Measure for Measure: An Anthology of Poetic Meters (Everyman's Library Pocket Poets Series)

Thanks to Measure for Measure, I found my favourite meter to be Sapphics, Alcaics, Hendecasyllabics, Lesser Ionics which I have never heard of before. I mostly enjoy free verse. I tried learning how to write formal poetry using "The ode Less travelled: Unlocking the Poet within" by Stephen Fry. As a creative writing exercise, it was great but now I realise that liking formal poetry is about knowing the meter style that appeals to your inner formalist.

Ten Windows: How Great Poems Transform the World

In 'Ten Windows: How Great Poems Transform the World' by Jane Hirshfield, each page has atleast a line or two that start off a nice thought process not just in the book but a parallel one in the reader's mind too. For example, 'Every good work of art holds something that was not quite knowable before is own existence'. Here I want to think of the past works I liked and see what it introduced to the art world and in the future too, I want to keep that in mind. Just few pages before trying to define art, she moved to skill and then from articulate to artificial.
These kind of meanderings bring me to a full halt and think to have a conversation with me, myself and Art.
For their aptness, the poems - imagine time before Bach's music. Milosz's "My Faithful Mother Tongue' with reference to who's the saviour and the saved between the poet and language are note worthy.

Children's Book of Magic: 30 Magic Tricks for Young Wizards (Educational series for kids 4-9 years)

Children's Book of Magic: 30 Magic Tricks for Young Wizards by Konrad Modzelewski will change young and adult hearts and minds alike that they too can perform magic. There are card tricks, string tricks, coin and cool illusions. The format is such that the magic and fun of performance is maintained with the first page of a trick and the secret is unraveled only in the next page. The two performers of the magic, bright and funny kids maintain the energy of the book. This is a great book for kids to stage a surprise magic show for family, Mothers Day, Fathers Day or anyone birthday. The tricks are easy. They will have a sense of accomplishment after having practiced and performed.

Find Momo Coast to Coast: A Photography Book

Momo like the dumpling attracted em to this book. I didnt believe it when the book said 'Find Momo' that Momo would be in every page. But when the end of the book had circles on each page, I knew I had to get serious and look. I like the book for the fact that I can enjoy it with my kids.. looking for Momo.

Find the Cutes: Book 2: Festival Fun

Find the Cutes: Book 2: Festival Fun (seek and find books for kids, look and find books for boys and girls, fun look and find book) 

Find the Cutes with Festival Fun theme is like 'Where's Waldo' but triple fun because now not only do you search for some fun, cool things but you also are in a 3D world scanning people and surroundings up close in different parts of the world, learning how they celebrate their festivals. The figures are packed but not too much to overwhelm you. Its like you have the power of Bubba Jones to time travel. Great gift idea for kids. Binds fun and learning.

AI has peaked. pic.twitter.com/xYynF7azUt

— Brad Sams (@bdsams) August 10, 2018

Never Take a Shark to the Dentist: (and Other Things Not to Do)

Havent imagined when a Centipede and I might go hand in hand for a shoe shopping spree, but I know its gonna be a hassle.

Scholastic Reader Level 2: Super Fly Guy

Life is so much fun from a fly's perspective.
"He loved the dirty dishes.
He loved the smelly mop."
Dishes in the sink aint dirty anymore. Dirty socks aint repelling anymore. Not saying that you should embrace shabbiness but that it is very freeing and rewarding to be able to switch into a fly's mind even for a little while. What fun book with squiggles in the background and big round eyes on every character.

Out of the Blue: A book of color idioms and silly pictures

An Idiom is a very powerful thing. in English, it first happened to me in sixth grade in a lesson called 'I met a Bushman'. It was the narrator saying his car 'broke down'.
'Out of the Blue - A Book of Color Idioms and Silly Pictures' is a great creative book for kids. I myself walk out of the book with few new idioms - tickled pink, yellow bellied and so on.
The illustrations are neat and the colour is emphatic.
There is a good mix of culture - brown bag. Red tape and Red letters illustrations are different from what I have in my mind.

Noah Webster: Man of Many Words

I have read 'Frida & Diego: Art, Love, Life' by Catherine Reef and enjoyed it. Having read Ida M Tarbell by Emily Arnold mcCully, I have realised that biographies meant for tweens is a good way of quickly learning about some great people. All I knew about Webster before reading this book 'Noah Webster: man of Many Words' was about his dictionary.
But after reading the book, I am wondering how some things are just the same - his insistence on standing up (stand up desks) while working, he wrote letters for funding his magnum opus promising a copy (early kickstarter). Goodreads shows that webster has 127 books. It also seems like his fascination with getting the words right connects to compiling facts. Its this naming that starts off encyclopedic works. Words and Encyclopedia are two of my favourite things for all the new stuff you learn from and through them.
The book has many illustrations. some reviewers have done a good job of recognising how the major dose of American History was needed to show the man as a work of his times.

