What the Heart Knows: Chants, Charms, and Blessings by Joyce Sidman

Bibliography

Sidman, Joyce. What the Heart Knows: Chants, Charms, and Blessings. New York, NY: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2013. 

Summary

Newberry winner Joyce Sidman’s What the Heart Knows: Chants, Charms, and Blessings is full of gratitude, loss, and hope. Readers will be inspired by the words of her poems.

Analysis

Joyce Sidman’s What the Heart Knows: Chants, Charms, and Blessings is full of whimsical artwork by Caldecott Honor winner Pamela Zagarenski, the first of which appears on the cover, that perfectly accompany the fantastical, hopeful nature of the poems. The poems are separated into Chants & Charms, Spells & Invocations, Laments & Remembrances, and Praise Songs & Blessings. Readers can easily locate specific poems from each of the sections using the table of contents that appears right after the author’s note to readers. The poems themselves cover topics like friendship, bravery, loss, and other topics of human experience. They are contemplative, reflective, encouraging, and empathizing. Some poems follow a structure like the triolet poem Chant To Repair a Friendship. Other poems vary in structure, but Sidman intentionally uses white space to create rhythm and emphasis. I particularly enjoy her use of space in Invisibility Spell which has six stanzas varying in line number. Her poems are full of imagery like that in Lake’s Promise which reads, “I am the lake. I wait for you./ with cool, blue arms and silver face.” and “My wavelets lap, my pebbles gleam/ where once you left your barefoot trace,” which is written from the perspective of the lake. These are wonderful poems to read aloud to all ages, but middle grade to young adult readers could also enjoy them on their own.  

Sample Poem

TIME SPELLS

I. (To Speed Up)

God of Time,

bring forth all galloping things

to thunder through this endless waiting,

split it open like an exploding balloon.

Let the minutes shatter and scurry

with pounding of feet:

the sound of me running

toward the future.

II. (To Slow Down)

O sweet Time:

stretch like a sleepy dog,

slow and languid and warm

with flickering light.

Let the fire of this moment--

with my friends beside me--

burn

and burn

and burn. 

Activity Ideas

Start by modeling the poem read aloud to students. Have them join in on the last three lines. Then, split students into two groups. Have the first group read the first half of the poem, then have the second group read the second half of the poem. If students are comfortable, have one or two students read the poem. You may also use this poem as an example of white space usage.