Laura Purdie Salas

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[Poetry Friday] Worker Bees (by Douglas Florian)

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For the next few weeks, I want to highlight other poetry books?on the CYBILS shortlist–the ones that?I’ve read?but haven’t shared?here. I don’t know how they get away from me! One of those is Douglas Florian’s UnBEElievables: Honeybee Poems and Paintings. Here’s one of my favorites from it:
UnBEElievables: Honeybee Poems and Paintings
Worker Bees
Sister.
Sister.
Sister.
Sister.
Not one brother.
Not one mister.
See us sisters work all day.
Dawn to dusk–no time to play.
We must feed the needy queen,
Drones, and babies–
And we clean!
When it’s hot, we fan the air.
Have the hive in good repair.
Always working,
building,
slaving.
Never
Ever
Miss-bee-having.
–by Douglas Florian, all rights reserved
(Shoot. The formatting didn’t come through.) Short prose passages after each poem give more details. Wouldn’t it be fun to have students research animals and, instead of writing a standard report, they write a poetry collection about their chosen animal? And in an older classroom, this would be a great book to pair with the phenomenal nonfiction book?Hive Detectives, by Loree Griffin Burns.
Renee at No Water River has?today’s Poetry Friday roundup?(and she has bloopers!)–enjoy!
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Comments

  7. I too absolutely love this book. Now Laura may I pick your brains a minute. Do you get permission from the author before showcasing a poem or does the all rights reserved part cover you? I’d love to share more poems from other people.

    • Good question, Catherine. Within the children’s poetry community, I don’t. If anyone ever objected, I would, of course, remove the poem immediately and not share one of that person’s poems again without permission. I enthusiastically share poems I like, I credit the poem, I link to the book, and I try to share a cover image, too. It’s good PR for the poet/book, and I’ve never had a single person object. Most poets are happy to have the word spread and many stop by to comment or email me and say thanks.

      The only exception is for anthologies. Since a poet usually only has one or two poems in any given anthology, I don’t share a poem without checking first with the poet.

      So…technically, legally, I SHOULD ask for permission. I don’t and have only had happy poets result. If I asked for permission first, I would share many fewer poems because it would just a hassle. Hope that helps!

  8. I too absolutely love this book. Now Laura may I pick your brains a minute. Do you get permission from the author before showcasing a poem or does the all rights reserved part cover you? I’d love to share more poems from other people.

    • Good question, Catherine. Within the children’s poetry community, I don’t. If anyone ever objected, I would, of course, remove the poem immediately and not share one of that person’s poems again without permission. I enthusiastically share poems I like, I credit the poem, I link to the book, and I try to share a cover image, too. It’s good PR for the poet/book, and I’ve never had a single person object. Most poets are happy to have the word spread and many stop by to comment or email me and say thanks.

      The only exception is for anthologies. Since a poet usually only has one or two poems in any given anthology, I don’t share a poem without checking first with the poet.

      So…technically, legally, I SHOULD ask for permission. I don’t and have only had happy poets result. If I asked for permission first, I would share many fewer poems because it would just a hassle. Hope that helps!

  11. How absolutely brilliant that last line is. I went on a book-borrowing frenzy from our libraries – mostly fiction picture books though. Hopefully, I can get around to borrowing the poetry finalists as well in the next few weeks as we celebrate all things Cybils for our current bimonthly theme. 🙂

  12. How absolutely brilliant that last line is. I went on a book-borrowing frenzy from our libraries – mostly fiction picture books though. Hopefully, I can get around to borrowing the poetry finalists as well in the next few weeks as we celebrate all things Cybils for our current bimonthly theme. 🙂

    • It’s the perfect word for a poem about the actions/behaviors of female bees. Wonder which came first–the word or the concept of the poem.

    • It’s the perfect word for a poem about the actions/behaviors of female bees. Wonder which came first–the word or the concept of the poem.

  19. You’ve definitely piqued my interest in this book…off to my library website to see if they have a copy. If not, I will ask them to order it. Thanks for sharing!

    • That is such a great thing to do–requesting that your library orders it. It is really a huge help to writers. Hope you enjoy the book!

  20. You’ve definitely piqued my interest in this book…off to my library website to see if they have a copy. If not, I will ask them to order it. Thanks for sharing!

    • That is such a great thing to do–requesting that your library orders it. It is really a huge help to writers. Hope you enjoy the book!

  25. This book is winging its way to me as we speak, along with another by a poet named Laura…I wonder if you know her? 🙂 Douglas is just too clever and fabulous for words. His poems seem so effortless, like dandelion fluff.

    • Aw, yay! And you hit the nail on the head–his joy in his topics and in wordplay makes all his poems feel effortless. Of course they’re not effortless to write, but he is a master at making them so natural in rhythm and language that they feel like (well, the shorter ones, anyway) maybe he accidentally just said those lines in conversation as a joke and then wrote them down as a poem.

  26. This book is winging its way to me as we speak, along with another by a poet named Laura…I wonder if you know her? 🙂 Douglas is just too clever and fabulous for words. His poems seem so effortless, like dandelion fluff.

    • Aw, yay! And you hit the nail on the head–his joy in his topics and in wordplay makes all his poems feel effortless. Of course they’re not effortless to write, but he is a master at making them so natural in rhythm and language that they feel like (well, the shorter ones, anyway) maybe he accidentally just said those lines in conversation as a joke and then wrote them down as a poem.

  27. I’m a little evil. Two boys picked the poem about drones to read aloud for PF yesterday. Clearly, they knew what they were doing when they picked it — they were all a-giggle about it. The audience didn’t understand why, so I asked them what a drone is. And they read aloud the informational bit about MATING with the queen and then dying. Oooh. I made 5th grade boys say MATING out loud! Tee hee!!!

  28. I’m a little evil. Two boys picked the poem about drones to read aloud for PF yesterday. Clearly, they knew what they were doing when they picked it — they were all a-giggle about it. The audience didn’t understand why, so I asked them what a drone is. And they read aloud the informational bit about MATING with the queen and then dying. Oooh. I made 5th grade boys say MATING out loud! Tee hee!!!

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