Graphic novels are all the rage these days, especially for young adult readers, but what about a graphic anthology of poetry?  That’s what Poetry Comics: An Animated Anthology by Dave Morice purports to be.  I found this book in the young adult graphic novel section of the downtown branch of my local library.  It contains such classic English poems as Wordsworth’s “I Wandered as a Lonely Cloud” and Robert Herrick’s “To the Virgins, to Make Much of Time” as well as other more modern classics, so to speak, like an excerpt from Allen Ginsberg’s “Howl” and a poem by Langston Hughes. The erstwhile comics that go with the poems vary greatly in style and quality.  There’s a rather surreal rendering of Shakespeare’s “Sonnet 18, Shall I Compare Thee to a Summer’s Day” that I found bizarre.  However, the sequence envisioning Walt Whitman as a poetic superhero whipping off his jacket to expose his W-emblazoned costume à la Superman seemed exceedingly apt.

Using comics and cartoons to visually interpret these canonical English poems seems to me to be an exercise in creative engagement with work that has been dulled with overuse in the language arts classroom.  I applaud Morice’s efforts in bringing to these poems some fresh insights via the visual medium.  Morice ends his book with an appendix explaining how comics are created with step-by-step instructions.   What a great assignment to give to a bored high school English class!  Don’t doodle while the instructor drones on about Shakespeare, doodle the poem instead and see what comes out.  The kind of interactive engagement that drawing the poem takes will make the poem memorable to the student for the rest of his or her life.

This week’s Poetry Friday is hosted by Laura Salas – head on over!

Seeing Emily by Joyce Lee Wong is an unusual young adult book because it is written entirely in verse.  Following the life of Emily Wu, a sixteen year old Chinese American living in Richmond, Virginia, the book is set out in poetic episodes of first person narrative.  It begins in the Chinese restaurant of Emily’s parents where she helps out part-time.  The first section titled “Golden Palace” begins with a poem called “Flirting.”  It is clear from this opening that Emily is embarking on a journey of adolescent awakening.  However, it is not just a sexual awakening that Emily experiences but also one to her identity as an Asian American woman.  Typically, feelings of shame — towards her parents’ eating habits, for example — mingle with her protective affection for them.  Similarly, her feelings of ambivalence towards a talented Chinese school mate, Alex Huang, are in direct opposition to the near adulation of  her first boyfriend, Nick, who, she realizes later, cannot see beyond her Asian features to the girl inside.

Emily is also an artist.  Throughout the book, Emily works first on drawings, and then on a mural project for her school.  She chooses a tiger to paint for the mural and uses it as a metaphor for things going on in her personal life:

As I started another tiger sketch
I thought of Nick
and felt the stirrings of heat within,
the quickening of my heartbeat
rhythmic and insistent
as the pounding of drums
echoing through the foliage of
the tiger’s jungle home.

The gift of perceiving reality through metaphor is the poet’s and that is why poetry is a suitable medium for Wong’s characterization of Emily.  The poetic narrative works here to good effect in a way that would appeal to a young adult reader.

This week’s Poetry Friday host is Sylvia Vardell at Poetry for Children.