Book Logging: Poetry
Nov. 23rd, 2018 09:44 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
the_rckCarnival of the Animals - Short, illustrated book of poetry aimed at children. The poems are by different authors and are all inspired by Saint-Saen’s work of the same title.
A Child’s Book of Poems - I am completely incapable of judging this one because I got it home from the library, opened it, and realized that it was a book we had when I was small. I remember the illustrations from before I could read the words. I still have our old copy, but it lacks a cover and has lost some pages from much hard use, so I haven’t touched it in years. Now that I’ve identified it, I shall have to get a better copy. The illustrations are by Gyo Fujikawa and are really beautiful.
The Circle of Thanks: Native American Poems and Songs of Thanksgiving - I’m not clear on whether these are translations by several uncredited people or by a single person. I’m also not clear to what extent the texts have been adapted; that is, I’m not sure if Joseph Bruchac selected these and left them unchanged or if he rephrased things. This is a short, illustrated book aimed at children, so long scholarly annotations would be out of place, but I would have liked some sourcing. I looked at Dr Bruchac’s website, and he’s a noted Native American (specifically Abenaki) scholar, writer, and educator. I very much doubt that he made these up entirely, but the book jacket says ‘told by’ rather than ‘edited by’ or ‘translated by’ or even just ‘by.’ Each poem has a tribal and general geographic attribution.
Clifton, Lucille. Voices - Short book of poetry. This is sparse and painful. From what I remember of the other poetry of hers that I read, that seems to be usual. Warning for discussion of child sexual abuse and racism.
Daniel, Danielle. Once in a Blue Moon - Picture book centered on a single poem. Each picture had a stanza of the poem and talked about some part of the natural world.
Dare to Dream… Change the World - Short, illustrated anthology of paired poems about historical people. Like most anthologies, this is a mixed bag.
DiPucchio, Kelly. Sipping Spiders Through a Straw - Short, illustrated book of poetry aimed at kids. These are meant to be sung to well-known tunes. They’re all creepy/gross and likely to appeal to kids who enjoy that.
Engle, Margarita. Bravo! - Short, illustrated book of poems about ‘amazing Hispanics.’ I didn’t love these as poetry, but I liked them very much as short portraits of people. I’d heard of some of them and not of others.
Farrar, Sid. The Year Comes Round: Haiku Through the Seasons - Exactly what the title says. I liked these, but the volume as a whole is very short. I don’t think it even took me five minutes to read.
Fisher, Aileen. Do Rabbits Have Christmas? - Short, illustrated book of poetry for children. The poems were more winter themed than Christmas themed and dealt with many different kinds of animals and what they do to survive when it’s cold and snowy.
Fletcher, Ralph. A Writing Kind of Day - Short book of poetry. The cover blurbs give the impression that these poems are meant to serve as inspiration for young poets to show that poems-- good ones-- can be written about mundane parts of their life because those things aren’t necessarily ordinary. I liked these.
Harley, Avis. The Monarch’s Progress - Short, illustrated book of poetry aimed at children. All of the poems are about monarch butterflies. I enjoyed these.
Harrison, David L. Now You See Them, Now You Don’t - Short, illustrated book of poetry about animals using camouflage. These were a little too facile for me. Just not my type of thing.
Here’s a Little Poem - Illustrated anthology of poetry aimed at small children. In terms of amount of text, this is a short book, but it’s heavier and thicker than most of children’s poetry books I’ve been reading.
Hines, Anna Grossnickle. Peaceful Pieces - Short, illustrated book of poetry aimed at children. All of the poems talk about peace and compromise. I found some of them difficult to read because of the color of the words relative to the color of the background (I have problems with light colored text on a dark background. The letters kind of wobble and vibrate).
Hudgins, Andrew. Ecstatic in the Poison - I didn’t really enjoy this one.
Katz, Bobbi. The Monsterologist: A Memoir in Rhyme - This short book of poetry is formatted as a scrapbook/field journal. I’m not the right audience for it, but I’ve known kids who would adore it.
Komunyakaa, Yusef. Warhorses - Poems about war and loss.
Kooser, Ted. Delights & Shadows - These poems felt comfortable.
Lewis, J. Patrick. A Burst of Firsts - Short, illustrated book of poetry aimed at kids. Each poems celebrates a different first-- records broken, barriers broken, achievements, etc.
Lewis, J. Patrick. The World’s Greatest Poems - Short, illustrated book of poetry aimed at kids. Each poem focuses on a different world record.
