Out of Wonder: Poems celebrating poets by Kwame Alexander illustrated by Ekua Holmes

"Allow me to introduce you to twenty of my favourite poets. ... Enjoy the poems. We hope to use them as stepping stones to wonder, leading you to write, to read the works of the poets celebrated in this book, to seek out more about their lives and their work, or to simply read and explore more poetry."

This book celebrates the work of twenty very famous poets in a unique way with tribute poems written by Kwame Alexander, Chris Colderley and Marjory Wentworth using the style, tone and form of the original.

This book would be a fabulous resource for a High School English class. 

A magnificent exploration of the poetic imagination. Kirkus Star review

There are three sections: The first section looks at poets who developed singular styles in their writing that poetry lovers have grown to recognize e.g. ee cummings. The second section celebrates poets who beautifully capture everyday moments. The final section serves as a tribute to the poets who have written poems that delight the authors. Take a look at the trailer. This book was published in 2017. My copy was a gift from a friend. The retail price of this book is sadly over AUS$40 but you might find a copy in a library. 

A wonderfully diverse collection of writers and poems, brought to life with color collages by Caldecott honoree Ekua Holmes.  The second paragraph of Kwame Alexander’s preface would make a perfect introduction to a study of poetry, and the entire book could be used as a curriculum guide to introduce students to 20 different poets. Kids Book a Day

This book contains a tribute to William Carlos Williams so I thought I would share my own favourite poem by William Carlos Williams that you may know:

This is Just to Say

by William Carlos Williams

I have eaten

the plums

that were in

the icebox

and which

you were probably

saving

for breakfast

Forgive me

they were delicious

so sweet

and so cold

Awards for Out of Wonder:

• Library Guild Selection
• Parents' Choice Awards Gold Award
• New York Public Library's 100 Best Books for Kids
• Chicago Public Library Best of the Best Books
• Evanston Public Library: 101 Great Books for Kids list
• Boston Globe Best Children's Books of the Year 2017
• Center for the Study of Multicultural Children's Literature's Best Books List
• Kirkus Reviews Best Books of the Year
• NCTE Notable Poetry Books List
• Cybils Award, Poetry Finalist
• Coretta Scott King Illustrator Book Award Winner
• ALA Notable Children's Books
• Bank Street College of Education Best Children’s Books of the Year

Kwame Alexander is a poet, educator, and author of twenty-one books for children and educators, including Acoustic Rooster and His Barnyard Band, Surf’s Up, Booked, and a middle-grade novel in verse, The Crossover, which was awarded the 2015 Newbery Medal. He is currently the poet laureate of LitWorld, a K-6 literacy organization dedicated to supporting the development of literacy in the world's most vulnerable communities. He lives in Virginia.

Ekua Holmes is a fine artist whose work explores themes of family, relationships, hope, and faith. The first children’s book she illustrated is Carole Boston Weatherford’s Voice of Freedom: Fannie Lou Hamer, which was a Caldecott Honor Book and a Robert F. Sibert Honor Book and for which she also won the John Steptoe New Talent Illustrator Award. Ekua Holmes lives in Boston.

Here is the table of contents:

From Book Bunnies:

Part I, titled “Got Style?”, offers us six poems, written in the styles of Naomi Shihab Nye, Robert Frost, e. e. cummings, Bashō, Nikki Giovanni, and Langston Hughes. It is a great idea indeed to start with a style focus like this; these poets have particularly distinct styles, and the six poems honoring them manage to showcase to the young reader what possibilities exist for poetic form.

Part II, titled “In Your Shoes”, celebrates Walter Dean Myers, Emily Dickinson, Terrance Hayes, Billy Collins, Pablo Neruda, Judith Wright, and Mary Oliver with seven poems that explore themes and contexts that come directly from these poets’ own works.

Part III, titled “Thank You”, includes seven more poems, this time explicitly thanking and celebrating Gwendolyn Brooks, Sandra Cisneros, William Carlos Williams, Okot p’Bitek, Chief Dan George, Rumi, and Maya Angelou.