What Have You Lost?
Grade 7 Up-"Loss" may seem a curious subject around which to center a collection of poetry, but this fine anthology feels absolutely natural. Lost memories, lost relationships, regret-each poem pierces and then releases readers, who pocket a new treasure at the end of each page. Naomi Nye has brought together over 100 selections from well-known adult poets as well as from those who are new or not widely published, from around the world. Notes on the contributors include quotes from the poets about their lives and work. Jennifer Weinblatt says, "Teenagers are often accused of melodrama, but there is a lot of genuine drama inherent in the teenage years...," and this sensibility permeates the collection. Michael Nye's black-and-white photographic portraits are as inventive and speak as much as the poems; in fact, they work best if viewed as independent works of art, instead of as illustrations. They add to the precise design of the book, on whose pages the words "What Have You Lost?" "What Have You Found?" float like random, ghostly reminders. As with Ruth Gordon's collection, Pierced by a Ray of Sun (HarperCollins, 1995), and Liz Rosenberg's Earth-Shattering Poems (Holt, 1995), What Have You Lost? puts into the hands of young adults new poems that speak to that intensely lonely, but consciousness-exploding time when they find themselves "Lost again,/where the world begins" (John Brandi's "Wilderness Poem").Nina Lindsay, Oakland Public Library, CACopyright 1999 Reed Business Information, Inc.--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.