Poetry Review: Hopkins Collection

My America: A Poetry Atlas of the United States selected by Lee Bennett Hopkins

Illustrator: Stephen Alcorn

Bibliographic Citation: Hopkins, Lee Bennett. My America: A Poetry Atlas of the United States. Ill. by Stephen Alcorn. New York: Simon & Schuster. 2000.

ISBN:978-0-689-81247-7

Review:  This compilation of poems about the places and things you see all around the United States is a great poetry book to start a geography unit.  The book is divided into sections of the country and the poems are related to that region.  Each author has their own style for writing, but each poem is beautifully written and artistically draws a mental picture with words what the regions, area, or town would look like. The tone set for this book is one of pride for the different areas of our great country.  You can truly tell that the poems selected show the parts of the country that we are proud to call home. The many authors selected by Lee Bennett Hopkins demonstrate the beauty they see for that area.

City Blockades
    by Lee Bennett Hopkins
I feel so small
standing beneath the tall
buildings that wall
me and the pigeons in
from the light of the
sky.

Introduction to Share: Geography lessons abound with this poetry book.  Pick a section of the country and read a few of the poems aloud to see if the students can figure out what state or region the author is describing (as long as the poem does not give the state name).  The poem selected could be used to discuss where this person is - based upon the vocabulary used, we know that tall buildings are blocking the light and that there are pigeons, letting us know that we are in a big city, maybe New York.