DOWN TO THE SEA IN SHIPS

Paying tribute to boats and ships—and all who have taken them out onto wide blue waters—Sturges pairs a series of lyric verses to Laroche’s carefully detailed, painted-paper collages. From a frail looking birch canoe to an immense modern cruise ship (the latter seen in engrossing cutaway), from a Viking Drakar rowed by a bearded, singing crew to the Savannah, first steam-powered ship to cross the Atlantic and return, the vessels present an arresting array of forms and sizes. But this is more than a simple sail-and-steam gallery; Sturges also commemorates whalers and cod fishermen (and the cod themselves), Magellan, who “sailed on to misfortune and fame,” busy Puget Sound, blind boatbuilder John Herreshoff and the profound rewards of drifting silently: “Be still. / Ignore the distant sounds of Man and thunder. / Look deep into the sea. / Be filled with wonder.” A poetic companion for the likes of Patrick O’Brien’s The Great Ships (2001). (Poetry. 8-12)