I read two books of poems recently: ‘Isolocation’ by various poets and ‘Hate that cat’ by Sharon Creech. ‘Isolocation’, a collection of 44 poems by various authors, is available for free on Kindle Unlimited. The book was published in October 2020. The poems are about isolation, quarantine, change, the socio-political climate, mental health, feminism etc. I particularly loved ‘Dear Tomorrow’ by Gayathri Viswanath, ‘Amygdala’ by Ishmeet Nagpal, ‘Hello, Goodbye’ by Ishmeet Nagpal and ‘Yellow’ by Anjali Singh. I know I will re-visit the book to re-read these.
Pic from Unsplash
I also finally got around to reading ‘Hate that cat’ by Sharon Creech, which I’d bought in November 2020. The book is meant for children of ages 8-12. Its companion book is ‘Love that dog’, which I have not read. ‘Hate that cat’ is about little Jack who attends poetry classes by his teacher Miss Stretchberry. He attempts to write poetry based on his lessons at school. Jack learns about symbols, metaphors, images, alliteration, onomatopoeia, etc., through the poetry of William Carlos Williams, Edgar Allen Poe, Walter Dean Myers, Christopher Myers, T.S. Eliot and others, in his classes. Some famous poems are also featured in the book. Jack records his observations through his poems, which form the book. ‘Hate that cat’ ends with a reading list of ‘books on the class poetry shelf.’ Two of the author Sharon Creech’s other books include ‘Walk two moons,’ which won the Newbery medal and ‘The wanderer’, which is a Newbery Honor Book.
