Small Poems for Big Imaginations

This is the third book of primary school poetry by this poet and illustrator and lives up to the high standard set by its predecessors. These are indeed short poems, often not getting beyond a single stanza and half a page. And, if there isn’t the scope to tackle weightier or more thoughtful topics, this is just the right space for quick wit, wordplay and exploration of the idiosyncrasy of language. The poems are unerringly aimed within the experience and interest of Zetter’s audience, with a generous leavening of the two R’s, rhythm and rhyme, and great support from Will Hughes’s cartoons, which are on exactly the right wavelength. Try this limerick for size: ‘A student of English, Dolores/ Completely consumed a thesaurus/She struggled for ages/But ate all the pages/And now her vocab is colossal, huge, gigantic, massive, vast, immense, prodigious, large…enormous’. Neal is a regular visitor to schools, and the composition and production of this collection has been shadowed by a year 6 class from start to finish. It’s both an inspiration to young poets and a gift to teachers who might like to throw a short poetry hand grenade into their class from time to time and set off an explosion of laughter and amazement.