And everyone will be glad to see you: Poems by Women and Girls
selected by Ella Risbridger illustrated by Anna Shepeta
Let's begin with the title and cover illustration. The title of this generous poetry anthology comes from a poem by Liz Lochhead. Interestingly it is on page 19 of the book and not page one. The poem is an ode to a new baby and the title is taken from the last verse of the poem which is entitled Nina's song. You can hear Liz Lochhead reading her poem here - I suggest just listening without the video visuals. This could be a gentle way to introduce this poetry book to your reading companion or to a class.
Now look closely at the cover illustration. There is such tenderness yet strength in this young girl. Her hair looks like grasses covered in sweet flowers with a stream flowing alongside. Her head is a forest of strong trees. The way she has her hand on her hip implies courage and determination. She has a book and it has to be a book of poems. Her pure white dress is decorated with natural and cosmic symbols. Her hair is free flowing like many of the poems in this book and in fact most of illustrations which enhance each poem show girls and young women with long free flowing hair. There is a poem on page 25 called Granny Granny please comb my hair by Grace Nichols - it is delightful. Read more about the illustrator Anna Shepeta here.
This example comes from the first poem in the book - 93 percent Stardust by Nikita Gill
You can see inside this book here on the Nosy Crow web page.
Why did the compiler want to focus on poems by women and girls?
"You might even be wondering whether it's really fair to make a collection of poems that are only by women and girls. Doesn't that leave other people out? What about boys and men? These are good questions and to answer them properly we have to look at the big picture. We have to look at the whole way our world is organised, and the whole history of the why we write things, and the whole history of who gets to write things. .... Books tend to be full of poems by boys and men because they have always been the ones who got to publish their poems in books. This is what we call 'structural bias', which is a fancy way of saying the problems are built into the structure of our world i.e. the way our world works."
"This book is my best shot at being fair. This book is my est shot at sowing you all the brave, lucky =, clever girls and women who wrote poems when nobody really wanted them ... (this is) my best shot at making sure when someone asks you to think of a poet, you think of a woman just as quickly as you think of a man."
In her review for Magpies (Volume 37 issue 4 September 2022) Dr Robin Morrow said "Highly recommended for libraries, for a teacher's own collection, or as a gift to a young reader from say 8 to 14 - ideally with the offer of an adult's reading aloud and sharing poems from this wonderful treasury."
Dr Robin Morrow mentions several of the poems in her review: Journey's end by Nikki Grimes; The Orange by Wendy Cope; Looking foward by Sue Cowling; and the powerful poem about Boudicca on page 46.
Take a look at this detailed review by The Book Curator.
So now onto some of my favourite poems from this book:
Treasure Trove by Irene Rawnsley - this would be a wonderful poem to share with a class if you plan to use that tried and true strategy of class news. It is also a poem about imagination and the joy from noticing tiny things.
Wherever by Jackie Hosking - this is a poem to read slowly savouring the lyrical words. Here is a line from the poem "Here she comes whispers the sea droplets colliding with gossipy glee."
Don't be scared by Carol Ann Duffy - a poem to read to your child at night
Colouring in by Jan Dean - gift this to your art teacher
Rosa Parks by Jan Dean - "the sorting on the bus is just plain wrong" - read this poem them read this book about Rosa Parks:
This book is large, it has 140 pages, an index of poems, an index of poets and an index of first lines.
Finally in her Afterword Ella Risbridger says:
"I hope the poems in this book light your way to all sorts of things. Think of these poems not like still pictures, but more like doors: things you can push on, and that will open on to other things."
One more poem to complete this post:
The Summer Day by Mary Oliver
Who made the world?
Who made the swan, and the black bear?
Who made the grasshopper?
This grasshopper, I mean-
the one who has flung herself out of the grass,
the one who is eating sugar out of my hand,
who is moving her jaws back and forth instead of up and down-
who is gazing around with her enormous and complicated eyes.
Now she lifts her pale forearms and thoroughly washes her face.
Now she snaps her wings open, and floats away.
I don't know exactly what a prayer is.
I do know how to pay attention, how to fall down
into the grass, how to kneel in the grass,
how to be idle and blessed, how to stroll through the fields,
which is what I have been doing all day.
Tell me, what else should I have done?
Doesn't everything die at last, and too soon?
Tell me, what is it you plan to do
With your one wild and precious life?
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