Poetry Out Loud: The Year's Best

By Robert Alden Rubin

Book Overview

Introduction by James Earl Jones. Now in paperback, here are over 100 lyrics, limericks, clerihews, ballads, raps, and other poems--famous and infamous, celebrated and obscure--that come alive when read aloud. Accompanying each poem are notes, introductions to basic poetic terms, and hints on reading them aloud. James Earl Jones, one of America's greatest living actors, introduces the book and tells how reciting poetry as a child helped him overcome a speech impediment and discover his own voice again. "A timeless selection . . . Each poem, read aloud, reverberates in the reader."--Writer's Digest "Poems that simply sing when you read them aloud."--The Hartford Courant. A BOOK-OF-THE-MONTH CLUB, QUALITY PAPERBACK BOOK CLUB, and WRITER'S DIGEST BOOK CLUB selection. Now in its 8th printing.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 1565121228
• ISBN13: 9781565121225
• Release Date: January 1995
• Publisher: Algonquin Books
• Length: 240 Pages
• Weight: 0.80 lbs.
• Dimensions: 6.5" x 0.6" x 6.5"

Customer Reviews

Attractive Layout and Unique Background Info for Broad Mix of Poetry

Anyone who likes to recite poetry out loud or get others to recite it will find this collection of 100 poems a special treat. It is attractively laid out in a square page shape--the height of a regular paperback, but a little wider. On every page there are interesting notes about the poem in the margin--everythng from how it ties in with oral storytelling and poetic traditions to the use of rhythm, rhyme meter, and language, The user friendly notes zero in especially on aspects of the poem that are important for oral delivery without bogging down the reader. The poem lines are double-spaced for easy reading. The selection of poems ranges from childhood rhymes to literary classics by such poets as Lewis Caroll, Walt Whitman, Langston Hughes, Sylvia Plath, Ogden Nash, and Rudyard Kipling. The styles include love poems, limericks, elegies, raps, ballads, and more; from Middle English to free verse, sonnets to satires, nonsense poetry to formalism, there is something to fit every budding poet's tastes. Even if you don't plan to use the poems for oral reading, the margin notes help you to appreciate the poems more fully in their use of language, sound, and literary traditions. To quote James Earl Jones in the introduction to the book, "In this "burst of verses," you will find fun and sorrow, stories and songs, whimsy and majesty." And a chance to explore how to bring them to life out loud.