All the Small Poems and Fourteen More
Ages 4-9. This collected edition of the Small Poems series includes all the original 99 poems and illustrations (first published in four volumes) and also 14 new poems by Worth and illustrations by Babbitt. The new entries have the same beautiful combination of the precise and the tentative as do the earlier poems, finding in ordinary things Blake's universe in a grain of sand. The lines are very short, one or two words, and most are physically exact, whether describing the "tacky" heat of July (that feels like "Nap on a / Ripe peach") or the soft scraps of creased paper that come out of your pocket. Babbitt's small ink drawings embody the realistic and make us imagine much more. The final poem "book" is an astonishing climax, moving out from the five senses to the four corners of the world and then fitting it all "Exactly in." That's what art does.Hazel Rochman--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.