Salting the Ocean: 100 Poems by Young Poets - Book Review

This post was written as a Master's course assignment for Texas Woman's University.

1. BIBLIOGRAPHY

Nye, Naomi Shihab (Selected by). 2000. SALTING THE OCEAN: 100 POEMS BY YOUNG POETS. Illustrated by Ashley Bryan. New York, NY: HarperCollins Children's Books. ISBN 9780688161934.

2. BOOK SUMMARY

Naomi Shihab Nye's extensive work with students and their writing in the classroom led to this wonderful collection of poems from the past 25 years. Nye chose 100 poems from students that she worked with, ranging from grades 1-12. In her introduction, "To the Poets," Nye gives this encouragement: "You are making a map of the days you live."

The book is divided into four fascinating sections, each with an overarching topic: THE SELF AND THE INNER WORLD; WHERE WE LIVE; ANYBODY'S FAMILY; THE WIDE IMAGINATION. The poems vary in shape and length, and very few involve rhyming.

The lovely illustrations by Ashley Bryan showcase the power of tempera paints, to the effect of creating beautiful lines that are thick and expressive. The paintings represent faces from all sorts of races and backgrounds, and though there are only a few paintings scattered among the poems, they add weight and dimension to the words and to the book, as a whole.

Though the reader is not aware of how exactly how old each poet was at the time the poems were written, it is fun to read the words and imagine the age of the mind which created it. The reader feels an array of emotions reading through the poems and can empathize with many of the feelings: sadness, loneliness, joy, awe.

In the first section, Jeffrey Trevino tells us: "I like to:... swim in the desert/write in fire" (p. 4). Sometimes one word or one line launches the poem in an entirely new direction, giving us great insight into the poet's true vision. Bonnie Gutierrez writes: "...I am a sweet girl./I am a helpful girl./...I feel like a chained-up little elephant/in a zoo" (p. 13). And as Rachel Moore tells us (p. 31): "I have a dark barn in me that is filled with talent." These young poets are tuned in, and Nye has definitely helped them get turned on to the powerful expression available through writing.

Section two brings us to thoughts about things around the home- noises, people, and borrowing things from the neighbor. In FRIEND SOUNDS, by Laurie Roy (p. 45), we get a quite personal observation of the crying sounds that different family members make in the house next door: "wa wa" and "hm hm" and "Moo Moo" by the children, as well as "screams" and "yells" by the parents.

The third section touches on the family, any and all families. With Brenda L. Burmeister (p. 59), we see the narrator recognizing the face of her grandmother in her own reflection, as probably many of us have done. And in the book's namesake poem, by Bill Collins (p. 66), we see the origin of the idea: SALTING THE OCEAN. What a fabulous image- envisioning the poet's mother salting and tasting the ocean water.

The fourth section was this reader's favorite, as it allows for wide open and wild-haired ideas and thinking. Peter Ramzy (p. 84) writes: "When I give birth to an idea, my stomach/starts to tingle in the clouds." This section allows for ruminating about all of the universe, as we see by Austin Stoker (p. 94): "What has happened/before me/before you/before us..." And the imagery by Mary Helen Gonzalez (p. 102) makes us feel like tiny pieces in the world: "Growing is like a rose sleeping in a king-size bed."

3. POEM HIGHLIGHT

The poem I chose to highlight from this collection is WHEN I WAS BORN by Homer Soto (p. 5). As a fun follow up exercise for students, I would lead them in a writing activity. The students will rewrite this poem filling in several blank portions, like a poem "Mad lib," and will customize it to match their own life and birth experience, as they remember it or can imagine it. The students would then share aloud with the other students, if they desired.

WHEN I WAS BORN

When I was born,

it was like a big ocean

with one fish.

Then it was like

I was not the only one

in the ocean.

And when I was bigger,

it was like an elephant

in a jar.

By Homer Soto