Review: Nature Poems to See By

March 30, 2026March 29, 2026 / rtrube54 / 2 Comments

Nature Poems to See By

Nature Poems to See By, Julian Peters. Plough Publishing (ISBN: 9781636081748) 2026.

Summary: An anthology of great nature poems, organized by seasons and graphically interpreted.

Graphic works have rendered original stories in striking fashion for a new generation. And they have brought to life old stories in fresh ways. But can this work in the world of poetry, with its rich, dense, and often metaphorical use of language? This work, by comic artist Julian Peters, answered this question for me with a resounding yes. This is his second foray into this territory, having published Poems to See By in 2020.

As is obvious from these titles, Peters believes poetry is a means by which we see the world. He also believes poetry is a means by which we see ourselves and even greater realities than those we see with only our eyes. And he employs graphic art to aid us in the seeing.

This anthology collects twenty-four poems, including many familiar ones around the theme of nature. It opens with Langston Hughes poem, “Daybreak in Alabama, evoking both the red clay landscape of Alabama, and “the dream” of races reconciled. It closes with Gerard Manley Hopkins “God’s Grandeur,” concluding with a striking image of the final lines:

Because the Holy Ghost over the bent
     World broods with warm breast and with ah! bright wings.

There are six poems for each of the seasons of the year.

“Summer” includes an imaginative rendering of the rich imagery in William Blake’s “And Did Those Feet in Ancient Time” and an apocalyptic rendering of Gwendolyn Brook’s haunting “Truth.”

“Autumn” opens in a portrayal of Sylvia Plath’s proliferating “Mushrooms” and includes Emily Dickinson’s “There Came a Wind Like a Bugle” which eerily evoked reminders of a recent windstorm. Peters vividly renders “The Voice of God” which eludes all human pretensions to come in the small and the ordinary.

“Winter” includes a striking black and white rendering of Robert Frost’s “Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening.” Then he follows by a monochrome rendering of Stevie Smith’s “Not Waving but Drowning,” with the concluding lines “I was much too far out all my life/And not waving but drowning.”

Finally, we come to “Spring,” opening with e. e. cummings “I Thank You God for Most This Amazing.” Also, this collection includes an op art portrayal of William Wordsworth’s “I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud.” I felt like I was back in the Sixties!

But some might object to the substitution of the artist’s imagination for one’s own engagement with the text. To address this, the text of each poem follows its graphic rendering. However, I personally found the graphic images encouraged me to pause and ponder the phrasing of each poem that a textual reading alone might gloss over. I found myself wondering why the artist chose particular ways of rendering. This both illuminated and highlighted the ways I was “seeing” the poem.

In conclusion, Julian Peters has created a wonderful doorway into poetry for those new to this world. Likewise, his renderings help us “see” old favorites in a new way. This was a delight to the eye and the eyes of my heart.

_______________________

Disclosure of Material Connection: I received a complimentary copy of this book from the publisher for review.

Review: The Backyard Bird Chronicles

January 8, 2025January 7, 2025 / rtrube54 / 3 Comments

Cover image of "The Backyard Bird Chronicles" written and illustrated by Amy Tan

The Backyard Bird Chronicles, Amy Tan (text and illustrations). Alfred A. Knopf (ISBN: 9780593536131) 2024.

Summary: Four years of journals on the birds visiting Amy Tan’s backyard, with sketches and detailed drawings.

At age 64, Amy Tan took art lessons from Jack Muir Laws, a nature illustrator. This led to walks viewing birds, sketchbook and drawing pencils in hand. She learned to make quick, rough sketches capturing essential features of the birds that she saw. Then she realized that her own backyard was a haven for birds, and her house, with extensive windows looking out on that yard, the ideal ‘blind” {except for the birds trying to fly through the windows, remedied with various decals).

She filled journal after journal with her observations, accompanied by sketches with captions, and sometimes the imagined thoughts or conversations of the birds. Her observations range from elation and love when a hummingbird feeds from a feeder in her hand and she can feel the brush of its wings, to profound sadness when she sees a bird that looks puffed up and realizes it is ill and probably dying. That leads to the practical action of emptying and cleaning her feeders so that she doesn’t spread the infection to other birds.

