Poetry Friday

Poetry Friday is hosted today by A Teaching Life.

My selection is -- Insectlopedia: poems and paintings by Douglas Florian. 

Budding entomologists will delight in these whimsical verses about twenty-one different insects.  From dragonfly to caterpillar, daddy longlegs to cricket, Florian shares a defining characteristic of each in his signature style accompanied by abstract watercolors that will earn a second and third look.  Verses vary with different subjects there's fun wordplay as in his "Caterpillar."

She eats eight leaves at least

to fill her,

Which leaves her like a

Fatterpillar,

 

The bold face type is Florian's -- perhaps a hint to his younger readers to note the double meaning of the word.

In other instances he physically shapes his poems to reflect their subject as in the inchworm and whirligig beetles.

He finds a voice to give readers an individual sense of each subject.

"The Daddy Longlegs" begins with a cool jazzy beat -- O Daddy/Daddy O/How'd you get/Those legs to grow/So very long/And lean in size?/From spiderobic/Exercise?

While "The Army Ants" has a martial tone with --

Left

            Right

Left

            Right

We're army ants.

We swarm.

            We fight.