Monday on the Mississippi - Poetry

Bibliography

Singer, Marilyn. 2005. MONDAY ON THE MISSISSIPPI. Ill. by Frané Lessac. New York: Henry Holt and Company.
ISBN 978-0-8050-7208-2.

Plot Summary

            MONDAY ON THE MISSISSIPPI by Marilyn Singer is a book of poems that, over the course of a week, takes the reader on a journey down the Mississippi river. The poems chart the path of the river from Lake Itasca, Minnesota to its end at the Mississippi river delta in Louisiana. Each of the poems is a snapshot of American life, and when you combine all the poems they create a larger picture of the varying life on the Mississippi.

Critical Analysis

            Marilyn Singer’s poems depicting the Mississippi River are written in free verse with no rhyme scheme. The lines are short and they create a fast paced rhythm. In several cases the poems themselves are only one sentence long, most are between two and five. The language Singer uses is both emotional and kinetic. The words describe singular moments in not only the people’s lives in each of the places mentioned; but they also evoke the movement of the river as it makes its way from Minnesota to Louisiana. Singer provides an author’s note at the end of the book called ABOUT THE MISSISSIPPI. It describes several of the places visited in the book in greater historical detail and provides a synopsis of natural disasters that have affected, and are continuing to affect the river itself.

            Imagery is a major aspect of Singer’s poetry. Each individual poem, along with Frané Lessac’s creative illustrations, conjures up a snapshot of life at the moment along the river at each particular place. People are hiking along the river, fishing on the dock or taking a tour of a Civil War battlefield all with the Mississippi river as a backdrop. Sensory vocabulary enhances the illustrations to provide a tactile image. An example comes from SATURDAY ON THE MISSISSIPPI: VICKSBURG, MISSISSIPPI, “…the wind grabs the guide’s favorite hat and tosses it into the water. The Mississippi waves it once like a tattered flag then swallows it whole.” The reader can actually imagine the tour guide’s hat being whipped off her head and engulfed by the river. This vocabulary, along with the illustrations, creates an emotional connection to the material. Readers can see themselves experiencing what takes place in the poems.

            Frané Lessac’s illustrations have a distinctive folk art quality to them. They contain rich, bright colors that make them attractive to younger readers. Lessac also pays close attention to detail. In the poem SUNDAY ON THE MISSISSIPPI: NEW ORLEANS, LOUISIANA we can see what the people are eating and drinking in Café du Monde as it relates to the poem, coffee and beignets for which the Café is famous. The money in the street musician’s case is visible, and there are beaded necklaces reminiscent of Mardi Gras hanging from the tree branches. Each of these details not only serves to heighten the reader’s experience, but also makes it more lifelike. These are not abstract images; these are scenes from daily life along the Mississippi.

Review Excerpts

BOOKLIST review 2005: “A waterway as mighty as the Mississippi similarly contains multitudes, and here it supports 14 snapshotlike poems charting the river's progress from its source in Minnesota to its Gulf of Mexico delta. In a folk-art style studded with painstaking details (tiny barge workers in St. Paul, a baby gator in swampy Arkansas), Lessac captures both the changing environment and the water's chameleon-like shifts in color.”

CHILDREN’S LITERATURE JOURNAL review 2005: “A map of the Mississippi River and all the states it flows through is on the title page, while the relevant part of the map is repeated on each of the double pages that focuses on that particular stretch of river. In brief sentences rich with images, each day of a week’s cruise from Lake Itasca to the sea is described on two double pages.”

Connections

·       Have students select one poem from the book, and from that one poem have them select a favorite element and write a poem about it.

·       Teachers can use the poems in this book to instruct students about many different topics: Civil War battles, Mark Twain, riverboats, Martin Luther King and B.B. King are some examples.

·       Other poetry books about the United States include MY AMERICA: A POETRY ATLAS OF THE UNITED STATES by Lee Bennett Hopkins with illustrations by Stephen Alcorn ISBN 0689812477 and TINY DREAMS, SPROUTING TALL: POEMS ABOUT THE UNITED STATES by Laura Purdie Salas ISBN 1429617489.

·       The blog OPEN WIDE, LOOK INSIDE from the University of Richmond discusses how to use Singer’s book, and others like it, to help teach children about geography and social studies. The blog can be found at this URL http://blog.richmond.edu/openwidelookinside/archives/332.