Free Choice Poetry  

Bibliography

Coombs, Kate.2012 WATER SINGS BLUE: OCEAN POEMS. Ill. by Meilo So. San Francisco: Chronicle Books. ISBN 9780811872843

Summary

Come explore the aquatic world of the ocean. The initial poem pushes you way from the shoreline and sets your sail toward the great vastness of the ocean. Along the journey   the reader encounters creatures that are more commonly known to them such as seagulls, sea urchins, the blue whale, octopus, and sea turtles. A variety of unusual living things are also introduced including an oarfish, gulper eel, and nudibranch. As the adventure comes to an end the tideline pleads one last enticement, “Don’t forget me – I was here, wasss h e r e / wasssss h e r e …”.

Quality and Appeal

Water Sings Blue, written by Kate Coombs, consists of twenty-three poems that highlight the wonders of ocean life. Most poems are featured on one page, while others including, “Old Driftwood” and “Tideline,” among others, are the focus across two pages. The book is written as if the reader is logging his traveling experience from beginning to end. The initial poem, “Song of the Boat,” is rich in imagery. Visual imagery of color is detailed when the boat is pushing away from the shoreline with the lines, “Push away from the stillness of the nut-brown land” and “Push away - heave-ho – from the heavy brown pier.”  As the sailboat travels out into the ocean, visual imagery can be seen with the lines, “For the water sings blue and the sky does, too.” One can only imagine that the concluding poem, “Tideline,” has the traveler returning back to land, as the reader sees an illustration of a sailboat anchored to the shore. The sea, in the background, calls out, “Don’t forget me-.”

Meilo So has created the watercolor illustrations. The illustrations are a complement to each poem, setting the mood for each. In “Song of the Boat,” the illustrator used a mix of bright blues to depict a bird’s eye view of the ocean. In other poems radiant hues of orange, yellow, red, and greens are used to depict the various creatures that inhabit the sea. Two excellent example of how color enhances the message of the poems can been seen in “Octopus Ink” and “Coral.” “Octopus Ink” reveals an enormous, black ink spot with the red arms of the octopus semi hidden at the bottom of the page. Another example is in the poem, “Coral.” A sea of intense hues blanket across two pages offering up the lines, “We are golden. We are pretty. We are coral. We are a city.” What a beautiful display to view!

Rhythm and rhyme work wonderfully together in the poems, “Coral” and “Ocean Reality.” In “Coral” spirited lines like “We are busy. We are growing. We don’t care where / you are going” flow without effort for the young readers. In the humorous poem, “Ocean Reality” Frank Hermit, aka hermit crab, is available to list or show a sea creature’s habitat. Catchy lines like “That one’s not available / I’m waiting for the snail / to vacate his townhouse / and put it up for sale” will generate a smile from all who read.

In the poem, “Not Really Jelly,” the element of sound can be seen and heard within the form of onomatopoeia with the lines “ all slither and jiggle / and tremble and squish.” Other examples of onomatopoeia include the words “heave-ho, “ grind and grumble,” “whisper hush,” and ‘swirl and swish.” The poem, “Sand’s Story” offers up alliteration with the lines, “Now we grind and we grumble, humbled and grave, at the touch of our breaker / and maker, the wave.”

Figurative language in the form of similes is used throughout this book of poems. One example includes the poem, “Song of the Boat” where “the sea lets you fly like a gull.” In the poem, Blue Whale,” several lines depict similes. These lines include “Rolling your belly like a tide” and “you’re as grand as a planet.” “Oarfish” offers up the line “where the sea feels like a grave.”

Kate Coombs has beautifully crafted sense imagery throughout to enhance the book’s credibility. One such poem that details a picture of sight and sound is “What the Waves Say.” On a two-page layout, the reader is drawn into the illustrations detailing the various actions of waves. The poem’s lines complement the images with descriptive phrases like, “shimmer and run, catch the sun.” and “Shift and splash, drift and dash. Slow and gray, foggy day.”  An excellent example of how the author paints a picture with her words can be seen in the poem, “Jellyfish.” The poem consists of three lines, “Deep water shimmers, A wind-shape passes, kimono trailing.” The descriptive use of words gives great aesthetic pleasure.

Water Sings Blue is an inviting book that will delight children with its rhyming verse and playful topics about ocean life.  For the older reader who has fond memories of beach vacations or experienced living close to sea, the book will help to recall days gone by with a fondness. The book is an excellent resource with aquatic vocabulary and science infused information about an ocean habitat.

Spotlight Poem

Coral

We are busy.

We are growing.

We don’t care where

you are going.

We are cousins.

We’re a throng.

We are wide

and we are strong.

We are reaching,

Stretching high.

Pretty soon

we’ll own the sky.

We are golden.

We are pretty.

We are coral.

we are city.

 Connections

This poem could be an introduction into the ecosystem of a coral reef. Locate a video of a coral reef to have playing in the background as the poem is read to students for the first time. Ask children to pay attention to the descriptive words used to identify coral. If possible, have a variety of coral available for students to see and make their observations about. Engage students to identify the rhyme scheme in each stanza. Groups of students can be assigned a stanza to recite and perform before the class. Students can create their own movements to each stanza as the poem is performed. Students can also write their own poems, using descriptive words, to identify coral reefs.