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Talking to the Sun: An Illustrated Anthology of Poems for Young People
Published in association with the Metropolitan Museum of Art.
112 pages, Hardcover
First published January 1, 1985
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103 people want to read
About the author
Kenneth Koch
110 books88 followersKenneth Koch is most often recognized as one of the four most prominent poets of the 1950s-1960s poetic movement "the New York School of Poetry" along with Frank O'Hara, John Ashbery and James Schuyler. The New York School adopted the avant-garde movement in a style often called the "new" avant-garde, drawing on Abstract Expressionism, French surrealism and stream-of-consciousness writing in the attempt to create a fresh genre free from cliché. In his anthology The New York Poets, Mark Ford writes, "In their reaction against the serious, ironic, ostentatiously well-made lyric that dominated the post-war poetry scene, they turned to the work of an eclectic range of literary iconoclasts, eccentrics and experimenters."
Fiercely anti-academic and anti-establishment, Koch's attitude and aesthetic were dubbed by John Ashbery his "missionary zeal." Ford calls him "the New York School poet most ready to engage in polemic with the poetic establishment, and the one most determined to promote the work of himself and his friends to a wider audience." Koch died of leukemia at age 77, leaving a legacy of numerous anthologies of both short and long poems, avant-garde plays and short stories, in addition to nonfiction works dealing with aesthetics and teaching poetry to children and senior citizens.
Fiercely anti-academic and anti-establishment, Koch's attitude and aesthetic were dubbed by John Ashbery his "missionary zeal." Ford calls him "the New York School poet most ready to engage in polemic with the poetic establishment, and the one most determined to promote the work of himself and his friends to a wider audience." Koch died of leukemia at age 77, leaving a legacy of numerous anthologies of both short and long poems, avant-garde plays and short stories, in addition to nonfiction works dealing with aesthetics and teaching poetry to children and senior citizens.
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Displaying 1 - 18 of 18 reviews
March 17, 2010
This book combines poems with matching art pieces from the New York Museum of Art. The art is visualy appealing but the poems weren't so interesting to me. Even though the book is written for children, I don't know if it would appeal to children. It would take dialog with an adult to understand the meaning of most of the poems. I don't think many chidlren would enjoy it.
March 10, 2011
This anthology of poetry combines a vast array of treasures from The Metropolitan Museum of Art with famous pieces of poetry from various authors -- everyone from Langston Hughes to Emily Dickinson to William Blake. The art is incredible and the idea of pairing it with a famous piece of poetry is a good idea in theory. Unfortunately, I feel this book falls flat. The art is a great deal more interesting and appealing than the poetry, and I doubt contemporary students would find much of the writing even remotely engaging. The word "stuffy" comes to mind. I do think advanced students might enjoy the idea of attaching writing to pieces of art, especially with an in depth discussion with a learned adult. I think finding another example of this technique would probably need to be used as a complement to this text in order to be successful. The honest truth is that this book is supposedly directed toward children; however, I think it just plain misses the mark. Still, it is a worthwhile read for adults and you might be able to pull a few pieces from the 100 pages or so to utilize in the classroom.
March 2, 2018
Don't underestimate children. Good poetry isn't meant to be consumed in one go, nor art to be looked at just one time.
Maybe the first time you read this together with your seven-year old, pick out a few neat animal or nature pictures and read (out loud!) the poems that accompany them. Pick the one that is most fun to say, even if you don't understand it. Memorize it, or a few lines from it. Read it again a few months later. Read some of the other poems in that section. Maybe memorize “Little Fish" by D.H. Lawrence:
The tiny fish enjoy themselves
in the sea.
Quick little splinters of life, their little lives are
fun to them
in the sea.
Try to figure out the connections between the art and the poems - sometimes they're easy to spot, and sometimes you'll have to be a detective, or use your imagination to interpret a commonality. Maybe some will stump you and your child, until the child is a little older and has an 'ah-hah' moment. Sometimes you and your child can have fun imagining yourselves in a scene, and sometimes you have to work your brains to make a guess why someone would paint or make something that seems boring, or scary, or weird. Try to figure out why the artist felt motivated to create each work.
