POEMS THAT SING TO YOU
by Michael R.--Ed. Strickland & illustrated by Alan Leiner
``Dancing in the Street'' and ``I Hear American Singing'' are almost neighbors in a sassy collection of poems about pianos, CDs, cassettes, dancing, symphonies, and other topics musical. Eloise Greenfield (``Nathaniel's Rap'') and Samuel Taylor Coleridge (``On a Bad Singer'') sit side-by-side, while Wallace Stevens (an excerpt from ``The Man with the Blue Guitar'') and Robert Graves (``The Penny Fiddle'') are back-to-back. Brod Bagert comments on the synthesization of sound and miniaturization of technology; Felice Holman listens to instruments tuning up. Not every piece is distinctive, but there are rhythms, raps, or rat-a-tats for most readers. The b&w illustrations (they resemble woodcuts) are fine, but don't have the animation, syncopation, and celebration that many of the poems achieve solo, and that the collection achieves in concert. Index. (Poetry. 10+)