This is Just to Say (2007) is a collection of poems for middle-school readers by American poet Joyce Sidman. Based on William Carlos Williams’s 1934 poem of the same title in which the speaker apologizes for succumbing to temptation, Sidman’s book includes several dozen poems that variously confess guilt, express repentance, offer forgiveness or withhold it. Sidman has been a writer-in-residence at schools and taught “sorry poem” writing to children. For this collection, however, she invented a fictional classroom, and while the poems are seemingly authored by assorted students and grown-ups, they are Sidman’s creations. In Sidman’s imaginary classroom, the students of Mrs. Merz’s sixth-grade class decide to turn their poetry assignment into an anthology of verse. A student named Anthony K. serves as the editor, and he explains the project in his introduction to the collection. His classmate, Bao Vang, provides mixed-media illustrations, which combine school-room motifs, snatches of the dictionary definition of “apology,” and whimsical drawings to visualize each poem. The resulting book is divided into two parts. The first part, “Apologies,” contains poems by eighteen imaginary students in which crimes are confessed and apologies offered. Part two, “Responses,” presents the verse-written replies the students received after they sent their apology poems to those they had wronged. Williams’s original poem appears at the beginning of Sidman’s collection. The title, “This is Just to Say,” may be read as the poem’s first line, below which are twelve more short lines: “I have eaten/ the plums/ that were in/ the icebox/ and which/ you were probably/ saving/ for breakfast/ Forgive me/ they were delicious/ so sweet/ and so cold.” Comprised of only twenty-eight words (not including the title) and dispensing with the poetic conventions of <a href="http://www.supersummary.com/rhyme/">rhyme</a> and <a href="http://www.supersummary.com/meter/">meter</a>, Williams’s poem can be (and has been) likened to a note a husband might leave for his wife. Its simplicity and accessibility make it an effective example of an apology poem for Mrs. Merz’s students. The first poem in the book closely models Williams’s original and repeats its title. In “This is Just to Say,” sixth-grader Thomas confesses he ate the jelly donuts in the teachers’ lounge. His poem echoes Williams’s lines, “Forgive me/ they were delicious/ so sweet,” but replaces “and so cold” with “so gloppy.” The humorous response poem, authored by Mrs. Garcia, reads, “Of course I forgive you/ But I still have to tell your mother.” Although Williams’s poem seemingly eschews figurative language, the poetry in Sidman’s book often relies on <a href="http://www.supersummary.com/simile/">simile</a>, personification, or <a href="http://www.supersummary.com/metaphor/">metaphor</a> to achieve vivid effects. “Fashion Sense,” a poem by Carmen addressed to Mrs. Merz, conveys the girl’s remorse over poking fun at the teacher’s dress to dispel the awkward silence that overtook a class discussion. Similes in the poem compare the silence to “a hundred crushing elephants,” and Mrs. Merz’s smile following the mocking remark to “a frozen lake.” In “Brownies – Oops!”, the simile “the pan gaped at me/ like an accusing eye” reveals author Maria’s guilty feelings about sneaking pieces of the freshly-baked dessert. “How Slow-Hand Lizard Died,” an anonymous poem by the student who accidentally killed the class pet, offers the simile “stiff as a glove” to describe the lifeless lizard. The response poem, which is attributed to the whole class, uses simile (“his belly, soft as an old balloon”), metaphor (“his tongue: lightning’s flicker”), and personification (“his toes whispered on our hands). Bao Vang’s poem “Lucky Nose” apologizes to the statue of Florence P. Scribner – the school’s namesake – for rubbing her nose for luck before a spelling test, a widespread practice that has left Florence with a worn face. The response poem, crafted by classmate Daron in the voice of the statue, provides an extended example of personification. Most of the poems in Sidman’s collection are written in <a href="http://www.supersummary.com/free-verse/">free verse</a>, like Williams’s original, but several follow a more structured form. Expressing his remorse to his mother for losing a spelling bee, Anthony’s poem “Spelling Bomb” is a pantoum. As such, the second and fourth lines of the poem’s first stanza are repeated as the first and third lines of the next stanza, and so on. “Haiku for Carmen,” Mrs. Merz’s response to Carmen’s apology poem “Fashion Sense,” furnishes an example of the haiku form: “Just these few warm words,/ and spring sunlight fills the room;/ my dress turns to sky.” Finally, the back-and-forth form of “Dodge Ball King” imitates the action of the game. Written by Kyle and Reuben as a response to their mutually aggressive play, the two-voice poem appears in two columns, between which the words volley from the right to the left, and then back again. While Williams’s “This is Just to Say” concerns a relatively banal event (at least superficially), a number of poems in Sidman’s book center on significant experiences. Addressing her father who left after her parents divorced, Jewel blames herself for his departure and writes, “I’m sorry, Daddy./ Next time, I’ll be/ perfect.” Her father’s response poem assures her that “None of the stupid things/ I have ever done/ are even close to being your fault.” In “It Was Quiet,” Tenzin apologizes to his dog, Einstein, for his family’s difficult decision to spare him “some pain” by putting him to sleep. Alyssa once stabbed her sister’s hand with a pencil, and in “The Black Spot,” she acknowledges the telltale mark that remains on Carrie’s palm, and she voices repentance. Carrie’s response poem is one of the few that uses rhyme and refuses forgiveness. She writes, “Rose are Red,/ violets are blue./ I’m still really/ pissed off at you.” The School Library Journal review of This is Just to Say declares that Joyce Sidman’s “skill as a poet to young people is unmatched” and that “this is an important book for its creativity and for its wisdom.” The collection received the Claudia Lewis Award and the Cybils Poetry award. Sidman has collaborated with playwright Juliet Bond to publish a stage adaptation of This is Just to Say.

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Joyce Sidman

Middle grade

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Nonfiction

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