A comprehensive, valuable, and enthusiastic introduction to reading and enjoying poetry.
An instructional workbook focuses on appreciating and analyzing poetry.
Longtime educator and librarian Zenor here presents an oversized paperback aimed at providing “everything necessary for a meaningful and insightful poetry book club.” She lays out her approaches to developing the practice of “close and active reading” of poetry, although the principles she explores will serve fans of any kind of literature. Her methodology encompasses an examination of 12 concepts, ranging from “Symbol” and “Character” to “Theme” and “Audience.” For each concept, she includes a series of poems (and brief biographies of the poets) and then a thorough analysis. Under “Imagery,” for example, Zenor first explains that the idea involves “the use of words to present a sensory experience,” and then discusses poems ranging from Robert Browning’s “Meeting at Night” to Oscar Wilde’s “Symphony in Yellow.” In every example, she includes bonus poems and discussion prompts of a straightforward and useful nature (“What is the point of view of ‘When I heard the learn’d astronomer,’ and how does that impact” Walt Whitman’s poem?). Zenor also instructs readers on the mechanics of various poetic rhythms and meters, explaining all the basic concepts and illustrating them with diacritical marks on individual lines of verse. There’s a calm, inviting assurance to all this material that’s cumulatively marvelous and virtually guaranteed to make poetry less intimidating and more intriguing for students of all ages. The author is adept at encouraging her readers to raise their levels of perception, even when she’s dealing with well-known poems like Edwin Arlington Robinson’s “Richard Cory” (“The incongruity of the pleasant aural sounds leading to the unexpected tragic conclusion adds another layer of irony”). This is precisely the kind of involved, nuts-and-bolts instruction that many poetry lovers and book groups need.
A comprehensive, valuable, and enthusiastic introduction to reading and enjoying poetry.Pub Date: March 15, 2025
ISBN: 9798890754929
Page Count: -
Publisher: N/A
Review Posted Online: March 20, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 15, 2025
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
Not so deep, but a delightful tip of the hat to the pleasures—and power—of glamour.
A coffee-table book celebrates Michelle Obama’s sense of fashion.
Illustrated with hundreds of full-color photographs, Obama’s chatty latest book begins with some school portraits from the author’s childhood in Chicago and fond memories of back-to-school shopping at Sears, then jumps into the intricacies of clothing oneself as the spouse of a presidential candidate and as the first lady. “People looked forward to the outfits, and once I got their attention, they listened to what I had to say. This is the soft power of fashion,” she says. Obama is grateful and frank about all the help she got along the way, and the volume includes a long section written by her primary wardrobe stylist, Koop—28 years old when she first took the job—and shorter sections by makeup artists and several hair stylists, who worked with wigs and hair extensions as Obama transitioned back to her natural hair, and grew out her bangs, at the end of her husband’s second term. Many of the designers of the author’s gowns, notably Jason Wu, who designed several of her more striking outfits, also contribute appreciative memories. Besides candid and more formal photographs, the volume features many sketches of her gowns by their designers, closeups on details of those gowns, and magazine covers from Better Homes & Gardens to Vogue. The author writes that as a Black woman, “I was under a particularly white-hot glare, constantly appraised for whether my outfits were ‘acceptable’ and ‘appropriate,’ the color of my skin somehow inviting even more judgment than the color of my dresses.” Overall, though, this is generally a canny, upbeat volume, with little in the way of surprising revelations.
Not so deep, but a delightful tip of the hat to the pleasures—and power—of glamour.Pub Date: Nov. 4, 2025
ISBN: 9780593800706
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Crown
Review Posted Online: Nov. 7, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2026
SEEN & HEARD
A virtuoso performance and an ode to an undervalued medium created by two talented artists.
The veteran actor, comedian, and banjo player teams up with the acclaimed illustrator to create a unique book of cartoons that communicates their personalities.
Martin, also a prolific author, has always been intrigued by the cartoons strewn throughout the pages of the New Yorker. So when he was presented with the opportunity to work with Bliss, who has been a staff cartoonist at the magazine since 1997, he seized the moment. “The idea of a one-panel image with or without a caption mystified me,” he writes. “I felt like, yeah, sometimes I’m funny, but there are these other weird freaks who are actually funny.” Once the duo agreed to work together, they established their creative process, which consisted of working forward and backward: “Forwards was me conceiving of several cartoon images and captions, and Harry would select his favorites; backwards was Harry sending me sketched or fully drawn cartoons for dialogue or banners.” Sometimes, he writes, “the perfect joke occurs two seconds before deadline.” There are several cartoons depicting this method, including a humorous multipanel piece highlighting their first meeting called “They Meet,” in which Martin thinks to himself, “He’ll never be able to translate my delicate and finely honed droll notions.” In the next panel, Bliss thinks, “I’m sure he won’t understand that the comic art form is way more subtle than his blunt-force humor.” The team collaborated for a year and created 150 cartoons featuring an array of topics, “from dogs and cats to outer space and art museums.” A witty creation of a bovine family sitting down to a gourmet meal and one of Dumbo getting his comeuppance highlight the duo’s comedic talent. What also makes this project successful is the team’s keen understanding of human behavior as viewed through their unconventional comedic minds.
A virtuoso performance and an ode to an undervalued medium created by two talented artists.Pub Date: Nov. 17, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-250-26289-9
Page Count: 272
Publisher: Celadon Books
Review Posted Online: Aug. 30, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2020
PERSPECTIVES
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