Love that Dog

By: Sharon Creech

I thought this was a great book that was very simple but very true to life at the same time. The first question that it raised for me was, what defines poetry? I think that it is so ambiguous, and this is what intimidates so many students. I am someone who likes to write, but I have always been intimidated by the idea of writing poetry. We had to do it for block this year, and at first it made me nervous, but the more I did it the more comfortable I felt, which I think is the case here. I think that the more you are exposed to it the more you realize that it can actually be freeing, because, in fact, it can be whatever you want it to be. I think that poetry can be deeper because it has a lot of history behind it. The poem at the very end of the book, love that dog, could have easily been published. It is short and simple, but having read the whole book, you really get a sense of the history and the feeling behind it. However, a reader who has not read this book would still be able to bring their own experience and interpretation to it. That is why I think that poetry is so unique; because it means so much without saying everything upfront. I also liked how you learned more about Jack through his poetry. At the beginning, in his poem “so much depends upon a blue car,” you don’t really know what he means, but you learn about how this is meaningful to his life throughout the rest of the book. I thought this was a great read and I think it would be a really good way to introduce poetry in a non-threatening way.