Poetry Review for Hopkins Collection

Photo retrieved from Amazon.com

A.  Bibliography

Hopkins, Lee B.  AMERICA AT WAR. Ill. by Stephen Alcorn. New York, NY: McElderry Books, 2008.  ISBN 9781416918325

B.  Review and Critical Analysis

In this collection of poetry, Hopkins retells the story of American war history with a compilation of over 50 poems written by numerous poets, such as Ann Wagner and Cynthia Cotten.  As each poem is written by a different poet with a different viewpoint, each contains its own style.  The rhythms vary, and some of the poems contain rhyming while others do not.  Many of the poems contain imagery and metaphors, such as The Pony Chair by Tony Johnston and To You by Karla Kuskin.

In the poem, Missing, Cynthia Cotten presents a poem about a sister sending a care package to her sister during the Persian Gulf War.  Cotten captures the sad reality of the loneliness, and the heartache of possibly losing a loved during wartime.  Moreover, the change in women serving in the military comes alive in this poem.  In the poems of the the previous poems, only men were in true danger, however, with the Gulf War and Iraqi War, gender roles made a huge shift.

For young adults, this collection would make a wonderful accompaniment for a history class studying any U.S. war.  The poems bring a different perspective to what may be a hard concept for young adults to visualize or connect with.   As many of the poems are very touching and connect the reader through emotions, young readers may find them enjoyable.  In the introduction for the Iraq War segment, Staff Sergeant Dawayne Harterson's introduction is followed by the well known "Ashes, Ashes" poem so well known by many.  It certainly brings new ideas about the meaning of that common childhood song.

Stephen Alcorn provides thoughtful illustrations that are gentle, both in color and content.  Although there are many implications of death throughout the collection, Alcorn's illustrations are kind and remain calm throughout the collection.  Hopkins begins the collection with a Prologue, and the poetry is organized and presented through eight war eras. Hopkins provides a Table of Contents, an Introduction, an Prologue and EpilogueIt begins with The American Revolution, and moves through Iraq War.  In the last few pages of the collection, Hopkins provides acknowledgments for each of the poems included, an index of authors, and an index of titles, and an index of first lines.  The index of first lines is very convenient for quickly scanning the content and style of each poem.

C.  Poem Highlight from AMERICA AT WAR 

A portion from Epilogue: Vocabulary Lesson by Ann Wagner

We don't have wars.
We have
conflicts
campaigns
operations
escalations
missions
offensives
preemptive strikes.

We don't have soldiers.

We have
peace keepers
troops
servicemen
forces
coalitions
units.

This poem has wonderful potential for a vocabulary lesson prior to reading the poem.  The words from these poems could be written on index cards or other pre-created cards.  All of the words would be mixed up.  Students would be asked to group similar words together, based on their prior knowledge.  Students would then record their words lists into their Poetry Journal.  The teacher would then have students present or share their reasons for grouping their words the way they did. Finally, the teacher would present the poem, and students would check to see how closely they aligned their words to the poet's.  Students would discuss how they differed or mirrored the poem after hearing or reading it.  Additionally, students may discuss their thoughts on the word choices in social media and discuss other situations where media uses alternate vocabulary.