Who was the intended audience; what idea was she trying to share; what point was he trying to make?Consider, from 1870, 'The Bathers' - http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Fil... by Winslow Homer. Can you imagine wearing all those clothes in the water? Maybe not. But look at the women - do they make you think that the people in the 'olden days' were weird? I don't think so....
There are brief commentaries attached to many of the works to help with appreciation. There is an index of titles and authors, and another of first lines. There are also short essays at the beginning and end that give some gentle guidance. Unfortunately, there is no way to search for works of art or artists - for example if you wanted to quickly find which page the painting by Winslow Homer is on, or whether he has any other works included.
Maybe the first time you read this together with your seven-year old, pick out a few neat animal or nature pictures and read (out loud!) the poems that accompany them. Pick the one that is most fun to say, even if you don't understand it. Memorize it, or a few lines from it. Read it again a few months later. Read some of the other poems in that section. Maybe memorize “Little Fish" by D.H. Lawrence:
The tiny fish enjoy themselves
in the sea.
Quick little splinters of life, their little lives are
fun to them
in the sea.
Try to figure out the connections between the art and the poems - sometimes they're easy to spot, and sometimes you'll have to be a detective, or use your imagination to interpret a commonality. Maybe some will stump you and your child, until the child is a little older and has an 'ah-hah' moment. Sometimes you and your child can have fun imagining yourselves in a scene, and sometimes you have to work your brains to make a guess why someone would paint or make something that seems boring, or scary, or weird. Try to figure out why the artist felt motivated to create each work.
Who was the intended audience; what idea was she trying to share; what point was he trying to make?Consider, from 1870, 'The Bathers' - http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Fil... by Winslow Homer. Can you imagine wearing all those clothes in the water? Maybe not. But look at the women - do they make you think that the people in the 'olden days' were weird? I don't think so....
There are brief commentaries attached to many of the works to help with appreciation. There is an index of titles and authors, and another of first lines. There are also short essays at the beginning and end that give some gentle guidance. Unfortunately, there is no way to search for works of art or artists - for example if you wanted to quickly find which page the painting by Winslow Homer is on, or whether he has any other works included.
May 11, 2012
I love poetry anthologies for kids. I love how they are illustrated and I love having lots of them to compare the different illustration styles and how that affects my understanding/enjoyment of the poems. Hence picking this up at HPB. It seemed like a good idea at the time. If by "Young People" they mean 23 year olds, well then, fine. But good grief. SO many of these poems are boring/incomprehensible to me (41) let alone my daughter (8.) And to top it all off, even most of the friendly poems have been paired with artwork that, hmmm - how to say this -- just doesn't "go." It all seems very erudite and beyond reproach lest we seem a midwestern pleb. But I don't like it. That's my story and I'm sticking to it.
It does inspire me to try me hand at doing better though -- seems like it would be a fun project.
It does inspire me to try me hand at doing better though -- seems like it would be a fun project.
October 25, 2007
I received this book for my 9th birthday, and it is the first book of poetry I personally owned. It introduced me to the poetry of Langston Hughes, which has become a life-long love. I used to sit up at night memorizing "Juke Box Love Song." This is a great book for introducing kids to poetry without condescending to them. The poems that are included are manageable, but the collection doesn't underestimate the audience. The inclusion of art pieces with the poetry is a wonderful way to engage young readers.
October 9, 2021
I read this book in 1989 when I was a teenager and it was an inspiration to read and write poetry
May 6, 2023
This was a favorite in our house when I was a kid, and it was fun to take a trip down memory lane. As an adult, I thought their collection choices could have been a little more diverse and a little more contemporary, but the pairing of poems with artwork is inspiring. I appreciate that this isn't a book that prioritizes "palatable" poems for kids, but instead doesn't shy away from poets like Stein and O'Hara, who require a little broadening of the imagination.
