April is National Poetry Month, and we’re celebrating by asking some of our own Lee & Low poets to share their favorite poems with us. Today, poet Marilyn 
Singer (A Full Moon is Rising) shares:
One of my favorite poems is by the late Karla Kuskin: “Write About a Radish…,” which begins:
“Write about a radish/Too many people write about the moon.”
I always find it elegant and profound in its simplicity. To me, it’s about the power and majesty of those things we don’t always notice, those mundane things that deserve our attention as much as more obviously impressive objects. You can read the entire poem here.
A related poem I love is Naomi Shihab Nye’s “The Traveling Onion,” which lived on my refrigerator for many years. Its opening lines are:
“When I think how far the onion has traveled/ just to enter my stew today, I could kneel and praise/all small forgotten miracles.”
As a poet, I am always appreciative of miracles such as radishes and onions. Here is the whole poem.
Further Reading:
Lee Bennett Hopkins’ favorite poem
Marilyn Singer on how to read a poem out loud
