This image, like most of the fun ones I find online, from the company YAY Images.
What’s that – a yawn? Oh, I see – you’re just perusing a few Poetry Friday blog posts while the coffee pot is sputtering and clicking. Well, then, today’s poem is for you!
If you’re a Janet Wong fan (I know - that’s everyone!), perhaps you’ve taken BEHIND THE WHEEL – Poems About Driving for a spin around the block already. Originally published by Margaret K. McElderry in 1999, Janet made these wonderful poems available as an e-book last year and a paperback this year for a new set of young drivers and poetry lovers.
Of course, the collection is about so much more than driving: family relationships, love, authority, choices, beliefs. As expected, the poems unfold in simple language, sometimes with more than a dash of humor, and leave the reader nodding, “Yes – I’ve felt that way, too.”
Today we’ll enjoy a lighter one, and this will get us back to coffee.
Not these lines from “One Hand On the Wheel,” but I have to share them because I love them so:
…
My mother was one of them
when –
who knows what happened.
Now she’s driving 65,
one hand holding a cup of coffee,
one hand on the wheel
…
No, here is the poem I want to leave you with as you smell that aroma from your kitchen. It’s shared with gracious permission of the author.
Jump-Start
by Janet Wong
can’t turn over
battery’s dead
need
jumper cables
in
my
head
clamp them on
start me up
pour some coffee
in my cup
dark strong coffee
start me up
To learn more about Janet and her robust, full-flavored, high-octane body of work, visit her website. Check out terrific resources for educators at her Poetry Suitcase! For Janet’s amazing collaborations with Sylvia Vardell, including the Poetry Tag Time books and the hot-off-the-press Poetry Friday Anthology, visit Pomelo Books.
And for cup after cup of delicious poetry, sit a spell this morning with the lovely Katya, who is rounding up Poetry Friday at Write, Sketch, Repeat.
Cream and sugar, anyone?
If you’re a Janet Wong fan (I know - that’s everyone!), perhaps you’ve taken BEHIND THE WHEEL – Poems About Driving for a spin around the block already. Originally published by Margaret K. McElderry in 1999, Janet made these wonderful poems available as an e-book last year and a paperback this year for a new set of young drivers and poetry lovers.
Of course, the collection is about so much more than driving: family relationships, love, authority, choices, beliefs. As expected, the poems unfold in simple language, sometimes with more than a dash of humor, and leave the reader nodding, “Yes – I’ve felt that way, too.”
Today we’ll enjoy a lighter one, and this will get us back to coffee.
Not these lines from “One Hand On the Wheel,” but I have to share them because I love them so:
…
My mother was one of them
when –
who knows what happened.
Now she’s driving 65,
one hand holding a cup of coffee,
one hand on the wheel
…
No, here is the poem I want to leave you with as you smell that aroma from your kitchen. It’s shared with gracious permission of the author.
Jump-Start
by Janet Wong
can’t turn over
battery’s dead
need
jumper cables
in
my
head
clamp them on
start me up
pour some coffee
in my cup
dark strong coffee
start me up
To learn more about Janet and her robust, full-flavored, high-octane body of work, visit her website. Check out terrific resources for educators at her Poetry Suitcase! For Janet’s amazing collaborations with Sylvia Vardell, including the Poetry Tag Time books and the hot-off-the-press Poetry Friday Anthology, visit Pomelo Books.
And for cup after cup of delicious poetry, sit a spell this morning with the lovely Katya, who is rounding up Poetry Friday at Write, Sketch, Repeat.
Cream and sugar, anyone?