Poetry for Young People: American Poetry

Like America itself, this selection of more than two dozen poems and evocative accompanying illustrations celebrates freedom, diversity, art, and imagination. As the opening line of the very first poem makes clear -- "I hear America singing, the varied carols I hear" -- no one voice can capture the multitude of backgrounds, concerns, and outlooks that makes the country unique.0Some of the greatest poets of the last 200 years will open your eyes to the wonders of the land and the people who have lived there. Whereas Hamlin Garland takes a descriptive approach to "the broad, unhasting" Mississippi, "spotted with raindrops, gray with night," the great 20th-century poet Langston Hughes uses rivers as a metaphor for the African-American experience. An epic poem about Native American life shares the pages with one about the Revolution, while "A Navajo Blanket" and "Jazz Fantasia" celebrate two totally distinct but decidedly American art forms.

John Hollander has written several volumes of poetry, books of criticism, and stories for children. He has collaborated on operatic and lyric works. His many honors include the Bollingen Prize, the Levinson Prize, the MLA Shaughnessy Medal, as well as fellowships from the Guggenheim Foundation, the MacArthur Foundation, and the National Endowment for the Arts. A former Chancellor of The Academy of American Poets, he is currently a Sterling Professor of English Emeritus at Yale University Sally Wern Comport's pictures have appeared in numerous books, magazines, advertisements, and publications over the course of her career as an illustrator. She has garnered awards from the Society of Illustrators, Communication Arts Magazine, Print Magazine, and Spectrum, to name a few. Sally serves on the faculty of the Maryland Institute College of Art