1 minute read
No More Birthdays (Hal Sirowitz) poem
Go to connect.alinea.dk and listen to the text. If you prefer, you can listen to the glossary.
Suggestion
Talk with the students about free verse, an open form of poetry without consistent rhythm and rhyme schemes. Also, talk about the use of both short and long sentences, line breaks and punctuation.
Suggestion
Encourage the students to look for signs that replace words (&) and deliberate language error (i).
BEFORE READING
Do you ever think your parents overreact to something you say or do?
recite fremføre audience publikum panel of judges dommerpanel jar krukke anniversary årlig fejring marinara sauce tomatsauce Hal Sirowitz (1949-) is an American poet. He taught children with special needs in New York City before he started competing in poetry slams. In these competitions, poets recite their work and the audience or a panel of judges gives them scores from zero to ten.
No More Birthdays
No More Birthdays Don’t swing the umbrella in the store, Mother said. There are all these glass jars of spaghetti sauce above your head that can fall on you, & you can die. Then you won’t be able to go to tonight’s party, or go to the bowling alley tomorrow. And instead of celebrating your birthday with soda & cake, we’ll have anniversaries of your death with tea & crackers. And your father and I won’t be able to eat spaghetti anymore, because the marinara sauce will remind us of you.
