Last week marked the first annual Take Your Poet to School Week! At our homeschool co-op, we celebrated by cutting and coloring Christina Rossetti puppets and beginning to memorize her poem “The Months.”
The Months
January cold desolate;
February all dripping wet;
March wind ranges;
April changes;
Birds sing in tune
To flowers of May,
And sunny June
Brings longest day;
In scorched July
The storm-clouds fly
Lightning-torn;
August bears corn,
September fruit;
In rough October
Earth must disrobe her;
Stars fall and shoot
In keen November;
And night is long
And cold is strong
In bleak December.
After I read through the poem once, the children spontaneously found their own birth months and those of their younger siblings and pets! Some were pleased with May’s singing birds and blooming flowers, but others were much less enthusiastic about “rough October.”
However you feel about Rossetti’s designations, her list poem presents an almanac of sorts. Here in the Pacific Northwest, our seasons match up fairly well with Rossetti’s England.
Try It: List Poem
What about where you live? Can you use this poem as a template for describing the changes that the natural world births throughout the turning year? Can you write a local almanac of your home place? Or perhaps you’d like to make a list poem just for your birthday, using the character of your particular month.
Photo by frankieleon, Creative Commons, via Flickr. Poem is in the public domain. Post by Kortney Garrison.
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Tom says
Paul Simon’s “April Come She Will” seems much less a curiosity after reading the months. Thanks. I’ve included a link.
https://youtu.be/PYD-DIggB2k
Kortney Garrison says
“July, she will fly and give no warning to her flight.”
…my birthday month! Thanks for sharing this sweetness, Tom.
L.L. Barkat says
Cherries,
a pie,
that’s the whole
list—all
I ever needed
for my
birthday.
🙂
(true story! 🙂 )
Kortney Garrison says
So a late summer birthday, L.L.?
L.L. Barkat says
Just a cherry pie birthday, regardless of season. 🙂
Oh, but I did *so* love eating cherries at my grandmother’s house in the summer. She had a bing cherry tree that simply wept to the ground, and we would sit under it as if it was a secret house, and we would eat cherries until we could eat no more.
The tart cherries were too high up. She’d climb ladders to get those cherries. And I remember she was always battling with the birds (many nets over trees, to try to keep them away). Later, I would help her pit the cherries with this funny little contraption that made an awful mess, but it was worth the effort (many summer pies from that kitchen; many pies, period, from that kitchen; I do miss her abundant, generous cooking and baking and canning).
Kortney Garrison says
Thank you for inviting us under the branches of your cherry tree. It’s sweet here in your secret house!
Laura Lynn Brown says
Pittsburgh in April
Sunny and cold,
gray and snowy,
sunny and warm,
gray and rainy,
morning sleet and evening thunder,
sunny and warm,
sunny and snow,
snow all day but nothing sticks,
sunny. So far.
Kortney Garrison says
Love this rhythm and repetition! Especially, snow all day but nothing sticks.
L.L. Barkat says
I’m with you, Kortney. I like the way the rhythm and repetition are working. They feel (and look), to me, like a form of precipitation in themselves.
Maureen says
12 Months of Marriage by Birthstone*
A new red lipstick is no garnet
but planting your honeyed lips
on your Baby in January
is surely the next-best thing.
Come February, do forget
the time you were cold
-shouldered and celebrate
your sixth anniversary
with amethyst. It’s hard
and plenty durable,
like others’ marriages.
By March if you’re more
than ready to spring
for some peace — alone —
by the sea, let the water’s
serene aquamarine tones
cool your temper, maybe
reawaken your lost love.
Just don’t try sharpening
your tongue on her diamond.
You’ll be banished in April
and she’ll remember
what you did forever. Look
to a new beginning in May,
the way Cleopatra and Liz
always did, with an emerald
to signify your loyalty.
If you see teardrops falling
from the moon in June,
have the wisdom to string
her a strand of natural pearls.
Not passionate enough,
you say she says! Count to
thirty and on the first of July
dress her with rubies.
She’ll glow like coal-fed fire.
Chase away her August
night terrors with a lime
-green peridot ; she’ll
welcome her good fortune
and help you channel
all your higher powers
toward September, when
you’ll finally seal her divine
favor with a rare royal
blue sapphire. Read her
mood wrong in October,
though, and mistake
yourself not: you’ll see
that change of color
in her eyes sufficient
to match any flashy opal.
But know this also: things
could brighten up again
in November if you break
her spell of anger with topaz,
not to be confused with
the lemony citrine. And pay
heed: in December, nothing
will pale more than the heat
of your marriage bed if you
sleep through Christmas
morning, leaving her to find
no Tiffany blue box
of tanzanite, zircon, or turquoise
to ward off impending doom.
* Courtesy of American Gem Society’s facts, myths, and legends.
Kortney Garrison says
A new red lipstick is no garnet
teardrops falling/ from the moon in June
She’ll glow like coal-fed fire.
if you break/ her spell of anger
….these lines really shine! Thanks so much for sharing your poem, Maureen!
Katie says
January ice and snow
Now we sled to and fro,
February, more of same
Bring hot cocoa to the game,
March blows in, branches down
Surveying the yard we frown,
April showers soften earth
To the flowers giving birth,
May warms with buds and blooms
Gardening all my time consumes,
June, yet bright, warmer
Hinge of year, we turn the corner,
July hot and dry
Sun beats down from the sky,
August, time to visit the beach –
Or lake, we don’t care which,
September peaches, bushel or peck
October brings the frost – oh heck,
November leaf fall
make the pile tall,
December means winter
New Year we will enter.
Kortney Garrison says
Oh, Katie! This is wonderful! I love “June, yet bright, warmer/ Hinge of year, we turn the corner.” It’s the hinge of the year and the hinge of your poem! And “yet bright” is a delicious turn of phrase.
Katie says
Thank you, Kortney. And you’ve inspired me to try and memorize Christina Rossetti’s “The Months”. 🙂
Kortney Garrison says
I read your poem to the kids I’m memorizing with…they loved February best! <3
Katie says
Kortney this made me smile, I feel honored!
Hope you have fun with it:)
Adam Boustead says
sorry this isn’t a list poem or a month poem not even a stone poem, but it is a birthday poem for my mum.
Mum.
I see your totem and its a tiger.
a constellation cat with stripes of moons and stars
You are fierce when you protect The cubs in your heart forests.
You’re made of blood and bone dark matter, the tears of angels
Standing with fangs bared you protect me at night.