Read
April 14, 2023Today I continue the exploration of my eclectic collection of poetry books. I find that a number of volumes I've collected combine poetry with fine art; a natural pairing actually, that can expand our understanding of the inexpressible emotions and ideas that art in its many forms attempts to reveal.
While we wait anxiously for spring, we are more attuned to the sun and the clouds and the movements of the weather. This awareness is age old and is beautifully expressed in this poem from the Hottentot people of Africa.
Song For the Sun That Disappeared Behind the Rainclouds
The fire darkens, the wood turns black.
The flame extinguishes, misfortune upon us.
God sets out in search of the sun.
The rainbow sparkles in his hand,
The bow of the divine hunter.
He has heard the lamentations of his children.
He walks along the Milky Way, he collects the stars.
With quick arms he piles them into a basket
Piles them up with quick arms
Like a woman who collects lizards
And piles them into her pot, piles them
Until the pot overflows with lizards
Until the basket overflows with light.
From: Talking To The Sun: An Illustrated Anthology of Poems for Young People, Selected and Introduced by Kenneth Koch and Kate Farrell.
Kenneth Koch was an inspiration to me as a teacher; his book, Wishes, Lies and Dreams: Teaching Children to Write Poetry helped me through some of the pitfalls of writing instruction and I believed helped many children find their voices. He had a fresh take on poetry that was invigorating. In the wikipedia page about him (linked above) it explains that Koch asked in his poem Fresh Air (1956) why poets were writing about dull subjects with dull forms. Modern poetry was solemn, boring, and uneventful. Koch described poems "Written by the men with their eyes on the myth/And the missus and the midterms..." He attacked the idea that poetry should be in any way stale. I'd agree with that completely.
The introduction to this book articulates the connection between art and poetry. It's worth mulling over as the snow melts.
"Everyone has feelings, thoughts, wishes, instincts, and sensations that seem almost impossible to talk about or to express in a way that seems absolutely complete and true. Even supposedly ordinary, everyday things can be secretly very important but hard to talk about.
Think, for instance, of trying to describe exactly the thrill of riding a bicycle down a breezy hill, the peacefulness of holding your cat..., the strangeness of your first memories of your house or street, the happiness of discovering something--a stream in the woods or the first tree buds of spring. Think of trying to explain the confuse excitement of feeling secretly in love with someone...the mystery of language, of color, of beauty, of time going by; the funny wildness of dreams, fantasies, daydreams and the loneliness, sometimes of wondering about yourself and the whole universe in a way that you can't explain...
Everyone's experience of the world is mostly private and not quite like anyone else's, so it is hard to communicate that experience...The urge to express the absolute truth about the way things are in one's own, private, inner world of thoughts, feelings, and imagination s one of the reasons why poets write poetry, painters paint pictures, and composers write music.
The arts are natural and exciting expressions of these things. People count on the arts to tell them the truth about what it is to be a person in the world--a world that we are always wondering about and never completely understand.
In a way, the pleasure of a good painting or sculpture or poem is a little like the pleasure of seeing through the eyes of someone who can see in a way that no one else has ever seen before, the excitement of imagining with someone else's strange and brilliant imagination, or the surprise of remembering with someone else's memory."
While we wait anxiously for spring, we are more attuned to the sun and the clouds and the movements of the weather. This awareness is age old and is beautifully expressed in this poem from the Hottentot people of Africa.
Song For the Sun That Disappeared Behind the Rainclouds
The fire darkens, the wood turns black.
The flame extinguishes, misfortune upon us.
God sets out in search of the sun.
The rainbow sparkles in his hand,
The bow of the divine hunter.
He has heard the lamentations of his children.
He walks along the Milky Way, he collects the stars.
With quick arms he piles them into a basket
Piles them up with quick arms
Like a woman who collects lizards
And piles them into her pot, piles them
Until the pot overflows with lizards
Until the basket overflows with light.
From: Talking To The Sun: An Illustrated Anthology of Poems for Young People, Selected and Introduced by Kenneth Koch and Kate Farrell.
