SPOOKY POEMS ALOUD
25 Poems To Frighten and Delight
From the Poetry To Perform series
by Joseph Coelho ; illustrated by Daniel Gray-Barnett
An atmospheric gathering of chill-some verses from a U.K. Children’s Laureate.
In a themed set of mostly new poems, Coelho prompts budding poets to imitate examples of tricky set forms such as the villanelle and pantoum while also, more helpfully, demonstrating how to use repetition and other language techniques to create shivery effects. The author shows a casual disregard for regularity in rhyme and meter, and the overall quality of his work varies considerably—from the alliterative bounce of “Pranking Ghost” (“I’m a gagging ghoulie, / I’m a jackanaping vision, / I’m a wicked wraith, / I’m an aping apparition”) to “The Poo of Death,” crapulous in all senses of the word: “Little David needed the loo, / but inside lurked an evil poo. / He tried in a rush / to give it a flush / but got covered in icky brown goo.” Though Coelho offers some guidance for would-be writers, readers hoping for performance tips along the lines of those in Poems Aloud (2020) will be disappointed. The variously laughing or terrified-looking figures (human and otherwise) strewn across the pages by Gray-Barnett display a broad range of skin tones.
A slapdash, superficial follow-up.
(Picture book/poetry. 6-9)