Visiting scholars; Dr. Leland B. Jacobs

In its visiting scholar series w b o e presents a visit with a children's poet the visiting scholars program of the Cleveland public schools was developed under the direction of Superintendent Paul breaks and was designed to bring teachers and students into direct personal contact with outstanding scholars for a visit with a children's poet. We bring you Dr. Lehman B Jacobs poet a specialist in children's literature and professor of education at Teachers College Columbia University. Dr. Jacobs as I said wide classroom experience ranging from teaching in a one room role school through work as a principal in suburban school systems to teaching at Ohio State University. He has written an edited text for elementary school teachers and pupils. He has also written many children's books. Among them is somewhere always far away and belling the cat and other stories. He has also edited delight in numbers and poems for young scientists. Dr. Jacobs is

interviewed by Cecilia Evans of WB O.E. Dr. Jacobs. There are so many elements in poetry so many qualities. How can we go about finding some of them. When I speak in poetry we're always looking for different things and different palms. If you look back at what you know about Mother Goose for instance some of the poems appeal to you because of the sound the rigmarole language the high diddle diddle kinds of things. Sometimes you look for action like Jump jump jump jump over the moon. Sometimes you look for the sound effects the feel of the sound. Sometimes you look for something that is funny in the poem. Sometimes you look for a little stories in the poems. Sometimes there are little things in the poems. You don't find all of them in any one poem and you look for different things to different. Poems do you think we might get more of the feel of a poem by reading it out loud.

Well I think to hear poems read aloud is very important or you read them yourself but you don't read them. Just sing song you listen to what the poet says. For instance. The poet didn't say how would you like to go up in a swing up in the air so blue. Oh I do think it's the pleasantest thing. That isn't what he said. He said instead. How would you like to go up in a swing up in the air so blue you find what's in the poem and you say what what's really there if the poet goes up or he goes down and you hear the poet moving and saying what's there. And you sort of have to let yourself go with the poem go with the poem don't hold back never hold back. Feel free. Yes. And a voice is a wonderful thing to work with. If you don't hold it. But the point very often tells you what to do.

You know I remember when I was a little girl and we would read poetry we would always stop at the end of the line you know especially if there were a period you had to stop you couldn't continue to the next line it just wasn't done and this is so wrong because you don't get the real sense of what's being said. I think that's one one reason for that is we overplay the rhyme. And the rhyme is only important for the feel of the whole thing. And if you overstressed the rhyme you may lose what the poets trying to say to you that it's what he's saying that really matter is not the rhyme and not the stop at the end of the line and not a particular word. But but the whole thing it is a whole train you get the whole picture the whole mood the whole action. That's what the poets working. Dr. Jacobs could you read some of your own poems for us. Well I don't read my own as well as I think I read some other people's but I'd be glad to try a couple of them. Please do.

Let's start with one that a lot of youngsters have rather liked. It goes something it's about. A polar bear. And I got playing around with the idea of that. When I wrote this thing that we all wear coats now what's different between the polar bears coat and the coats that we wear and it goes like this. The polar bear the polar bear he has I had some coat to wear. But while it's slick and warm and white he has to wear it day and night. And when the summer comes poor brute he wears it for his swimming suit although his coat is thought so fine I'm very glad that it's not mine. You know I've I've sometimes wondered why it is that there seem to have such a lovable quality. And this comes through in the illustrations that are here in this book with a poem that you've just read. He's a very sweet of.

Course a lot I think maybe that goes way back in our tradition remember that a lot of our own stories like The Three Bears make the Bears delightful characters. Another one that I I wrote but I wrote this really for Halloween but I guess it will work any time was the whole idea of not a witch on a broomstick but a witch in a flying machine. And it goes like this. It's a very simple poem. The strangest sight I've ever seen was a fat old witch in a flying machine. The witch flew high. The witch flew low the witch grew fast. The witch who slow the witch flew up the witch threw down. She circled all around the town then turning left and turning right she disappeared into the night. That sad old witch in a flying machine is the strangest sight I've ever seen. Of course it happened on Halloween. That's a modern witch.

