Tag Archives: Poetry

Everything All At Once

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Everything All At Once by Steven Camden

Book of the Week: 8 December 2019

‘What’s it about then?

Well,

It’s about the tapestry of moments, woven of a thousand threads.

Different versions of the world swirling inside a thousand heads.

We go from the biggest to the smallest, dropped off, left to fend,

in the secondary school jungle jumbled enemies, new friends.’

This is Steven Camden’s prologue to his poetry book that looks inside the heads of unnamed students and teachers and their experiences in school, from starting out to the day of leaving. Its mix of funny, anxious and regretful is always insightful and identifiable.

 

 

The Poet X

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The Poet X by Elizabeth Acevedo

Book of the Week: 23 June 2019

Cover illustration by Gabriel Moreno

It was announced on Tuesday (18 June) that Elizabeth Acevedo had won the 2019 Carnegie Medal for The Poet X.

Xiomara lives in Harlem with Mami, Papi and her twin brother Xavier, whom she calls ‘Twin’. Her hard-working mother wants her to follow the rules, attend church, go to confirmation class and stay away from boys. Xiomara is questioning her faith and attracted to her new lab partner, Aman. She and her mother are set on a collision course. Xiomara’s teacher, Ms Galiano, sees that she is a talented writer and encourages her to attend poetry club, but it isn’t until events push her to breaking point that she finds her voice.

Xiomara’s story is told in free verse, so this is one to try if you enjoy coming-of-age stories and have enjoyed books by Jason Reynolds, Kwame Alexander or Sarah Crossan.

Voyages in the Underworld of Orpheus Black

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Voyages in the Underworld of Orpheus Black by Marcus Sedgwick, Julian Sedgwick and Alexis Deacon

Book of the Week: 19 May 2019

Illustrations by Alexis Deacon

Harry and Ellis Black were close when they grew up together in the Shropshire countryside, but now Harry is a firefighter and conscientious objector and Ellis is in the forces and feels his brother is a shirker in the fight against the Nazis. One evening, they meet in a London pub. When Harry leaves, a V2 bomb hits the pub and Harry’s bus is overturned in the blast. Ellis is believed to have been killed, although his body isn’t found. Harry sets out to explore under the rubble with the help of Agatha, a young Jewish refugee from Germany, who is searching for her parents.

Interleaved with this story is a poetic commentary from Orpheus and excerpts from Harry’s sketchbook for a book he is illustrating called ‘Warriors of the Machine’ where he envisages a world in which killing and destruction have been enabled by sophisticated machinery.

This cleverly-told story may not be for everyone, but it is poignant and passionate about the horrors of war.

Here to Eternity

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Here to Eternity by Andrew Motion

Book of the Week: 2 October 2016

here-to-eternity

It’s National Poetry Day on Thursday, so this week’s book is an anthology of poetry chosen by Sir Andrew Motion who was Poet Laureate from 1999 to 2009.

As the book’s blurb says, this is ‘a rich spectrum of poetic voices – ancient and modern, foreign and familiar. Arranged concentrically, each section – Self, Home, Town, Work, Land, Love, Travel, War, Belief and Space – seeks out resemblances and finds echoes elsewhere, creating the impression of an expanding universe, from Wallace Stevens to Stevie Smith, Joseph Brodsky to Jo Shapcott, Bob Dylan to Dylan Thomas, Ben Jonson to Benjamin Zephaniah.’

If you would like to explore poetry online, here are some resources you might like to look at:

The Poetry Archive which has a section devoted to children’s poetry 

Poetry Station which features poets and actors reading poetry, as well as animations of poems.

The Poetry Society which also has a section featuring poets reading their own work and explaining what inspired them.