Delightful.
A gifted poet demonstrates the remarkable versatility of words through one kind of found poetry.
The idea here is that “nested” poems are hidden inside larger poems like nesting dolls. Latham begins with a 37-line poem, describing a robin’s nest from its construction in spring through the other three seasons. She finds, nested within the 276 words of this initial poem, 161 new poems built from words in the original. These short poems cover simple themes, such as colors, days, seasons, and animals, as well as more complex ones: emotions and relationships: “What Hope Is:” “a cup / of stars.” Only the titles of the nested poems employ words not found in the initial poem—and the titles are charming, often longer than the poems themselves: “What To Do When You Know Something Is Wrong”: “mouse / squeaks.” The invitations to think metaphorically and to discover poetry that might be right at hand are friendly and clear: “The Power of Imagination:” “turtle tucked in moonlight / makes cathedral / inside” The repetition of words becomes an echo of a familiar melody running throughout the collection as they become the molecules of new poems and become fresh again. Latham’s note explaining the process for this collection mentions a few other kinds of found poetry. Wright’s art in full-page section-introducing illustrations, along with spot illustration and margin art, gives a warm and lighthearted dimension to the pages.
Delightful. (introduction, index) (Poetry. 7-10)Pub Date: Sept. 22, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-68437-363-5
Page Count: 112
Publisher: Wordsong/Boyds Mills
Review Posted Online: July 13, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2020
The poetry and prose form more of an uneasy détente than an integrated whole, but the comical pictures and the wordplay in...
“Trilobites the Dust,” and so do the rest of a cast of extinct creatures in this sequel (prequel?) to Last Laughs: Animal Epitaphs (2012).
In chronological order from the Paleozoic to the Cenozoic eras, dinosaurs, prehistoric reptiles, and early mammals offer memento mori in pithy verse. “Iguanodon, Alas Long Gone,” for example runs: “Iguano dawned, / Iguano dined, / Iguano done, / Iguano gone.” With similar brevity, “Plesiosaur Sticks His Neck Out” of Loch Ness and has it chopped through by a Pict (a footnote admits the anachronism), and unknown agents leave “Pterrible Pterosaur Pterminated.” In later times, a saber-toothed cat (“Tiger, tiger, hunting bright / near the tar pits, late at night”), a dire wolf, and a woolly mammoth are all depicted trapped in the gooey muck. Each poem comes with an explanatory note, and a prose afterword titled “A Little About Layers” discusses how the fossil record works. Timmins reflects this secondary informational agenda in his illustrations without taking it too seriously—providing a spade-bearded, popeyed paleontologist who resembles a spud in shape and color to usher readers through galleries of fossil remnants or fleshed-out specimens meeting their ends with shocked expressions.
The poetry and prose form more of an uneasy détente than an integrated whole, but the comical pictures and the wordplay in these dino demises provide sufficient lift. (Picture book/poetry. 7-10)Pub Date: Oct. 10, 2017
ISBN: 978-1-58089-706-8
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Charlesbridge
Review Posted Online: July 16, 2017
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2017
A pleasant-enough gathering, with some bright spots.
Verses on diverse topics, to read fast or slow, loud or low, to audiences of one or many.
Coelho writes in such a casual, loose-jointed style that even a poem written to demonstrate how “rhyming words really pop!” forcibly yokes “stars” with “far” and “snows” with “grow.” He kits each short poem or group of poems with largely interchangeable performance suggestions, from “Start softly and finish LOUD. This is called crescendo!” to (for a choral presentation) an unhelpful “try reading some lines together and some lines separately.” The typography is likewise generic, as all the poems are printed in the same size and, except for bolded homophones in one about the experiences of a “Chilly Chili,” weight. Still, two scary entries—one featuring an unseen creature creeping up to whisper in your ear (“Don’t Look Now”), the other about unexpectedly coming upon a cave filled with human remains (“The Bones of Pampachiri”)—offer delicious chills that balance the lightheartedness of groups of riddles and tongue twisters. For visual exuberance, Gray-Barnett uses scribbly lines and garish colors to good effect, and children or other human figures, when they appear, seem a racially and ethnically diverse lot.
A pleasant-enough gathering, with some bright spots. (Picture book/poetry. 7-9)Pub Date: Feb. 4, 2020
ISBN: 978-0-7112-4769-7
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Wide Eyed Editions
Review Posted Online: Dec. 7, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2020
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