Karla Kuskin

I was so sad to read about the death of Karla Kuskin, the children's poet, author and illustrator. Read the obituary in the New York Times here. I find her poems to be so satisfying in their rhythm, both line by line and overall. One of my favorites is in a collection I just purchased for my library, Wonderful Words: Poems about reading, writing, speaking and listening, selected by Lee Bennett Hopkins. It is called "Finding a Poem", and goes like this:

Dig deep in you,

Keep everything you find.

Sketch the ever changing views,

dappled behind your eyes,

rustling in your mind.

Unlock the weather

in your heart.

Unleash a thousand whispers,

let them shout.

Then

when you feel

the presence of a poem

wating to spring

to sting

within you,

bewitch it

into words

and sing it out.

There is no doubt that Kuskin loved (and understood) cats, frequent subjects in her work. On the cat or dog question, I place myself in the dog camp, yet I love to read these stories and poems because she shares her special insight so poignantly and with few words.

Some favorite Karla Kuskin titles in the Mohansic Library:

Any Me I Want to Be: Poems
Dogs & Dragons, Trees & Dreams: A collection of poems
Moon, Have You Met My Mother: the collected poems of Karla Kuskin
Soap Soup and Other Verses (An I Can Read book)
The Upstairs Cat
I Am Me
A Boy Had a Mother Who Bought Him a Hat
A Great Miracle Happened There: A Chanukah story
The Philiharmonic Gets Dressed
The Dallas Titans Get Ready for Bed
So, What's it Like to Be a Cat?

Here is a link to a workshop with Kuskin on Scholastic's Writing with Writers site.

Thank you, Karla, for sharing your voice with all of us. You will be missed, but fortunately, we will continue to read your poems and stories and enjoy the gifts you shared.