Module 6: Janeczko Collection - Blushing

Bibliographic Information
Collected by Janeczko, Paul B. BLUSHING: EXPRESSIONS OF LOVE IN POEMS & LETTERS. New York, NY: Orchard Books. ISBN: 9780439530569.

Summary and Analysis

The poems included in this collection will be enjoyed by a novice to poetry or a collector of poetry. With poets such as Pablo Neruda, William Shakespeare, Rumi, Nikki Giovanni, and Robert Frost. It is a diverse collection of classic and modern poetry and sonnets and rhyme. Love poems can be the simplest of lines or the most detailed prose, yet result in the same feelings after being read. For this reason, love poems are often easy to relate to and are a type of poetry people often refer. This collection could stand alone on a bookshelf or be shared in a poetry section of a library and still find its value. By providing poems beyond the joys of love, Janeczko offers a truthful look at this topic - the happiness, the doubt, and the sadness.

The collection is divided by sections: The Beginning of Love, In Love, Alone in Love, The End of Love, Remembering Love. Giving the full spectrum of emotions felt during love, readers are likely to focus on whichever section fits their lives at that time. They are also likely to return to this collection when they have moved onto another experience with love. These sections are arranged in an appropriate order that many people will relate to or find the progression natural.

Highlighted Poems
To show the diversity of topics, here are poems focused on two perspectives in the experience of love.

Deep in Love
Bhavabhuti

Deep in love
cheek leaning on cheek we talked
of whatever came to our minds
just as it came
slowly oh
slowly
with our arms twined
tightly around us
and the hours passed and we
did not know it
still talking when
the night had gone

Coat
Vicki Feaver

Sometimes I have wanted
to throw you off
like a heavy coat.

Sometimes I have said
you would not let me
breathe or move.

But now that I am free
to choose light clothes
or none at all

I feel the cold
and all the time I think
how warm it used to be.

Connections
The diversity of poems in this collection offer many different possibilities for an educator or librarian. Readers will probably have an urge to write some type of love poem simply after reading this selection. Others could make it less about love by changing the focus from a person to a pet or object (say favorite food). Writing poetry needn't be taken too seriously, but could focus on emotions felt every day. That would make the topic one in which students could relate and enjoy the act of writing.