Jack is in Miss Stretchberry’s class this school year, and he’s indignant: he not only doesn’t want to write poetry, but he can’t. Also, the poems that Miss Stretchberry reads to the class, like the one about the red wheelbarrow and the one about the snowy woods, don’t make any sense. But Jack agrees to try his hand at writing his own poems modeled after the ones Miss Stretchberry read. He writes poems about a speeding blue car with mud splatters on it, but he refuses to explain the car’s significance. Grudgingly, he allows Miss Stretchberry to type up and display his poems about the blue car, but only if she doesn’t put his name on them.
In November, Miss Stretchberry asks students to write poems about their pets. Jack doesn’t have a pet and would like to make one up rather than write about the pet he used to have. He used to have a yellow dog, and he appreciates how Miss Valerie Worth’s small poem about a dog perfectly captures how his dog used to lie down and snap at flies.
As Miss Stretchberry types up more of Jack’s poems to display (but continues to not attribute them to him), Jack wonders if he’s really writing poems—or if he and Mr. Robert Frost, who wrote the poems about a pasture and the snowy wood, were just “making a picture with words” and then someone typed it up and it looked like a poem. Jack’s classmates think Jack’s poems are real poems.
In January, Jack describes going to an animal shelter with his dad and adopting a yellow dog. The yellow dog seemed really thankful that Jack and his dad adopted him—the dogs who don’t get adopted will be killed. When Miss Stretchberry asks to type up and display Jack’s poem about adopting the dog, Jack says she can. But he asks her to leave off the bit about killing other dogs, since it’s really sad.
After Miss Stretchberry reads the class a poem about “street music,” Jack describes his quiet, suburban street. He and kids play in the street sometimes since there’s not much traffic, but only if there are adults or big kids around to look out for cars. Despite signs asking cars to slow down, some cars still speed down Jack’s street.
Next, Miss Stretchberry shows the class poems that look like what they describe, so a poem about a house, for instance, is shaped like a house. Jack writes a poem about his yellow dog that’s shaped like his dog and lets Miss Stretchberry type it, as long as she prints it on yellow paper and copies his line spacing exactly. He also lets her put his name on it. It’s a bit embarrassing when Jack’s classmates compliment his poem. But Jack also asks Miss Stretchberry to pass on a message to a classmate who didn’t put their name on a poem about a tree: Jack thinks it’s a real poem and is also really good.
In March, Miss Stretchberry introduces students to Mr. Walter Dean Myers’s poetry. Jack loves his work and even borrows one of Miss Stretchberry’s books of Myers’s poetry without asking. His favorite poem is “Love That Boy,” since Jack’s dad calls for Jack the same way the dad in the poem calls for his son. Both dads call their sons with, “Hey there, son!” and Jack used to call his dog, Sky, the same way. He’d say, “Hey there, Sky!” Jack writes a poem about playing ball with Sky in the street. He also writes one that borrows a lot of Myers’s words, and since he doesn’t want to make the poet mad, Jack asks Miss Stretchberry not to type that one up. However, Miss Stretchberry assures Jack that Myers wouldn’t mind, especially since she put at the top of the poem that Jack was “inspired by” Walter Dean Myers.
Jack asks if Myers might visit Miss Stretchberry’s classroom. After arguing for a bit, Jack agrees to write to the poet himself and ask him to visit. He’s shocked, though, when Miss Stretchberry shares that it might take a long time to get a response. Jack tries to forget about his request, reasoning that Meyers will probably never write back; and he asks Miss Stretchberry to show him how to use the computer so he can start typing up his own poems.
In a poem called “MY SKY,” Jack shares the story of how he and some other kids were playing outside with Sky one evening. Jack’s dad got off the bus and waved, distracting Jack just as the blue car with mud splatters turned onto the other end of the street. The car hit Sky and then kept going. Jack’s dad carried Sky onto the grass, where the dog died. Jack agrees that Miss Stretchberry can type up and put his poem on the bulletin board, but he’s afraid he’ll make his classmates really sad.
Jack gets the news that Mr. Walter Dean Myers has agreed to come to Jack’s school; he has a friend in town he was planning to visit soon anyway. Jack is ecstatic. He and his classmates fill the bulletin board with their poems and display Myers’s books, and Jack again asks Miss Stretchberry to hide his poem that was inspired by Myers. The visit is a success: Myers reads his own poems, reads students’ poems, and even tells Jack that he’d be honored if students wrote poems that were inspired by his words. In a letter thanking Myers for his visit, Jack apologizes for his poem about Sky dying—he hopes it wasn’t too sad—and says he included a poem that Myers inspired, titled “LOVE THAT DOG.”