Millay, Edna St Vincent. A Few Figs from Thistles - Project Gutenberg ebook. I think the original must have been a chapbook because this one only ran about 40 pages.
Millay, Edna St Vincent. Second April - Project Gutenberg ebook. I like Millay's work generally and liked this.
Molberg, Jenny. Marvels of the Invisible - Short book of poetry. I found these kind of slippery.
Nadler, Daniel. Lacunae: 100 Imagined Ancient Love Poems - Most of these felt like excerpts that needed explanation.
Niedecker, Lorine. The Granite Pail - Short book of poetry. I’d read some of these before. Niedecker’s style is very sparse, and I find it difficult to follow.
One Last Word - Short book of poetry. This is a mix of poems by Nikki Grimes and poems from various authors of the Harlem Renaissance. Grimes based her poems on the others using a form called ‘Golden Shovel’ which involves taking a portion of another poem and writing a new poem that uses words from that portion, in sequence, as the final word of each line. In this book, the new poems stick to themes from the old.
Paley, Grace. Fidelity: Poems - I forgot to record my reaction to these and don't remember what I thought.
Pinsky, Robert. Gulf Music - Short book of poetry. I forgot to record my reaction to these.
Prelutsky, Jack. Good Sports - Short, illustrated book of poetry aimed at children. All poems are first person discussions of particular sports. I think Prelutsky’s poetry isn’t for me. I think I’ve said that before, but this time, I’ve made sure I don’t have more in my list of things to check out from the library.
Smith, Hope Anita. Mother Poems - Short book of poetry. I found these poems powerful, but I wish I’d read the blurb first because the major character death surprised me and so hit very hard. I had to wipe my eyes more than once while reading.
Stone Bench in an Empty Park - Short book of haiku about urban landscapes. The book is illustrated with black and white photographs, and I think that the poems work better with those. Our library has catalogued it as a children’s book. It’s appropriate for that audience, but I think it will work for adults, too. It may actually work better for adults because, although the copyright says 2000, it looks older. I’d have guessed 1970s based on the aesthetic.
Walker, Alice. Why War Is Never a Good Idea - Picture book of a single poem by Alice Walker. The illustrations by Stefano Vitale impressed me. I’m not sure I’d read this to a very young child, one with whom I couldn’t have a conversation about the content. There’s nothing overtly terrifying, but the words and images creep in and settle. The focus is on bystanders-- human and animal and plant-- and on long term damage to the environment.
Yolen, Jane. Bird Watch - Short, illustrated book of poetry aimed at kids. All the poems are about birds, some specific species or incidents and some more general.
Zimmer, Tracie Vaughn. Cousins of Clouds: Elephant Poems - Short, illustrated of book of poems about elephants and intended for children. I liked this one a good bit. Some of the imagery in the poems was lovely.
Started but not finished
Browning, Elizabeth Barrett. The Poetical Works of Elizabeth Barrett Browning v.1 - Project Gutenberg ebook. I skipped reading Prometheus Bound, so I can’t count this as a full read. The volume ran something like 400 pages, and I just couldn’t keep going.
Cynewulf’s Elene translated by James M. Garnett - This is a Project Gutenberg ebook. The edition includes translations of other Old English texts, but I ended up giving up before getting to anything else because I’m pretty sure that I would find the translations equally impenetrable. The translator really, really wanted a specific meter, to the point of accent marks on things that wouldn’t be stressed in normal pronunciation. He also uses a lot of archaic (even for the time when he was working) words. He doesn’t try for rhyme, though, something for which I’m grateful, and the kennings are clearly present. The poem itself needs a huge blaring warning for anti-Semitism as it’s a saint’s life focused on Helena, the mother of Constantine the Great, and her search for and discovery of the True Cross. I don’t think it goes beyond what I would expect from the era and the genre, but what I expect from both is kind of lethal.
Divakaruni, Chitra Banerjee. Leaving Yuba City - The poems I read were largely anecdotal and had a realism that didn’t appeal to me. Possibly they might have worked for me on a different day. Possibly the style is just not my thing. Hard to say.
Franco, Betsy. Messing Around on the Monkey Bars and Other School Poems for Two Voices - Short, illustrated book of poetry aimed at kids. I could see these being fun to read aloud with a kid, but they didn’t work well for me.
Poke in the I - Short illustrated book of concrete poetry aimed at children. I got tangled up in some of these and ended up giving up. Some of the poems are one or two words with the illustration carrying most of the meaning.
