THE SINGING GREEN

The late poet continued and commemorated her love affair with words in this mixture of new and old verses, the latter from out-of-print sources. The book opens with bubbly celebrations—of vanilla, the letter ``J,'' sounds, and places (``You can ride for long treks/in Tex. and N. Mex.''), as well as limericks, jump-rope rhymes, a tribute to Ogden Nash (``a skink/unlike a skunk,/does not stink./A skink is a skink,/a reptilian slink,'' and more serious antiwar and anti-TV sentiments. In a second section, Merriam switched to a sober tone, gathering ruminations on age, writing, love, and poetry and employing complex images and more sophisticated wordplay (``The Wholly Family''), poignantly concluding with ``Skywriting''—``The flight soaring,/the song outpouring./The flight dying,/the song still flying.'' Illustrations not seen. (Poetry. 9+)