From: Kimberly M. King <cc496>
Date: Mon, 10 Feb 1997 08:51:09 -0500 (EST)

Greetings! Poetry is an interesting, wonderful genre to me... Interesting in that it often falls quite flat when I try to use it when working with a class during a visit to the library and yet wonderful because these same kids are often the ones who come in after school and ask to see the poetry books--just for fun and not for a report. Maybe this has to do with images the kids have of people who like poetry and they don't want to admit being *that* kind of person when with their peers. (I'll not soon forget the young man in mid-highschool who thanked me for showing him Emily Dickinson.) But, more to the point of this discussion, here's the book I'm recommending...MAPLES IN THE MIST: CHILDREN'S POEMS FROM THE TANG DYNASTY translated by Minfong Ho, illus. by Jean and Mou-sein Tseng. The poems are short and written in both Chinese and English, and often capture a single natural image. I had the good fortune to hear these read aloud in Chinese and it didn't matter that I understood not one word. Georgeous. The English verse is a delight as well. The illustrations, while beautiful in their own right, do not detract from the language.
                      --Kimberly M. King-- cc496 at freenet.buffalo.edu

"Your vocation lies where your deepest gladness and the world's
 hunger meet." --Fredrick Buechner
Received on Mon 10 Feb 1997 07:51:09 AM CST