Poetry – Page 111 – Cannonball Read 17

The oldest joke in the book? Maybe. But one of the wonders of the worlds for sure

Yours ‘Til Niagra Falls by Brenda Z. Guiberson

January 19, 2022 by BlackRaven Leave a Comment

Seriously just read this book, okay? It is awesome! The highlighted history of Niagara Falls comes to life with the voice of the falls itself in this picture book by Brenda Z. Guiberson. Poetic and straight forward, this book is a must to have for science classes, history classes and for environmental studies. The title of Yours ‘Til Niagra Falls might be one of the oldest jokes in the book, but dang it! This time it is worth it and more! This story is told […]

If he wears a shirt, why doesn’t he need pants?

Make Your Bed with Skipper the Seal by William H. McRaven

January 6, 2022 by BlackRaven Leave a Comment

Make Your Bed with Skipper the Seal are the 10 steps/points that the author William H. McRaven learned while they were a human Navy Seal. They have spoken about them at commencements and in several books for adults. This time, with Howard McWilliam creating the cartoon illustrations, they created a picture book that talks how a seal named Skipper becomes not only the best Navy Seal, but the best Seal he could be. The idea is that the little things are important such as how […]

D is not just for Dog any more.

D Is for Drool: My Monster Alphabet by Amanda Noll

January 3, 2022 by BlackRaven Leave a Comment

D Is for Drool: My Monster Alphabet is from the I Need My Monster series. The lead singers are Amanda Noll and Shari Dash Greenspan with Howard McWilliam on illustrations. We the reader find out that T is for Tentacles, D is for Drool, C is for Claws, and each lyrical letter gets its own monster worded page. Or could share the page but gets its own spot as the parade of monsters walk by to help the young child of the book fall asleep. […]

Teenage me would have loved it, adult me is more ‘meh’

By Grand Central Station I Sat Down and Wept by Elizabeth Smart

January 2, 2022 by Wanderlustful Leave a Comment

Elizabeth Smart was a Canadian author born just before WWI. By Grand Central Station I Sat Down and Wept is her ‘prose poetry’ novel of her long term love affair with the married English poet George Barker. Her novel is almost all raw emotion, so Wikipedia helped me to fill in some of the details: Smart read a volume of Barker’s poetry in a bookstore in London in the late 1930s and fell in love with him through his work. She arranged to meet him, […]

Prospero is a dickhead.

The Tempest by William Shakespeare

December 29, 2021 by narfna Leave a Comment

I‘m tempted to just let the title be my review, but if I want to count this review towards my total, it has to be at least 250 words. I haven’t read this play in ten years. I’ve never seen it performed. It’s never been my favorite, even though I’ve read it several times now. The best parts of it involve several of Shakespeare’s most classic lines: “Hell is empty and all the devils are here.” “We are such stuff as dreams are made on, […]

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All the Names Given: Poems by Raymond Antrobus

December 21, 2021 by BlackRaven 2 Comments

I was unable to finish this book of poetry by Raymond Antrobus easily or quickly. While I enjoyed what I read of All the Names Given: Poems the poetry felt repeated and best suited for a novel and not poems. This bogged me down, making me have to stop and analyze what was read. It was not something that could be consumed in one reading. Antrobus speaks on the page, as if he is having a conversation with you. Which is an interesting concept as […]

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