Summary
From the simplest couplet to the mind-boggling pantoum, the award-winning team behind A Poke in the I shows us the many fascinating ways poetic forms take shape.
Please
Open this book for something
Extraordinary.
Twenty-nine different poetic forms await you
Inside these pages. How many
Can you master?
From sonnets to double dactyls,
Odes to limericks--
Raschka and Janeczko (and a frisky mule)
Make learning the rules of poetry
So much fun!
In this splendid and playful volume, acclaimed poetry anthologist Paul B. Janeczko and Caldecott Honor illustrator Chris Raschka present lively examples of twenty-nine poetic forms, demonstrating not only the (sometimes bendable) rules of poetry, but also the spirit that brings these forms so wonderfully to life. Featuring formal poems, some familiar and some never before published, from the likes of Eleanor Farjeon (aubade), X. J. Kennedy (elegy), Ogden Nash (couplet), Liz Rosenberg (pantoum), and William Shakespeare, the sonnet king himself, A Kick in the Head perfectly illustrates Robert Frost's maxim that poetry without rules is like a tennis match without a net. Back matter includes notes on poetic forms.
Author Notes
Paul B. Janeczko (1945-2019) was a poet and teacher who edited numerous award-winning poetry anthologies for young people, including A Poke in the I, A Kick in the Head, A Foot in the Mouth, and The Death of the Hat, all of which were illustrated by Chris Raschka; Firefly July, illustrated by Melissa Sweet; and The Proper Way to Meet a Hedgehog and Other How-To Poems, illustrated by Richard Jones. He also wrote Worlds Afire; Requiem: Poems of the Terezín Ghetto; Top Secret: A Handbook of Codes, Ciphers, and Secret Writing; Double Cross: Deception Techniques in War; The Dark Game: True Spy Stories from Invisible Ink to CIA Moles, a finalist for the YALSA Award for Excellence in Nonfiction for Young Adults; and Secret Soldiers: How the U.S. Twenty-Third Special Troops Fooled the Nazis.
Chris Raschka is the illustrator of more than twenty highly praised books for children, including Yo! Yes? , a Caldecott Honor Book; Charlie Parker Played Be Bop ; I Pledge Allegiance ; A Child's Christmas In Wales ; and, of course, A Poke In The I , which was a New York Times Best Illustrated Book.
School Library Journal Review
Gr 3-9-Twenty-nine poems, each representing a different poetic form, some classic (sonnet, limerick, couplet), many inventive (acrostic, concrete, riddle poem, list, and found poems), are included in this primer. Details on each format are provided. There's lots of humor here and poignancy as well. A memorable introduction illustrated with fancifully stylized paint, ink, and torn paper collages. (c) Copyright 2012. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Publisher's Weekly Review
Janeczko and Raschka, on the heels of A Poke in the I, explain and sometimes bend the rules of 29 poetic forms, taking their title from a concrete poem of a stick figure punting a ball (poetry jumpstarts my imagination.... poetry gives me a kick in the head). By way of introduction, Janeczko asks, Why 17 syllables in a haiku?, then points out the pleasurable rigors of poetic exercise: Can you do a good job within these limits? The pages demonstrate compact forms like the couplet, tercet and quatrain, and proceed to the more complex roundel, triolet, villanelle (basically five tercets followed by a quatrain) and pantoum (a set of quatrains where, in the final stanza, lines 2 and 4 repeat lines 3 and 1 of the opening stanza. Whew!). Janeczko emphasizes play, and gives definitions in unintimidating, perhaps too tiny gray print; his approachable examples range from an Edward Lear limerick and Shakespeare's 12th sonnet to an Ode to Pablo's Tennis Shoes by Gary Soto and a comic epitaph by J. Patrick Lewis. Raschka marks each form with a witty icon: stacked rows of tulips (haiku, tanka), a bouncing ball (limerick), an urn (ode), a guitar (ballad). His multimedia collages feature fibrous, fuzzy-edged origami paper on a clean white ground; his sensuous brushwork alludes to Zen calligraphy, while his poppy reds, jade greens and brilliant yellows recall kimono designs or Matisse's tropical palette. Janeczko's disciplined but accessible examples, plus Raschka's spirited Asian-inspired images, add oomph to this joyful poetry lesson, sure to be welcomed by teachers and aspiring poets everywhere. Ages 8-11. (Apr.) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
