Bibliography
Bryan, Ashley, and Naomi Shihab Nye. Salting the Ocean. New York, NY: HarperCollins World, 2001. ISBN 9780688161934
Summary
Naomi Shihab Nye, poet and teacher, shares a collection of one hundred poems by young people that she has collected over the years. Readers will enjoy and be inspired by these young poets and their ability to bravely share their words with the world.
Analysis
On the cover of Salting the Ocean is a colorful illustration of young people in a boat. They are holding up signs that read “free verse”, “sonnet”, “haiku”, a book titled “ode”, and the waves read “ballad”, “quatrain”, etc. Inside, readers will find these types of poems and more written by young people across the country. Before diving in, and after flipping through the table of contents where categories of poems by different subjects are listed, there are three introductions to different types of readers: to anyone and a couple in Nova Scotia, teachers and parents, and the poets. Each section thanks the groups and shares the purpose for this book. In particular, the introduction dedicated to the poets reads, “What do we need? A quiet minute, a pencil, a page. Notebooks are good for keeping pages together. Please be kind to yourself when you write. Don’t expect you will love everything that comes out--let many things come out, and know that now and then you will like a line or a phrase enough to let it carry you away,” and shows this collection’s most beautiful and important purpose: to inspire young poets to write.
The book covers multiple topics including “The Self and the Inner World”, “Where We Live”, “Anybody’s Family”, and “The Wide Imagination”. Readers can easily find each section using the table of contents. They are a mix of silly and nonsensical, like How to Grow Up, and there are more serious, contemplative poems. Because there are so many different authors or different ages and experience levels, the poems vary greatly. The use of similes and metaphors really stands out such as “In the morning I felt like/ and empty jug so I felt...” from My Mind Is an Empty Jug and “...my face, a new-bloomed/ flower, my teeth, big bright stars,” from a poem by Lee Childress. There are poems that use alliteration like the one titled Monday Mornings and poems of free verse and rhyme. There are all sorts of techniques to enjoy, explore, and emulate. This is a great book for enjoying and inspiring, and will make a great addition to any library or classroom poetry collection.
Sample Poem
Mimi
My mimi never got mad.
She would welcome you
happily.
She was good at many things
but mostly
being nice.
A manger scene
by her big brick fireplace,
and a colorful parrot magnet…
she walked about
like she was confused.
She was sweet singing
and old carpet.
She smelled of
perfume.
I was cleansed water
from a rock stream.
My mimi never got mad.
She is happy above
watching everyone.
I was afraid to give her
The picture I colored for her birthday
in fear she knew
I thought she would die in four days.
But she knew.
She has now spread throughout my mind
so she pops up in every thought.
But now
I can’t tell her
everything
anymore.
Rachel Dealy
Activities
This poem is a great example of a writer describing all the images that they are seeing when they think about a particular person. Start with introducing the book and it’s formation. Share the author’s introduction to poets to inspire students. Then, share this poem. Read it aloud. Allow students to share their initial thoughts. What parts did they like? What parts would they want to emulate in their own writing? Use this as an example of taking a familiar topic (a family member, a friend, an important place), and writing out what they visualize about that place.
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