Parenthetical.net

Yet another conference speaker, who brought a guitar on stage and performed some Tom Lehrer, among other things. What’s with all the musical children’s authors? Maybe music should be Simmons’ theme next time…

I am not a poetry reader, as a general rule. But a few poems in, I was sold on this book. If you’re looking for read-aloud poems for children or adolescents (as we frequently are at my school), I can’t recommend this highly enough. For instance:

Are You Worried?

Are you worried you’re not
like everyone else?
Your worries will only worsen
when you find
that the path to conformity
is different for each person.

Or (read this out loud):

Love

She came round the corner and
all of a sudden
I understood it:

all love is sudden.

I think my favorite poem in the book is the epigraph, which wasn’t written by JonArno at all but which captures the spirit of his book perfectly:

we is marchin’

Nature is a copiously
Hopeful cornucopia
Of protoplasmic organisms
Groping for utopia.

–E. Y. “Yip” Harburg

Also reviewed at: Poetry for Children