CI 5442: Poetry Response #1

Paul Fleischman’s Joyful Noise: Poems for Two Voices was a surprising and refreshing take on the age old poetry game. Fleischman was able to find a piece of middle ground between poems that are either too abstract for young adults and poems that don’t offer enough dimension to create a text that is enjoyable for all, teachers too. By incorporating the two different voices, Fleischman reminds his audience that poetry is often meant to be read out loud and with this book it is essential to the text and meaning.

Fleischman’s use of parallel lines of poetry that are meant to be read in tandem illustrate the oral tradition of all literature and revisits the lyrical history of poetry. The combination of two voices reading the lines together heightens the reader’s experience by adding to the rhythm and flow of the poem from beginning to end. I had to have my roommates read some of the poems with me in order to get the right effect, and although we struggled a bit at first, in the end the sound was excellent. At one point I had them reading the text while I sat and listened with my eyes closed. It was almost as if I was sitting in a movie theater or listening to headphones; the combination of two voices reaching my ears at different points and then simultaneously was a new way to hear a poem and I thoroughly enjoyed it.

One of my favorite poems was “Mayflies.” Not only does the poem provide the reader with facts about the mayfly’s short lifespan, it also takes the reader inside the mind of a mayfly to hear their thoughts as they live their lives for one day. It was hard for me not to feel some sympathy for the mayfly even though I know—or at least think I know—that they do not have thoughts the same way that humans do. Who knew that a pesky summer bug could make me ponder the relatively insignificant existence of insects and humans alike.

My other favorite poem was “Honeybees,” which told the bees tale from two different perspectives, that of the queen and that of a low-level worker bee. I enjoyed reading about the daily lives and feelings of these two different members of bee society; again, I found myself sympathizing with the poor worker bee who literally works all day while the queen is mostly pampered. In this poem as well, Fleischman is able to make the insects come to life and create emotions in his reader.

Both of these poems relate the struggles of insects in our world, but they also reflect the struggles of humans. In the grand scheme of things, humans and mayflies share a short lifespan in which the goal is to live life to the fullest. The honeybees live in a society in which one person controls the group, in the human world this is often also the case. If one looks at it through a socio-economic lens, the Queen bee represents the small percentage of people who control the world’s money and power. Fleischman does an amazing job in creating texts that provide information about insects as much as they mirror and give insight into the human condition.

I should also mention the illustrations in the text—by Eric Beddows— that accentuate the text. My favorite illustration is the drawing of the moth in “The Moth’s Serenade.” In the picture the accurate yet comic looking moth is clearly singing, eyes closed, and his first set of legs clasped together. He is clearly performing the very serenade that Fleischman has written as if it were his own. The combination of lyrical poems with beautiful—and sometimes amusing—illustrations makes this text worth the added effort in reading aloud.