Kenneth Koch was an inspiration to me as a teacher; his book, Wishes, Lies and Dreams: Teaching Children to Write Poetry helped me through some of the pitfalls of writing instruction and I believed helped many children find their voices. He had a fresh take on poetry that was invigorating. In the wikipedia page about him (linked above) it explains that Koch asked in his poem Fresh Air (1956) why poets were writing about dull subjects with dull forms. Modern poetry was solemn, boring, and uneventful. Koch described poems "Written by the men with their eyes on the myth/And the missus and the midterms..." He attacked the idea that poetry should be in any way stale. I'd agree with that completely.
The introduction to this book articulates the connection between art and poetry. It's worth mulling over as the snow melts.
"Everyone has feelings, thoughts, wishes, instincts, and sensations that seem almost impossible to talk about or to express in a way that seems absolutely complete and true. Even supposedly ordinary, everyday things can be secretly very important but hard to talk about.
Think, for instance, of trying to describe exactly the thrill of riding a bicycle down a breezy hill, the peacefulness of holding your cat..., the strangeness of your first memories of your house or street, the happiness of discovering something--a stream in the woods or the first tree buds of spring. Think of trying to explain the confuse excitement of feeling secretly in love with someone...the mystery of language, of color, of beauty, of time going by; the funny wildness of dreams, fantasies, daydreams and the loneliness, sometimes of wondering about yourself and the whole universe in a way that you can't explain...
Everyone's experience of the world is mostly private and not quite like anyone else's, so it is hard to communicate that experience...The urge to express the absolute truth about the way things are in one's own, private, inner world of thoughts, feelings, and imagination s one of the reasons why poets write poetry, painters paint pictures, and composers write music.
The arts are natural and exciting expressions of these things. People count on the arts to tell them the truth about what it is to be a person in the world--a world that we are always wondering about and never completely understand.
In a way, the pleasure of a good painting or sculpture or poem is a little like the pleasure of seeing through the eyes of someone who can see in a way that no one else has ever seen before, the excitement of imagining with someone else's strange and brilliant imagination, or the surprise of remembering with someone else's memory."
July 1, 2018
My sister sent me this book, to share with children in my Sunday School class, and my grandchildren. Poetry from all over the world, from ancient Egypt and India, Asia, the Mideast, Europe, Scandinavia, the Americas....accentuated with artworks of drawing, painting, and sculpture! This book is an excellent primer for the young anthropologist, the student of civilizations, the lover of books and words. This book is FANTASTIC!
October 28, 2021
4.5 - Great concept.
December 22, 2023
Terrible anthology. Poorly designed layout and bad printing make both poems and art suffer.
Read
May 5, 2025Very very good. They should reformat and release it.
December 30, 2008
There's something about this combination of art and poetry that brings out the best characteristics in both. It provides a visual, even if they're from different eras or cultures as they often are, giving the art a context and the poetry an identity, making them both relevant. Like other reviewers, I got my hands on this when I was young but I still love this book and think it's a great read for any age.
September 4, 2011
This book is amazing !
You can find it in the kid section.
I got it for 6-year-old Sienna originally.
To convert her to poetry. (A lot of nice pictures / paintings.)
Then I found stuff I was like...
[Spoiler Alert.] [Just kidding.]
I was teaching a poetry class at the time,
and thought "I should re-do the whole syllabus
around this book."
You can find it in the kid section.
I got it for 6-year-old Sienna originally.
To convert her to poetry. (A lot of nice pictures / paintings.)
Then I found stuff I was like...
[Spoiler Alert.] [Just kidding.]
I was teaching a poetry class at the time,
and thought "I should re-do the whole syllabus
around this book."
March 6, 2008
A book of poetry and art presented in a really accessible way. I first got this book when I was ten and I really enjoy revisiting it.
April 25, 2008
A relative gave this to me when I was about 10, and it was one of my favorites. It has such a wonderfully ecclectic mix of poetry and artwort and it just came together perfectly.
January 12, 2010
I liked the selection of poetry, but the format/ layout was distracting and difficult for my children to engage in.
November 4, 2012
art and poems from many cultures and times
Displaying 1 - 18 of 18 reviews