Stone, Bianca. The Moebius Strip Club of Grief - These were a bit too macabre and bitter for me. I got about a third of the way through and just really, really didn’t want to pick up the book again.
A Child’s Book of Poems - I am completely incapable of judging this one because I got it home from the library, opened it, and realized that it was a book we had when I was small. I remember the illustrations from before I could read the words. I still have our old copy, but it lacks a cover and has lost some pages from much hard use, so I haven’t touched it in years. Now that I’ve identified it, I shall have to get a better copy. The illustrations are by Gyo Fujikawa and are really beautiful.
The Circle of Thanks: Native American Poems and Songs of Thanksgiving - I’m not clear on whether these are translations by several uncredited people or by a single person. I’m also not clear to what extent the texts have been adapted; that is, I’m not sure if Joseph Bruchac selected these and left them unchanged or if he rephrased things. This is a short, illustrated book aimed at children, so long scholarly annotations would be out of place, but I would have liked some sourcing. I looked at Dr Bruchac’s website, and he’s a noted Native American (specifically Abenaki) scholar, writer, and educator. I very much doubt that he made these up entirely, but the book jacket says ‘told by’ rather than ‘edited by’ or ‘translated by’ or even just ‘by.’ Each poem has a tribal and general geographic attribution.
Clifton, Lucille. Voices - Short book of poetry. This is sparse and painful. From what I remember of the other poetry of hers that I read, that seems to be usual. Warning for discussion of child sexual abuse and racism.
Daniel, Danielle. Once in a Blue Moon - Picture book centered on a single poem. Each picture had a stanza of the poem and talked about some part of the natural world.
Dare to Dream… Change the World - Short, illustrated anthology of paired poems about historical people. Like most anthologies, this is a mixed bag.
DiPucchio, Kelly. Sipping Spiders Through a Straw - Short, illustrated book of poetry aimed at kids. These are meant to be sung to well-known tunes. They’re all creepy/gross and likely to appeal to kids who enjoy that.
Engle, Margarita. Bravo! - Short, illustrated book of poems about ‘amazing Hispanics.’ I didn’t love these as poetry, but I liked them very much as short portraits of people. I’d heard of some of them and not of others.
Farrar, Sid. The Year Comes Round: Haiku Through the Seasons - Exactly what the title says. I liked these, but the volume as a whole is very short. I don’t think it even took me five minutes to read.
Fisher, Aileen. Do Rabbits Have Christmas? - Short, illustrated book of poetry for children. The poems were more winter themed than Christmas themed and dealt with many different kinds of animals and what they do to survive when it’s cold and snowy.
Fletcher, Ralph. A Writing Kind of Day - Short book of poetry. The cover blurbs give the impression that these poems are meant to serve as inspiration for young poets to show that poems-- good ones-- can be written about mundane parts of their life because those things aren’t necessarily ordinary. I liked these.
Harley, Avis. The Monarch’s Progress - Short, illustrated book of poetry aimed at children. All of the poems are about monarch butterflies. I enjoyed these.
Harrison, David L. Now You See Them, Now You Don’t - Short, illustrated book of poetry about animals using camouflage. These were a little too facile for me. Just not my type of thing.
Here’s a Little Poem - Illustrated anthology of poetry aimed at small children. In terms of amount of text, this is a short book, but it’s heavier and thicker than most of children’s poetry books I’ve been reading.
Hines, Anna Grossnickle. Peaceful Pieces - Short, illustrated book of poetry aimed at children. All of the poems talk about peace and compromise. I found some of them difficult to read because of the color of the words relative to the color of the background (I have problems with light colored text on a dark background. The letters kind of wobble and vibrate).
Hudgins, Andrew. Ecstatic in the Poison - I didn’t really enjoy this one.
Katz, Bobbi. The Monsterologist: A Memoir in Rhyme - This short book of poetry is formatted as a scrapbook/field journal. I’m not the right audience for it, but I’ve known kids who would adore it.
Komunyakaa, Yusef. Warhorses - Poems about war and loss.
Kooser, Ted. Delights & Shadows - These poems felt comfortable.
Lewis, J. Patrick. A Burst of Firsts - Short, illustrated book of poetry aimed at kids. Each poems celebrates a different first-- records broken, barriers broken, achievements, etc.
Lewis, J. Patrick. The World’s Greatest Poems - Short, illustrated book of poetry aimed at kids. Each poem focuses on a different world record.
Millay, Edna St Vincent. A Few Figs from Thistles - Project Gutenberg ebook. I think the original must have been a chapbook because this one only ran about 40 pages.
