Castles: Old Stone Poems

  This book is a beautiful collection of poems that surround the subject of ancient castles. Each poem is about a different famous castle and includes a mixture of historical fact and myth. The castles are from all over the world-from France's Chambord to Catherine's Palace in Russia. Each one is unique and equally grand. My two favorites are the one's mentioned above. I love Chambord's for it's amazing, broad low ceilings and grand spiral staircase designed by Leonardo D'avinci. I also really like Catherine's Palace for it's bright gold colored walls. It was said that Catherine was so vain she kept her hairdresser locked in an iron cage inside her room so that no one would know she wore a wig. It is little details like this in the back of the book  that make this work really interesting. I can definitely see myself reading something like this in my class and having my kids do a drawing project where they design their own castle.

Under the North Star by Ted Hughes

 This is another poetry collection by Ted Hughes. The images in this book are much for striking than the mermaids purse, and so I'm drawn to it visually for that reason. The close up of the bear that takes up an entire page is really stunning. The poems, I have found, although they may be some what abstract and difficult to understand, sound really cool when read out loud. Ted Hughes makes up some words such as in the phrase: Doomed is the Dab. When reading it, although Dab is not a word, as far as I know, you can almost put your own meaning to it when read with the rest of the poem. Whatever word you associate with Dab works, since he didn't specify one. All of the poems in this collection are about wild animals. He portrays them as fierce and yet possessing human qualities, like an osprey who folds his wings and bows to God. 

     I don't think I'd read these poems to my class since I feel they reflect his own outlook on life which I believe is less of a positive one and more centered on the idea that the strongest survive. Although I find the beauty of nature he describes so well in his work inspiring, his heightened focus of violence somewhat turns me off.

The Mermaid's Purse by Ted Hughes

Ted hughes love for the natural world is echoed in these poems about the many creatures that live in the ocean and on the sand. The book is small in size, which is fitting since the poems are pretty short and the images are abstract and in black and white. I really like Ted Hughes voice in these poems and the practically perfect descriptions he uses. I like the poem about the seal. He describes the seal to have famine child eyes and to look like it just lost it's mother in the ocean. I saw a seal up close over thanksgiving and they look exactly like that, with big baby eyes. They are so stinking cute, next to kittens and baby puppies! The poem that the book is titled after is somewhat strange, and I don't particularly like it that much. A mermaid opened her purse to get out an aspirin and a shark came along as the "doctor" and ate her head off, I'm assuming. These poems are kind of fun, but I don't think I'd choose this book to read to my class, since I believe there are others that are better.

Lewis Carroll: The Walrus and The Carpenter

This is a long poem from Alice and Wonderlands Through the Looking Glass. It tells the tale of TweedleDe and Tweedledum and Alice's encounter with them. They ask her if she likes poetry and then begin to recite a long poem about the carpenter and the walrus who eat all the baby oysters after tricking them to come up on the beach. It is somewhat of a gruesome and dark story, and yet it is mysteriously interesting. I want to know where Lewis Carroll came up with his inspiration for this story and if has a deeper meaning. I think it could be interpreted in many ways. This would be a fun book to read to a class since the artwork is pretty fantastical and colorful. It would be fun to do a project where student's receive a poem and then have to make a work of art from that poem. It might also be fun to have kids write their own similar fantastical poem along with doing images to reflect it.

Boshblobberbosh

This book by J. Patrick Lewis pays homage to Edward Lear, an artist and poet himself. The images are dark and fantastical and the poems are strange and nonsensical. Some of the poems involve puns and are quite clever for that matter. A poem about Owls is one of my favorites: "There once was a man who loved vowels, so much that he hooted to owls. When they cried, "Oooooooh" he cried "Oh-O-ohh to you you half-moony meloobius fowls."" His play on words in the poem is pretty genius. Another poem is about the thing in the middle of your face, or your nose and has a picture of a big face that takes up two pages. It is similarly clever and interesting. I think this would be a fun book to read to kids, since you could play around with voices and the pictures are great. It could really get kid's imaginations going, since lot's of times children think in ways that, to adults, seems nonsensical.