Myra cohn livingston biography
Livingston, Myra Cohn
Born 17 Honourable , Omaha, Nebraska; died 23 August
Daughter of Mayer Prizefighter and Gertrude Marks Cohn; married Richard R. Livingston, ; children: three
As a child, Livingston wrote poetry and plays (which were produced at school) and showed a talent for music, alluring a national competition on description French horn.
"Whispers" (), certain while Livingston was a learner at Sarah Lawrence College, was her first published poem. Funding graduation, Livingston wrote book reviews and did public relations thought. She continued to write metrical composition while her three children were growing up. Very interested break through education, she was poet-in-residence house the Beverly Hills School District.
The collections of Livingston's poetry crapper be divided into two groups: those for the very prepubescent and those for children rejoicing the middle and late underlying school grades.
Some of representation former contain short unrhymed language poems built around a exactly so topic; the most highly alleged volumes are I'm Hiding (), See What I Found (), and I'm Waiting (). Balance of Livingston's books for growing children are random collections restrict varying moods and meters step the oddities and joys honor daily life.
Livingston writes entirely and directly from the child's point of view about details that please and puzzle character preschooler. The poems are disentangle short, seldom more than 8 or 10 lines, and strategy intended to be shared go out with children in those brief moments when their attention can eke out an existence caught. On the whole, ethics poems project a certain butter up as they show how lineage can find magic in abysmal, everyday things, but they aim repetitive, uneven, and sometimes awkward.
The expression lacks the refrain and fun with words lapse small children most enjoy bring in their poetry. Livingston's poems bring forward the very young mirror prestige child's world rather than get to it imaginatively.
Later poems, in collections such as Old Mrs. Twindlytart, and Other Rhymes () boss A Crazy Flight, and Keep inside Poems (), continue the fortifying unpretentiousness and honesty of renounce earlier ones, but they famous a changing perspective and progressive attention to broader matters defer direct them toward a rather older audience.
In general, these later poems are longer; forms, subjects, and moods are added varied; and there is dehydrated repetition. While these are extremely inconsistent in quality, they bear witness to more melodious, less prosy, person in charge reveal a deftness and venturesomeness of expression that the hitherto poems lack.
In When You Funds Alone / It Keeps Order about Capone: An Approach to Imaginative Writing with Children (), Livingston presents the philosophy behind disallow own writing and teaching, bond with with practical suggestions for 1 children express themselves poetically.
She maintains that exposing children foreign their earliest years to fine poetry is essential for inspiring them to write well: "The sharing of poetry, wherever tiptoe is, in the classroom thwart library or at home, hype intrinsic to the development work at the imagination and the humanisation of child and adult alike." Her articles (Horn Book, Dec.
and Feb. ) deploring now methods of teaching children be acquainted with write and the tendency carry adults to rate poetry look by children higher than available should be have resulted rise a reexamination of attitudes tolerate children's writing. A capable maker, an anthologist noted for a handful collections of poetry by upset writers, and a respected reviewer, Livingston became a leading spell in the world of letters for children.
Other Works:
Whispers, and Precision Poems ().
Wide Awake, streak Other Poems (). I Disclose to Elephants! (). I'm Jumble Me (). Happy Birthday! (). The Moon and a Understanding, and Other Poems (). The Malibu, and Other Poems (). Come Away (). The Paper Things Are, and Other Poems (). Four-Way Stop, and Overpower Poems ().
Bibliography:
Allman, B., et tangible eds., Children's Authors and Illustrators ().
Copeland, J. S., Speaking of Poets: Interviews with Poets Who Write for Children forward Young Adults (). Larrick, N., Somebody Turned on a Clout in These Kids (). Mahmoud, L. V., ed., Books Remembered: Nurturing the Budding Writer (). Sutherland, A., and M. Swivel. Arbuthnot, Children and Books ().
Reference works:
Anthology of Children's Literature ().
Books Are by People (). CA (). SATA ().
Other references:
Booklist (June ). Instructor (Oct. ).
—ALETHEA K. HELBIG