From: Ginny Moore Kruse <gmkruse>
Date: Tue, 25 Apr 2000 13:27:14 -0500

Marc Aronson observes that thematic anthologies with themes of particular interest to adolescents might even become a "genre all of its own." He points out that it's a "rich and expanding area where some very fresh and interesting work is taking place. One thing it can do is to give voice to a wide range of experiences without waiting for a single author to deal with them in a novel."

I'm interested in that idea, i.e., that the wide range of experiences of a well developed anthology have an immediacy not provided by a novel. Immediacy is most certainly one of the attributes of the compressed expression offered by poetry. As Marc says, an anthology can provide a range of types and it's also possible to dip into an anthology for short or humorous poems or familiar poets, or to return to it for more reflective poems in different moods. One can't do such dipping in and out of a novel. A provocative comparison... Ginny

Ginny Moore Kruse (gmkruse at education.wisc.edu) Cooperative Children's Book Center (www.education.wisc.edu/cbc/) A Library of the School of Education, University of Wisconsin Madison

  

I also think that because there are so many voices and tones in these books they offer many different ways for readers to enter them. A quick read may land on short poems, or funny ones, or ones by familiar authors. A slower read will bring the reader to more complex poems that reveal their secrets over time.
        I do hope librarians and teachers will start to think of the YA poetry anthology as a genre all of its own, and explore with us the many directions they can take.

Marc Aronson
Received on Tue 25 Apr 2000 01:27:14 PM CDT