Karen Jo Shapiro's lighthearted take on some of the most celebrated poems from English and American literature will bring a smile to readers everywhere. Twenty-six hilarious poems fill the pages of this book, and many of them should sound familiar -- if just a little off. From a little dog's version of Shakespeare to the fractured homage to Emily Dickinson of the title poem, these verses will have you laughing faster than you can say "iambic pentameter." With Matt Faulkner's witty illustrations, this is one poetry book that's pure fun.
In her legendary career, artist and activist Nikki Giovanni has established herself as a writer who can entertain and challenge, and a voice for social justice who can inform and inspire in times of national crisis. Controversial, revolutionary, ethereal, or illuminating, her poems about race, Black lives, violence, gender, and family move readers of all ages and backgrounds. With BICYCLES, she’s collected poems that serve as a companion to her 1997 LOVE POEMS. An instant classic, that book--romantic, bold, and erotic--expressed notions of love in ways that were delightfully unexpected. In the years that followed, Giovanni experienced losses both public and private. A mother’s passing, a sister’s, too. A massacre on the campus at which she teaches. And just when it seemed life was spinning out of control, Giovanni rediscovered love--what she calls the antidote. Here romantic love--and all its manifestations, the physical touch, the emotional pull, the hungry heart--is distilled as never before by one of our most talented poets. In a time of national crisis or personal crisis, this is a collection that will open minds and change hearts as only the best art can.
A Spider Bought a Bicycle features the work of such classic poets as Tennyson, Shakespeare, and Coleridge, as well as traditional playground rhymes and folk songs from around the world. The renowned poet Michael Rosen has selected poems that address many different themes and moods, including funny, sad, wistful, and intriguing poems. All of the poems have been specially chosen for their accessibility to young children, to stimulate their imaginations and further their enjoyment of language. With full-color artwork throughout, this is an anthology young readers will return to again and again.
In this book full of pain and joy and raw honesty, Fleda Brown, poet and former poet laureate of Delaware, gives us a real-time account of her cancer diagnosis, chemo and radiation, from the doctor's phone call to the one-year, all-clear pronouncement. Now everything's shifted. We pretend there's some solidity, some predictability. But being alive is more like riding a bicycle, balancing on two thin tires. Eventually we'll fall one way or the other, but for the moment, we're upright. It's exciting, sometimes frightening. Brown's week to week accounts lead to the realization that one needs to face a wall-sometimes the wall of possible death-to see clearly. With great generosity, she allows the reader to come along through the darkness and the light. Reading a poem by Brown is a lesson in how to read one's life, how each small thing, each seemingly casual detail, is in fact connected to perceptions and understandings of profound significance that we can all divine if only we calm our vision enough to fully experience the perishing present. -World Literature Today Brown's details [are] so invariably eloquent. . . . an observant woman with a grand heart, a penetrating mind, and not least, a keen wit. -Sydney Lea Fleda Brown has a good wit, a sharp eye, and a tough character.-Dave Smith Brown turns her considerable intelligence to examine art's persistence and contingency. -Elizabeth Dodd, Miramar Fleda Brown has such a wide ranging intelligence, such a large and quirky variety of subjects, and such facility with language. . . - Linda Pastan So perfectly tempered are the apprehensions of metaphor, so cunning are the felicities of form. . . we're tempted to think it's not art at all. Except for the radiance, which only art, and a generous mind, can make. -Linda Gregerson "
A determined 12-year-old girl bikes across the country in this quirky and charming debut middle grade novel. Introverted Bicycle has lived most of her life at the Mostly Silent Monastery in Washington, D.C. When her guardian, Sister Wanda, announces that Bicycle is going to attend a camp where she will learn to make friends, Bicycle says no way and sets off on her bike for San Francisco to meet her idol, a famous cyclist, certain he will be her first true friend. Who knew that a ghost would haunt her handlebars and that she would have to contend with bike-hating dogs, a bike-loving horse, bike-crushing pigs, and a mysterious lady dressed in black. Over the uphills and downhills of her journey, Bicycle discovers that friends are not such a bad thing to have after all, and that a dozen cookies really can solve most problems.
'I have the Wheel of life; Soiled with my city's dust. From the struggle and the strife Of the narrow street I fly To the Road's felicity, To clear from me the frown Of the moody toil of town....' This collection of poems covers cycling in all its moods; from the exhilaration of bicycle racing to the lyrical reflections of touring through the countryside, to the every-day challenges of commuting and repairs. Taken from books and magazines of the early days of bicycles, these poems, most of them by unknown writers, will still amuse and inspire today's riders with the timeless highs (and lows) of cycling.
OMohr inspires kids to be imaginative, caring, and self-respecting good people. He does this with poignant poetry and unique illustrations sure to spark conversations on many themes.ONBrett Dennen, singer/songwriter.
