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February 09, 2007
Wings from the Wind: Poetry Friday
For, lo, the winter is past,
The rain is over and gone:
The flowers appear on the earth;
The time of the singing of birds is come,
And the voice of the turtle is heard in our land.
-Song of Songs, 2:11, 12 in Wings from the Wind: An Anthology of Poems, selected and illustrated by Tasha Tudor
I seem to be on a bit of a Tasha Tudor kick. In the comments on my Poetry Friday post last week, I got to thinking that she would be the perfect person to do a whole set of Robert Frost poems as picture books. Then I thought that maybe she had done at least one, and, in my investigations, I happened on her Wings from the Wind: An Anthology of Poems, which includes Frost’s “Last Word of a Bluebird.” Published in 1964 and originally retailing for $3.79, this collection hasn’t circulated in my library since May of 2001. Shame on the entire town of Webster, though: this thing’s a gem. The cover, I’ll grant, isn’t a grabber (mostly because it was originally printed on yellow paper designed to make it look aged, which, after many years of use, it’s doing a little too successfully at the moment), but the title page is one of those cool full-color pages they used to do in books that used color sparingly. This is one of only four full-color illustrations in this book, in fact, and it’s lovely – an inviting border of flowers and berries that looks all the better from where I’m sitting in the midst of a Northeastern cold spell. The poems themselves are illustrated with Tudor’s line drawings, almost more stunning in grayscale than they would have been in color. The selection of poems is eclectic and fun, ranging from lesser-known Mother Goose rhymes such as “How Many Miles to Babylon?” (“three-score and ten,” baby) to the more modern sensibilities of Carl Sandburg and Eleanor Farjeon. Even with poets like Frost and Dickinson, Tudor shuns the obvious, instead collecting lesser-known treasures. How is this book out of print? How is it not circulating? I was an unusual child, but I would have loved this thing when I was a kid. I love it now, and my plan for the day is to will some unsuspecting child to take it home. I will report back on my success or lack thereof….
[Looks like they're doing the roundup at Blue Rose Girls today.]
Posted by adrienne at February 9, 2007 11:07 AM