Millay, Edna St Vincent. Second April - Project Gutenberg ebook. I like Millay's work generally and liked this.
Molberg, Jenny. Marvels of the Invisible - Short book of poetry. I found these kind of slippery.
Nadler, Daniel. Lacunae: 100 Imagined Ancient Love Poems - Most of these felt like excerpts that needed explanation.
Niedecker, Lorine. The Granite Pail - Short book of poetry. I’d read some of these before. Niedecker’s style is very sparse, and I find it difficult to follow.
One Last Word - Short book of poetry. This is a mix of poems by Nikki Grimes and poems from various authors of the Harlem Renaissance. Grimes based her poems on the others using a form called ‘Golden Shovel’ which involves taking a portion of another poem and writing a new poem that uses words from that portion, in sequence, as the final word of each line. In this book, the new poems stick to themes from the old.
Paley, Grace. Fidelity: Poems - I forgot to record my reaction to these and don't remember what I thought.
Pinsky, Robert. Gulf Music - Short book of poetry. I forgot to record my reaction to these.
Prelutsky, Jack. Good Sports - Short, illustrated book of poetry aimed at children. All poems are first person discussions of particular sports. I think Prelutsky’s poetry isn’t for me. I think I’ve said that before, but this time, I’ve made sure I don’t have more in my list of things to check out from the library.
Smith, Hope Anita. Mother Poems - Short book of poetry. I found these poems powerful, but I wish I’d read the blurb first because the major character death surprised me and so hit very hard. I had to wipe my eyes more than once while reading.
Stone Bench in an Empty Park - Short book of haiku about urban landscapes. The book is illustrated with black and white photographs, and I think that the poems work better with those. Our library has catalogued it as a children’s book. It’s appropriate for that audience, but I think it will work for adults, too. It may actually work better for adults because, although the copyright says 2000, it looks older. I’d have guessed 1970s based on the aesthetic.
Walker, Alice. Why War Is Never a Good Idea - Picture book of a single poem by Alice Walker. The illustrations by Stefano Vitale impressed me. I’m not sure I’d read this to a very young child, one with whom I couldn’t have a conversation about the content. There’s nothing overtly terrifying, but the words and images creep in and settle. The focus is on bystanders-- human and animal and plant-- and on long term damage to the environment.
Yolen, Jane. Bird Watch - Short, illustrated book of poetry aimed at kids. All the poems are about birds, some specific species or incidents and some more general.
Zimmer, Tracie Vaughn. Cousins of Clouds: Elephant Poems - Short, illustrated of book of poems about elephants and intended for children. I liked this one a good bit. Some of the imagery in the poems was lovely.
Started but not finished
Browning, Elizabeth Barrett. The Poetical Works of Elizabeth Barrett Browning v.1 - Project Gutenberg ebook. I skipped reading Prometheus Bound, so I can’t count this as a full read. The volume ran something like 400 pages, and I just couldn’t keep going.
Cynewulf’s Elene translated by James M. Garnett - This is a Project Gutenberg ebook. The edition includes translations of other Old English texts, but I ended up giving up before getting to anything else because I’m pretty sure that I would find the translations equally impenetrable. The translator really, really wanted a specific meter, to the point of accent marks on things that wouldn’t be stressed in normal pronunciation. He also uses a lot of archaic (even for the time when he was working) words. He doesn’t try for rhyme, though, something for which I’m grateful, and the kennings are clearly present. The poem itself needs a huge blaring warning for anti-Semitism as it’s a saint’s life focused on Helena, the mother of Constantine the Great, and her search for and discovery of the True Cross. I don’t think it goes beyond what I would expect from the era and the genre, but what I expect from both is kind of lethal.
Divakaruni, Chitra Banerjee. Leaving Yuba City - The poems I read were largely anecdotal and had a realism that didn’t appeal to me. Possibly they might have worked for me on a different day. Possibly the style is just not my thing. Hard to say.
Franco, Betsy. Messing Around on the Monkey Bars and Other School Poems for Two Voices - Short, illustrated book of poetry aimed at kids. I could see these being fun to read aloud with a kid, but they didn’t work well for me.
Poke in the I - Short illustrated book of concrete poetry aimed at children. I got tangled up in some of these and ended up giving up. Some of the poems are one or two words with the illustration carrying most of the meaning.
Stone, Bianca. The Moebius Strip Club of Grief - These were a bit too macabre and bitter for me. I got about a third of the way through and just really, really didn’t want to pick up the book again.
