Imperfect II: poems about perspective: an anthology for middle schoolers
Being human means to sometimes lose perspective. We focus on the one negative comment we received instead of the ten positive ones. We think we're the only person who has had something really embarrassing happen to us, or that a problem we're having will go on forever. When we've lost sight of the big picture, how can we help ourselves put things back in perspective? Poetry can lend a hand.
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Laura Shovan is the author, with Saadia Faruqi, of A Place at the Table, a Sydney Taylor Notable book. Her debut middle-grade novel, The Last Fifth Grade of Emerson Elementary, was a NCTE 2017 Notable Verse Novel, a Bank Street College of Education Best Children's Book of the year, and won a Cybils Award for poetry, among other recognition. Her second children's novel, Takedown, published recently and her novels sit on over half a dozen state reading lists. She lives with her family in Maryland, where she is a longtime poet-in-the-schools for the Maryland State Arts Council.
Publishers Weekly's BookLife, Editor's Pick
The second installment of the Imperfect poetry anthologies edited by author and poet Tabatha Yeatts is a thought-provoking, accessible collection for middle-schoolers that features poems from around 50 different authors, including Paul Laurence Dunbar, François Villon, and Carl Sandburg. What unites these disparate selections is the concept of perspective, which Yeatts represents with an image of Da Vinci's perspectograph. Da Vinci created this singular tool to help artists more accurately represent reality in paintings. The anthology itself acts as a perspectograph for its young readers, offering a window into reality and its complexities through poetry, offering inviting verse connected to relatable quandaries: "When what you want/ leaves you high and dry/ what you DO have/ will just have to satisfy," writes Mary Lee Hahn in the striking, direct "What You Want."
Imperfect II, though, offers readers satisfaction and surprise that they may not yet know they want. Most of the featured poems are simple and lyrical, focusing primarily on the perception of self and the self's perception of the outside world, with a particular emphasis on identity, as in Linda Kulp Trout's "Questions," where the speaker struggles with adults asking them what they want to be when they grow up: "How can I know/ what/ I want to be-/ I'm still trying/ to figure out/ ME!", and Rochelle Burgess and Laura Mucha's "Dropping the Ball," which delves into issues related to racism and empathy among two students on a basketball team.
No two readers are alike, and Yeatts has the diversity of her readership in mind, offering selections with traditional structures, like Robert Schechter's "Compared to What?", but also some uncommon forms, like Alana Devito's concrete poem "The Art Teacher Said," which features her words in the shape of a lizard. Middle-schoolers looking for an introduction to the possibilities of poetry and adults seeking an inclusive, empowering collection for young ones will find this an inspired addition to their libraries.
Takeaway: Poems for young readers delving into perception, identity, and confidence.
Comparable Titles: Naomi Shihab Nye's Honeybee, John Grandits's Technically, It's Not My Fault: Concrete Poems.
