Traveling the Blue Road: Poems of the Sea
by Lee Bennett Hopkins (Editor) with Bob and Jovan Hansman (Illustrators)
Booktalk: A collection of poetry for children on the themes of the courage, beauty, and promise of sea voyages.
Compiled and edited by award-winning poet Lee Bennett Hopkins, the poems describe how the sea has historically shone as a metaphor for both hope and despair, and served as a pathway for people searching for new life. Included are poems about the pilgrims coming to the New World, the Mariel boatlift, the Vietnamese boat people, a Dutch slave ship, the current migration situation in the Mediterranean, and the voyage of the St. Louis.
Contributing poets include Rebecca Kai Dotlich, Paul B. Janeczko, J. Patrick Lewis, Allan Wolf, Marilyn Nelson, Denver Butson, Georgia Heard, Jane Yolen, Naomi Shihab Nye, and G. Neri, and Margarita Engle, the current Young People’s Poet Laureate.
Snippet:
The Seventeenth Century / The Mayflower, 1620
WITH FEARLESS FAITH
AND EVERYTHING TO LOSE
by Allan Wolf
One hundred and two hopeful souls all climb aboard,
with thirty or so salty dogs to crew them on.
One hundred and two faces turn upward to the Lord.
One hundred and two prayers blow windward and they’re gone.
One hundred and two faithful huddle in the hold,
amidst the massive sea, their ship a fragile fleck.
The mainmast cracks. The heathen winds harass and scold.
The brutal cold Atlantic swamps the sagging deck.
But through the mist and foam they somehow reach the land.
And cradled safe (for now) at last in Cape Cod Bay,
their pilgrim journey ends the same as it began:
with one hundred and two facing heavenward to pray.
They risked it all to worship as they choose,
with fearless faith and everything to lose.
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