A Rocketful of Space Poems

Hello and Happy Poetry Friday! Be sure to visit lovely Linda at TeacherDance for Roundup.

Here at Live Your Poem I'm getting ready for presentations at AASL and NCTE (Poetry Friday Friends, please let me know if you will be at either conference, so we can meet!)... and also working my way through the Cybils-nominated poetry books. What fun! And today I want to share with you A ROCKETFUL OF SPACE POEMS selected by John Foster, illustrations by Korky Paul (Frances Lincoln Children's Books).

The book gets all kinds of points for being imaginative. It begins with Space Fantasy by Patricia Leighton, visits the moon and introduces us to "Asteroid Dog" by Richard Evans. There's and "Email from the Space Hotel" by John Foster and a "Garage Sale in Outer Space" by Robert Scotellaro. Witches and wizard and monsters and "Inter-galactic Squibble-ball" by David Harmer. And of course there's a "Dumb Earthling" by Clive Webster" and a few space-y riddle poems to give readers a light, fun romp through space. It also includes a poem by our very on J. Patrick Lewis that I'm happy to share with you below -- especially for those among us who have said or heard "are we there yet?" Happy space-adventuring!

If You Drive to the Moon

If you drive to the moon in your average car,
And you wonder how long the trip is and how far --
Here's the answer. At seventy miles per hour
In the family sedan with its average horsepower,
No skyway patrolmen out cruising for speeders,
No need to feed flying parking meters,
Make sure you pack plenty of outer-space food,
Star-carsickness pills for the high altitude.
No to get to the moon on the lunar freeways
Will take you...
                              134 days!

- J. Patrick Lewis