Poetry Review # 6: Multicultural Poetry: Pat Mora

This Big Sky

Mora, Pat. The Big Sky. New York: Scholastic Press, 1998.  ISBN: 978-0439400701

Critical Analysis

Pat Mora has once again created a masterpiece, this time with the desert and southwest being the centerpiece which has been memorialized in the minds of readers.  This poetry collection takes readers on a journey underneath the “big sky” of the hot sands of the desert and all that crawls and calls this place home.  Mora has used her personal experiences of this vast and uniquely diverse region and created fourteen poems which are almost songlike in their description.  The richness of the words and the rhythm that these poems possess is powerful and touching, as the abstract meaning behind the poems are brought to life in an entirely concrete form.  Each poem, when paired with a cut paper collage illustrations Steven Jenkins provides the reader with a perfect combination.  The imagery of these animals of this desert region and the landscapes present set a relaxing mood, one that is inviting to the reader.  Mora brings out the beauty of a place that others may consider bleak and boring, as she tells of an Indian in a mountain in snow, wildflowers, and the wind.  Her vocabulary is rich an succulent, and once again she has embedded her Latino culture into each poem with Spanish words which enhance the meaning.  In the first poem This Big Sky, Mora reaches out to her readers, using the metaphor that “This big sky is big enough for all my dreams”.  This uplifting collection is sure to help bring out big dreams in the readers as they experience the desert in vivid form.

POEM SPOTLIGHT

River-Moon

River goes sliding; sliding by.

              Río goes gliding under night back sky.

                                                River goes hiding in canyons dry.

                                                                                Río goes sliding, sliding by.

Moon goes sliding; sliding by.

             Luna goes gliding under night back sky.

                                                Moon goes hiding in canyons dry.

                                                                                Luna goes sliding, sliding by.

River-moon sliding; sliding by.

              Río and luna gliding under night back sky.

Pat Mora                            

Analysis:

In this poem collection, amongst poems that take readers on a journey into the desert, readers will be mystified by the words of River-Moon.  The simple phrasing with repetition and patterning seems to flow effortlessly as readers feel the flow of the river Mora is describing, “the sliding of the river as it is gliding under the night sky and finally hiding in canyons dry”.  The arrangement of the text and illustrations into three sections is mesmerizing to the reader, and the moon and river seem to wind and twist before your eyes.  Mora has cleverly intertwined the Spanish terms luna and rio in italics throughout the poem, and again in the conclusion as a combination, allowing the reader to understand how these two pieces of the desert landscape are companions.  Together, Mora and Jenkins have created a masterpiece that allows readers to experience the relationship of the river and the moon in a lyrical representation.

Classroom Connections:

This repetition and patterning within this poem make it worthy of being read aloud to students.  Students in grades second through fifth could listen to the words and experience for themselves the flow of the words Mora has used in relation to the slow of the river. 

Students could listen to the poem with their eyes closed during the first reading.  After they have heard the entire poem they could write down or draw what they heard.  Then students could read the poem aloud together, and write or draw what they heard different this time.  On the final reading the teacher could share the poem again, this time showing the image from the book.  Together students could discuss how each reading enhanced the words Mora was using to describe the river and moon in the desert at night.  They could list the rhyming and repetitive phrases they observed. 

Students love to learn about the moon and how it lights the night sky.  Mora’s poem is an ideal resource for promoting poetry in science.  Students could predict and discuss how the moon and the river might appear differently when the moon is in a different phase, other than full which is presented in the illustration.