I had never heard children's poetry like that, a serious poem told in very simple words about such an important and universal subject. I recite this poem often, when speaking in public, and always it brings tears to the eyes of several people in the audience. The best of these poems can change your way of seeing something in less than a minute, read aloud. I do about 40 school visits a year, all over the country, and recently I was in New York to work with two schools. I was at my station.
Poetry can do so much in such a little space, and in the most unlikely places.
Many of your school programs fall around significant times of year, such as Mother's Day and the Lunar New Year. But I do school programs the whole year round, even in summer. Teachers are doing amazingly creative things in their classrooms, making all sorts of curriculum connections. Janet Wong was born in Los Angeles, California and grew up in Southern and Northern California. During her junior year in college, she lived in France, studying art history at the Universite de Bordeaux.