The book offers a selection of her entries, each accompanied with her sketches. She identifies species, telling us distinguishing marks. She makes detailed observations of their behavior, often accompanied by questions. For example, on May 22,2020, she watches baby titmice feeding. She identifies the leader, notes how the birds eat, sometimes attempting to eat things too big for them, sometimes taking and rejecting items like sun chips. All this is captured in a drawing on the facing page.

Along the way, Tan unashamedly displays her obsession with backyard bird, describing at length various types of feeders, efforts to discourage squirrels, and the variety and prodigious amounts of bird food she buys, including the mealworms she stores in their refrigerator. Needless to say, she has a supportive husband!

In addition to the journal sketches, Tan includes detailed drawings of various birds in fine detail. These approach the quality of an Audubon work. Tan’s skills of observation and description are evident in these drawings and throughout the text.

Tan’s enthusiasm about birds makes one think differently about the birds in one’s own backyard and surroundings. While not heavy-handed, we sense her awareness of these precious lives to be preserved. She sees the effects of nearby wildfires. She rescues injured birds, and grieves when they don’t make it. And if she has inspired you, she offers a list of the books, apps, and other resources she found helpful. All in all, this book is a delight to the eyes and food for the spirit.

Don’t be surprised if this book makes at least a backyard birder out of you!

Review: Poems on Nature

October 31, 2024October 30, 2024 / rtrube54 / Leave a comment

Cover image of "Poems on Nature" by various poets.

Poems on Nature (Signature Select Classics), various authors. Sterling Publishing Co. (ISBN: 781454944768) 2022.

Summary: A chapbook of several dozen poems by the world’s greatest poets on the natural world, the air, the sea, and the land.

A book I’m reading on poetry right now advises that the best way to get into reading poetry is to read and notice what particularly arrests our attention and gives us pleasure.. So I decided to follow this advice with this delightful chapbook that a local bookstore threw in as an “extra” with my other purchases. Poems on Nature collects several dozen poems from some of the “greats” in poetry. These include Emily Dickinson, William Wordsworth, Paul Laurence Dunbar, Christina Rosetti, William Blake, Sara Teasdale, and many others.

The poems are organized around “Air,” “Sea,” and “Land.” I’ll mention one or two in each section that I particularly enjoyed. You’ll probably like different ones, and that is just fine!

Under “Air,” I delighted in revisiting Paul Laurence Dunbar’s “Sympathy” with its famous line “I know why the caged bird sings…” I had not encountered John Greenleaf Whittier’s “The Robin,” in which he recounts the words of an old Welshwoman explaining how the robin got its red breast. In addition, there are poems from Keats, Wordsworth, Shelley, and Yeats, and others.

“The Sea” poems evoked for me something of the sea’s mysterious character. Christina Rosetti in “By the Sea” asks “Why does the sea moan evermore?” By contrast, Thomas Campion celebrates the empire of Neptune in “A Hymn in Praise of Neptune.” Then Alfred, Lord Tennyson evokes our fears of sea creatures of the deeps in “The Kraken.” I’ve always found thought-provoking the image of the ebbing of “The Sea of Faith” in “Dover Beach.”

Finally, the section on “Land begins with Joyce Kilmer’s “Trees.” We all know the opening lines “I think that I shall never see / A poem lovely as a tree.” But do you remember her self-deprecating concluding lines: “Poems are made by fools like me, / But only God can make a tree”? Then Vachel Lindsay speaks for every homeowner in “The Dandelion” that is “rich and haughty.” It scorns the lawn-mower, even when its “yellow heads are cut away.” “By noon you raise a sea of stars / More golden than before.”

Sara Teasdale concludes the collection with “There will come soft rains (War Time).” She describes the coming of spring in a time of war. She concludes with a haunting pair of couplets:

Not one would mind, neither bird nor tree
If mankind perished utterly;

And Spring herself, when she woke at dawn
Would scarcely know that we are gone.

This should give give us all pause amid our hubristic pretensions.

Poems on Nature is ideal for gifts. The first page even has “to” and “from” lines for inscriptions. The chapbook format makes for easy carrying, more portable than an e-book. It is a great introduction to several dozen great poets without the bulky anthology. I really must thank my local bookseller!