Yes but we do get modern. That doesn't say anything against the old witches from the old stories. But why isn't it possible if witches still exist in our imagination for them to take on some of the modern field too. I think they do exist in our imagination I think. Don't you have a couple of witches being featured in a television program a series that's on this year. Yes I don't think witches and giants and things of that sort ever give out but they must certainly if they're the kind of characters we think they are they must learn something about living in a modern world and maybe they turn on and snap off the lights that are run by buttons now and maybe they fly on vacuum cleaners instead of found Bruce. Or like the character Ariel in The Tempest. Yes before magic they can perform a new kind of magic. And life seems to be getting more mysterious now. Oh it. Oh yes. Mystery isn't gone at all Shall we try another one or two. Yes I'd like to let's try one that. That I've always liked him for

children who live near a beach. How do you poetically define a beach what makes a beach not in terms of a dictionary definition. But what is a shore or a beach. And this is the way it came out for me. I shore is the place to play in the sand a shore is a place for digging a well. I shore is the place to watch for a ship to shore is the place for finding a ship ashore is the place to lie in the sun and watch the waves as they roll and run. I shore is the place where gulls fly free. Shore is a wonderful place to be. You know I think that really. It draws a picture and there's so much action when you say watch the waves as they roll and run. Sure is the place where GO FLY FREE. It is a feeling of movement and of freedom and well it seems to me that if you're going to write about a sharper you've got openness than the poem must feel

open and not closed. Now it would be quite possible to write about close things too. But when you write about them you should get the feel of closed or if it's about an open thing like a shore or a beach that it ought to give you the feel of being open and free. And that feeling is there in the words. It must bear it's there and if you if you read it for a feeling you'll see that it's there. What happens if we read a poem about a place or person that we don't actually know ourselves that we haven't experienced. Well then there has to be enough description there has to be an awful of the feel of a person in it and that you can create that person in your mind and it is sometimes this can happen not only in persons like with poems like. The pirate done dark of dao de where you get a look at him outside but if you look at a lot of poems. That are written from a

standpoint of I. Where the person is speaking himself you get the feel there too of a person back of the words I can't put my ears I can I put my. And let me show you what I mean by that with a little poem called The Secret. We have a secret just we three. The Robin and I and the sweet cherry tree the bird told the tree and the tree told me. And nobody knows it but just us three. But of course the Robin knows it best because he built it up. I shan't tell the rest. And laid the four little something in it. I'm afraid I shall tell it every minute. But if the tree in the robin don't peep. I'll try my best. The secret to keep. Though I know when the little birds fly about then the whole secret will be out. Now if you look at that poem you see in the eyes of the person telling the poem a lot about the person.

He wants to keep the secret. He's young enough that he can't quite hide the whole thing. And so you learn a lot even in poems that start with I about a character. If you look inside the poem and I think it gives you a feeling for things that are around you like the tree and the birds a feeling of their life. That's right. And you get up our feeling in poetry that life is worth while. That life goes on that there's a joyousness that can be picked up just all around you. Poets don't write always about great big things. They may take some simple thing like a flower or a squirrel jumping in the snow and make a great deal out of it. You know your saying that makes me think of this. It seems to me that so many people don't read much poetry after they grow up they they read much more prose and poetry and yet poetry can can give us so many

things. Can we talk a little about what some of these are. Well I think there are two or three things we probably none of us will ever read as much poetry as we read prose informational materials and fiction probably more. But I think there are two or three things. One is to walk down the street or to have an experience and two or three of these beautiful lines come up that you know and it is an intimate feeling of having somebody else's way of looking at it. I think that's what it does. I think it's a kind of friendly thing to have too. It can lift your spirits when you need it. And and it lives with you. And everybody needs some beauty in his life. Beautiful things are good for all of us. You know you said that you remember two or three lines that you like and that this experience bring back to you. It seems to me that this might involve a little bit of memorization. What do you think about memorizing a poem that we like or memorizing part of it.

Oh I don't think you always have to memorize a whole poem. I would only memorize those lines that meant a great deal to me. And if you've got two or three lines that you really love that's better than trying to memorize a whole poem or you only like with two or three lines. Get those lines that mean something to you. And then they really become and I mean they may become a part of you. Dr. Jacobs would you read one of your favorite poems from this collection of yours that. Well if I can pick a short one. I'll read you one that I know that I have enjoyed very much. If I can find it fast let me just say this one is a little different mood. Dandelions have a magic all their own. I'm not sure if it happens night or noon it's done so they give their golden yellow to the sun. They give their feathery whiteness to the moon. And that's one of my favorites. The two moods of a dandelion tying it to night and day.

They give their feathery whiteness to the moon. Dr. Jacobs It's been good to talk to you today about the enjoyment of poetry. Thank you. You've heard Dr. Leland B Jacobs in visit with a children's poet the visiting scholar series is produced for the Cleveland Board of Education station WABE O.E. FM by Charles Segal engineering by Dennis baiting your interviewer was Cecilia Evans. This is leaf anchor speaking. This is YOUR we the Board of Education station in Cleveland. This program was distributed by a national educational radio. This is the national educational radio network.