Horn Book Review
(Intermediate, Middle School, High School) Janeczko writes, ""Knowing the rules makes poetry -- like sports -- more fun, for players and spectators alike."" This smart new collection, assembled by the creators of A Poke in the I (rev. 7/01), beautifully introduces the rules of poetry on a variety of literary playing fields. The poems -- ranging from light verse (""Kitchen crickets make a din, / sending taunts to chilly kin, / 'You're outside, but we got in'"") to a Shakespearean sonnet (number twelve) and an accompanying parody -- are arranged by form, with tercet, haiku, acrostic poem, limerick, roundel, double dactyl, epitaph, and aubade among the twenty-nine included. Each poem appears along with a small pictorial mnemonic (there's an urn for ode, a pair of birds for couplet) up in one corner of the page, an unobtrusive sentence describing the form, and a bright, full-color illustration that decorates but never dictates meaning. The back matter consists of expanded notes on and explanations of each form. The title poem (an example of concrete poetry, by Joan Bransfield Graham) proclaims that ""poetry jumpstarts...imagination""; this book shows how that's done. (c) Copyright 2010. The Horn Book, Inc., a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted. All rights reserved.
Kirkus Review
"Why, you may ask, does a poem have rules?" asks Janeczko in his introduction; "The answer is: rules make the writing of a poem more challenging, more exciting." He proceeds to present 29 different poetic types, from the mundane couplet and the deceptively easy haiku to the villanelle, epitaph and pantoum. Each poem, collected from both writers for children and the Old Masters (Lear and Shakespeare), is accompanied by a short explanation (longer explanations appear in the backmatter) and a characteristically playful watercolor, ink, and collage illustration from Raschka (who also keys icons to each poem type). Gary Soto's "Ode to Pablo's Tennis Shoes" is elegantly flanked by two beat-up sneakers elevated on ornate pedestals; Joan Bransfield Graham's "Is There a Villain in Your Villanelle?" appears with furtive, trench-coated figures sneaking on and off the page. A beautiful, beautifully clear celebration of the discipline of poetry--and the possibilities offered by that discipline--this offering will find use both in the hands of eager poets and on the reference shelf. (Picture book/poetry. 8+) Copyright ©Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
Booklist Review
Gr. 4-6. The creators of A Poke in the I (2001) offer another winning, picture-book poetry collaboration. Here, each poem represents a different poetic form, from the familiar to the more obscure. The excellent selection easily mixes works by Shakespeare and William Blake with entries from contemporary poets for youth, including Janeczko. Once again, Raschka's high-spirited, spare torn-paper-and-paint collages ingeniously broaden the poems' wide-ranging emotional tones. A playful, animal-shaped quilt of patterned paper illustrates Ogden Nash's silly couplet The Mule, while an elegant flurry of torn paper pieces makes a powerful accompaniment to Georgia Heard's heartbreaking poem, The Paper Trail, about lives lost on 9/11. Clear, very brief explanations of poetic forms (in puzzlingly tiny print) accompany each entry; a fine introduction and appended notes offer further information, as do Raschka's whimsical visual clues, such as the rows of tulips representing the syllables in a haiku. Look elsewhere for lengthy explanations of meter and rhyme. This is the introduction that will ignite enthusiasm. The airy spaces between the words and images will invite readers to find their own responses to the poems and encourage their interest in the underlying rules, which, Janeczko says, make poetry--like sports--more fun. --Gillian Engberg Copyright 2005 Booklist