Scattered at Sea (Penguin Poets)

'The Dead Woman's Telephone' poem in the book makes for a good example of a line for Ars Poetica. Its at once specific and general. It resonated with me when I was reading John Berger's line on archives being another way of dead people living.
'Thoughts of Tree at twilight' is how we look at things and think things. Even in 'Bon Courage' when poet Amy Gerstler tries to guides us through the imaginary woods like a docent in a museum, where you are welcome to linger but there's more to look too - but you are there.
'but the forest is our subject, not this young girl'
That sense of being in the poem is what you should read 'Scattered at Sea' for.
The little squiggles on the cover are cute.

Voyage of the Sable Venus: and Other Poems

Robin Coste Lewis is a great poet. Read the Pen Ten with Robert Coste Lewis. I enjoyed reading On the Road to Sri Bhuvaneshwari as it was a common ground. The center big piece 'Voyage of the sable Venus' is an experiment in terms of the arrangement of the content from the titles of museum exhibits, but so is every poem. In one when poem, where every scene is in the 'not' frame, I knew something dreaded was coming.
In Verga, a jumbled pantoum, a reverse rubik cube where any move from the horror is only weirder.
Every word of her seems well strained. Most likely poems to be sent to moon, as they represent humanity.

Manifestation Wolverine

When I peeked through the book, I knew I would like the poems based on the slice and its optimum language.
As I read through, there are many lines that make me go back for example and consider

‘The river stood behind the sun’
how the universal ordering is different in different cultures

‘spider webs were in the air offering rides to the river’
This sentence made me go lookup grammar of 'parts of a sentence' . Main subjects become indirect objects

‘small black trains circling around her teeth’
imagination becoming too real. Reminds me of the time when clanking of plates reminded me of a two day ride to college

‘he caught a green light glowing in the pine-trees.
He released it after it had changed into a firefly’.
nothing more fascinating than transformation from an LED to a firefly. Object to life.



The poems too are ordered with connecting themes like
Night enemy – seeing at night
chip of a human bone at train tracks – tracks-

The action in the poem feels in your imagination like the leap you take before getting into the air paragliding and while getting down.

We move from spring to autumn with ‘winter must be here’.

Hands, fingers, window, snow are recurring elements in the poem.

As high school students, we read of Hiawatha but that was a by a Non Native american poet. I dont know much about the creation myths of Native American other than the smattering you pick up being in the southwest. I am introduced to a new genre (I say new genre because I have to switch my pattern of thinking of sun greater than river. I have to switch my pattern of thinking a spider web lesser than a river, as the spider web becomes a bridge to the river in the book, making motion another metric and not just the size of something. Even this one change in a poem, is a seismic shift to the reader making him/her think of every subject/object capable of anything ) of poetry rich with images, rituals and a celebrated way of life.

With such fast moving images and actions, I had a major urge to draw them to understand the action and motion. It seems like a good start for a mini thesis on Native American Culture, Meskwaki in particular.

My Hometown

The cover page is split into past of the city on the left in black and white and the current on the right in colour. In my first reading I would have sided with some of the reviews requiring words in the book. The Scrap Metal Drive page speaks to me. A while ago I saw the pictures about Chandler history with kids participating in scrap metal drive. A few weeks ago I saw the same picture blown up at a recreation center framing the past of the city. The past is shown in black and white.
On my second read of the book, along with my 3yr old, we had interesting things on few pages that we stopped at and talked about - town hall, library, parade, July 4 fireworks. Before we started, I told her that the left side is about when the town was baby. In the next pages, the newspaper reads..'A town is born'
The pictures show how transportation (horse drawn carriages and low duty cars) and dressing were 150 years ago. How you can let your voice be heard at the City Town Hall. That is enough of history common to any city.
The color pictures have the 3D feel of clear candy.

The Most Magnificent Thing

The Most Magnificent Thing is the story of a girl and a friend, who enjoy each others company. To overcome the species differences of the speed with which they move around is the ugly gadget tale of how it got its wheels after umpteen attempts and help from the helpful assistant.
The images show the frustration of the lost innovator very well and make the words redundant. And still its the crisp words and verbs that keep the Edison attempts going.

Mr. Postmouse's Rounds

Mr Postmouse's Rounds is a story that is a treasure trove of animal secrets. While one way of knowing someone, seeing them in their habitat is a way. You also get to know of what they eat (squirrels love acorns) and whats their treat, how they sleep (bats hang upside down) or how long their socks are (of a long snake). Each page has a lot of detail to take you into a branch of science. For example ants page can get you interested in Myrmecology.
The illustrations are zoomed in places of interest and generic elsewhere, drawing your attention to the noteworthy aspects of an animal's hidden life.