Big Talk: Poems for Four Voices (Performance Poetry)

(Book Cover compliments of Titlewave)

Bibliography
Fleischman, Paul. Big Talk: Poems for Four Voices. Ill. by Beppe Giacobbe. Cambridge, MA: Candlewick Press. 2010. ISBN 9780763606367

Review 

Following the success of his Newbury award winning Joyful Noise: Poems for Two Voices, Paul Fleischman steps things up several paces by creating poems written for four voices.  A far cry from the refined, insect-themed poems of Joyful Noise, the three unrelated poems in Big Talk rollick and throb with rhythmic humor that will have readers tapping toes, slapping legs, and laughing aloud. Much like the stanzas of a piece of music, the four color-coded lines of the poems run horizontally across the page showing the reader at a glance where to speak and where to stay silent. The instructions at the front of the book help readers learn to identify and follow their part much like reading quartet music. The poems can be read by four readers, four groups of readers, or even two readers who share parts.

The first poem “Quiet Evenings Here” allows the folksy speakers to espouse the virtues of staying home and avoiding “the speedway/ roarin’ engines/ grindin’ gears” of city life. Toes will be tapping as readers echo and jointly proclaim the quiet evenings with “Grandma rockin’/ clock tick-tockin’, Sister hummin’/ Grandpa strummin’/Raindrops rappin’/Toes a-tappin’” which is better suited to their country ears. The chaotic gossip of the second poem “Seventh-Grade Soap Opera” will have readers laughing as they interrupt one another’s lines with the latest shocking update of junior high school social life. The final poem “Ghosts’ Grace”  provides the most sophisticated reading of the three poems as the four ghostly speakers wistfully observe and comment on the wonders of the dinner table experience that is no longer theirs to enjoy. Spoken in rounds, their observations of the wonders of dinner now denied are filled with humor as seen in their laments over a green salad: “A jungle explored by fork/tints flashing/tastes couching/Yes, I remember, I’ll always remember./The wet crunch of cucumbers, each an oasis/The deckle-edged lettuce/The sharpness of scallions/Tomatoes sliced up into seed-bearing galleons./The unlikely marriage of oil and vinegar/soother/lip-scorcher/How well I remember.”

Illustrator Beppe Giacobbe’s loud, colorful, computer-generated paintings add to the chaotic noise and “big talk” of the poems. While each poem is introduced with a large full page painting, small cartoon-style frames run horizontal across the bottom of each page depicting scenes from the poems. The free-hand style, multi-colored lettering on the titles helps convey the idea that these poems are meant to be read with laughter and fun in a social setting.

Reviews
Reviewed in Kirkus, Book Links, Booklist, Horn Book, Wilson’s Children, Bulletin of the Center for Children’s Books

Sample from “Ghosts’ Grace”  (p. 42-44)

Look there!

She’s standing

He’s standing

Impossible!

Finished so soon?

They’re all leaving the room!

They’re mortals

The fools!

Each meal’s a museum to stroll

through

not sprint

meant for stopping

and staring

To sit at the table, my sisters,

my brothers, my parents, my children around me

For that I’m so hungry!

The feasting,

the stories

the licking,

the laughing

All gone!

Leaving only remembrance of long ago

Never again

to taste food, to taste family!

Let’s leave this place…

But let’s come watch tomorrow.

Connections


ELAR and Music collaborative lesson (older elementary and up)
Before beginning a unit on performance poetry, collaborate with the orchestra or band instructor for a student musical quartet to provide a small performance and then a demonstration on how to read a simple piece of quartet music. As part of the lesson, distribute the musical piece and assign students to one of four groups that will follow one instrument’s part. Have students learn to tap a rhythm with their toe and clap the rhythm for the instrument or articulate the rhythm. If a quartet is not available for a performance in class, use a YouTube performance and locate the music for the piece to give to students in order to learn how to follow along. Invite a parent or musical student to help with the instruction of following music.

Drama

Before engaging in reading performance poetry, have students watch a couple of video performance pieces from student competitions to help them gain insight (and bravery!) about using different voices, emotion, facial expressions, and other creative interpretation. Watch two high school students perform a 1^st place winning Duo Interpretation of the entire Charlotte’s Web story recorded at the National Forensic League’s National Speech and Debate Competition 2008. http://youtu.be/0Z7BNgIVC98 

English Language Arts (older elementary and up)

Using Goggledocs, have student groups write a collaborative poem for 4 voices over a selected topic. Topics might be related to teen issues, current events, novels read in class, cross-curricular themes, holidays/events, etc. Student groups can even be assigned chapters from a novel for creating their collaborative poem so that when all poems are performed the entire story is told.  Have students write an introduction similar to the one in Fleischman’s book that gives readers a bit of background on the topic and tips on reading aloud. Reserve the technology lab or library and have students visit the goggledoc collaborative poems written by other groups and attempt reading them aloud or have student groups perform their own poem in an order that tells a story or covers an aspect of an event.

More Resources:

See the interview with author Paul Fleischman where he discusses his childhood experiences with his family that inspired him to write the book Big Talk http://www.candlewick.com/book_files/0763606367.art.1.pdf .  

Have students read other performance poetry books by Paul Fleischman: I am Phoenix: Poems for Two Voices and Joyful Noise: Poems for Two Voices.