All the Things I See: Selected Poems for Children; The Poet's House

Jenny Joseph says she will 'hurry hurry hurry/ To work but slowly slowly'. As she does so, 'Everything is news' to her - cats watching pigeons, the shine of grit, grubby feet. Her poetry is the mundane world as news - newly seen, fresh. If children are allowed to, they will see afresh what she sees. They will catch the way she speaks, going from room to room 'When you are all away my dears,' sorting out 'the marbles from the socks/ Unposted letters from the books'. For those who feed children mainly anthology skimmings, this is a threatening book. It is too full of a voice you cannot resist once you hear it, too full of a poetry that is true, innocent, subversive, that knows its own pace, its own idiosyncratic rhythms. It can be very beautiful, as in the haunting 'Hare and Tortoise'. And quietly impassioned: 'Keep me in wine and olives/ Buy me winter hats/ And you can have my brooches/ my pictures and my cats.' And it has other things too - since it is the real rare thing, a book that is a poetry.

The Poet's House, sadly, is built on sand and cluttered with junk. There are fine poems by well-known poets, and genuine pieces by others, but the book is primarily devoted to regular spillages of banality, pretentiousness and sheer uncraftedness. It may be true, one would not want to argue, that 'sky is orchestral/ tarmac is helium/ understanding is microdot'. Perhaps it is clear and not fishy that 'Between the ears as a sane sole frets/ The Think works and sits and sweats.' But I think young fans may be somewhat under-thrilled by poems about 'Footballers' Birthdays' with rhymes like 'a defender full of charm' and 'a goalie who did no harm', and with rhythms like 'Franco was born on Friday, / A player whose crosses were deep. /Samuel was born on Saturday, /A full-back whose place would keep'. Why not 'sleep', 'bopeep', 'bleep', 'weep' ...Is it important to some of us to keep children patronised, duped, out of the poem's way? My soul is filleted at the possibility.