from a train. Fly far, far away from my family” which makes that “f” sound from “fly” and “far” resonate throughout the poem (Swanson, p. 18). Rhyme in Heard’s “Lullaby” with “tight…light” and “song…long” brings a familiarity and calmness to the poem which is the purpose of a lullaby (Heard, p. 14).

A serious and at times heartbreaking mood lingers throughout the collection of poems as with comfort we are reminded of these hard things that have happened in our lives. I believe this is an important book for every library to own, as children today need comfort with the things that are happening to their lives and around them. I felt very touched by these poems and can’t wait to pass this on to someone who is in need of comforting.

Poem & Connection

Ring Around the World

By Annette Wynne

Ring around the world

Taking hands together

All across the temperature

And the torrid weather

Past the royal palm-trees

By the ocean sand

Make a ring around the world

Taking each other’s hand;

In the valleys, on the hill,

Over the prairie spaces,

There’s a ring around the world

Made of children’s friendly faces.

(Wynne, p. 36)

Read this poem as a class with the words posted up in front of the students. Make sure to have copies of the poem and divide the lines of the poem so that each student as one line to read. After the first student reads their line they will take the person’s hand next to them, and then this student will read their line and take the hand of the person next to them until the entire poem has been recited and the whole class is united in one ring.