About this item
Highlights
- Why put together an anthology about mistakes?
- 124 Pages
- Young Adult Fiction, Poetry
Description
About the Book
IMPERFECT features 70 poems by 50 poets, covering all kinds of mistakes. The IMPERFECT poets, who include Young People's Poet Laureate Margarita Engle, have published hundreds of books between them and been anthologized in hundreds more.
Book Synopsis
Why put together an anthology about mistakes? Because we make mistakes all the time. Some are the size of erasing a hole in your paper, mispronouncing a word, or tripping over your shoelace. Some are the size of telling a friend's secret. Some can be useful, like a science experiment that goes wrong but gives you a new idea. How can we make the most of the good mistakes and do our best to fix the ones that need fixing? Poetry can help us figure it out.
Review Quotes
From Booklist
This slim volume, geared toward middle-graders, packs a lot of punch. Featuring 70 poems by 55 different poets, it includes many new poets, such as Linda Kulp Trout, Catherine Flynn, and Robert Schechter, alongside a handful of classic poets like Carl Sandburg, Kobayashi Issa, and Antonio Machado. There are even a selection of poems written by young people themselves (in sixth and seventh grade). The focus on making mistakes of all kinds is the "perfect" focus for an anthology aimed at tweens and teens, and the poets approach the topic from both serious and silly points of view. Extra resources at the back of the book offer helpful advice for the reader...Pithy quotes and minimal art are subtly placed throughout the poems, including the sketch of a crack (in the vase on the cover) on many pages, hinting at the "mending" of imperfection the Japanese call "kintsugi, "or "precious scars" or "golden repair," a way to see the beauty in fixing what is broken. A lively blog dedicated to the book (mistakesanthology.blogspot.com) continues to offer insights and quotes, along with links to each of the poets with more poems to enjoy. --Sylvia Vardell