Thursday, May 27, 2010

Paul Janeczko's Foot in the Mouth


Foot in the Mouth is a somewhat ironic title for a collection intended to illustrate that poetry is meant to be read aloud (celebrated, really), but it works. Readers not familiar with Paul Janeczko's A Kick in the Head: an everyday guide to poetic forms, and A Poke in the i: a collection of concrete poems, both of which provide teachers and readers interested in poetry with numerous examples from which to draw inspiration, will find in this volume another wide variety of poetry meant to show students that poetry can be anything from fun to beautiful to downright silly.
Many readers will have had a recent exposure to Lewis Carroll's Jabberwocky via Johnny Depp in Alice in Wonderland, but they will also be given English/Spanish as well as English/French versions of poems and Charles Follen Allen's "Orthographic Lament," which, given the vagaries of spelling, leaves the poet to contemplate SIOUX-EYE-SIGHED.
This is a book that is meant to be shared, and which encourages the sharing of poetry.

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