WINTER EYES

Florian’s naãf watercolor and colored pencil illustrations are excellent accompaniment to his 48 poems on the snowy season. The titular poem offers an invitation to readers to experience winter with appropriate sensory and ambulatory attitude: winter ears, eyes, nose and “winter feet/On crackling ice/Or sloshy wet sleet.” Much is made of the length of the season; summer hums and spring zings, “But winter/always/takes/its/time,” which results in “Cabin Fever,” a poem that exhibits symptoms and anodynes that are more adult than the attitudes and activities found in the majority of the poems. A sense of being snared by an endlessly white, crisply cold season permeates the book, although there are also cozy “fireplace feet” and a number of poems are devoted to the joys of winter, as in the typographically creative “Sled” and “The Winter Field,” which speak of, respectively, sailing downhill and soaring spirits. Winter-lovers and winter-haters alike will find poems that strike chords, in a collection that is perfect for reading alone by the fire, or as part of snug storytimes. (Poetry. 5-10)