Thank you, Katie, at The Logonauts for hosting Poetry Friday today. I’ve been traveling and came home to this magical poem from Tricia. Can you identify all the book references? Receiving poems during the summer is one of the best things about summer.
Where Readers Come From
(with apologies to George Ella Lyon)
Readers come from songs,
from rhyme and finger play.
They come from recitation and repetition
(All those Moo, Baa, La La La’s
and Brown Bear, Brown Bear, What Do You See?.)
They come from Sunday comics,
cereal boxes and read alouds
that feature character voices,
sound effects,
and mood lighting.
They come from independent bookstores and libraries,
from authors and librarians.
They come from
Once upon a time,
happily ever after,
“It was a dark and stormy night,” and
“There was a hand in the darkness, and it held a knife.”
They come from Minli, Harriet, and Ramona,
from Clementine, Omakayas, and Baby Mouse.
They come from Stanley Yelnats, Auggie Pullman, and Jackson Greene,
from Jin Wang, Octavian Nothing, and Captain Underpants.
They come from Narnia, Middle Earth, and Hogwarts,
from Panem, Redwall, and the Island of Berk.
Readers come from “It’s past your bedtime,”
with flashlights under the covers
turning page after page,
racing to the end.
Readers come from letters strung into words
and words arranged in a million different ways
into stories that leave us
gloomy or cheerful,
quiet or agitated,
exasperated or pleased,
and every human emotion in between.
Under my pillow is a well-worn book
pages bent
cover crinkled.
I am from this book —
from all those that came before —
and all those yet to come.
~Tricia Stohr-Hunt
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
A response:
at
night
I read
past bedtime
discover new worlds
happy for summertime escapes
~jone rush macculloch
Jone Rush MacCulloch 
I love how swap participants are using each other’s poems to write response poems! A real two-fer for us readers!
What a fabulous pair of poems! I am, indeed, who I am because of what I’ve read (and do read)!
I adore Tricia’s poem. What a brilliant idea. It would be fun, as Heidi mentioned, to have kids write their own version of this. Love your fib and those “happy for summertime escapes.” Happy reading and writing, Jone!
Beautiful, moving poem, what a fun piece! I especially like these closing lines,
“I am from this book —
from all those that came before —
and all those yet to come.
I like your response poem too, and this line from it,
“happy for summertime escapes”
I read past bedtime most of the time, and I especially like taking a story off to sleep.Thanks for all Jone.
Love how Tricia wrote about something so dear to your heart, so well! I can see it as a poster in a classroom.
I didn’t catch all the references, but most of them are familiar friends. I can relate to so much in this poem, from reading the back of cereal boxes to reading under the covers with a flashlight. I like your poetic response, too.
Awww–what a tribute to the texts and experiences that shaped so many of us of un age certain! I’d be so fascinated to see how this poem would be different for my kids’ generation–or not. So much fun, and your fib concentrates it down to essence. Nice!
Middle earth and Berk, now there are some adventures! I love all those books. And Cinder. Inkheart. Hermione Granger. Such fun.
It was so much fun reading poetry exchange posts today. Tricia — the last six lines of your poem, yes! That was (and is) me. And Jone, reading in the summer as we enjoy a quiet day — what could be better?
Tricia’s poem would be perfect to share with my Kindergarten parents to demonstrate what reading is and how it begins! And your poem? How many nights have I stayed up WAY PAST my “bedtime” because I was in too deep with a book. Love these.
Tricia wrote just for you, Jone, a poem filled with old friends! Your response is perfect.
Jone,
What a great FIB you wrote, but it isn’t a fib. It is the truth! Marvelous. Thanks for this post.