True
confessions—one reason I wanted to get my hands on this book was to check out
the competition since my own collection of ocean poems came out about the same
time. But not to worry; I quickly fell in love with David Elliott’s collection for
its own sake.
Let’s
start with Elliott’s dedication: “To the Gulf of Mexico and all that
depends on it.” Nice, right? Then you read the poems. As a reviewer of a
previous book put it, Elliott’s work is “pithy.” My own word for the poems is “concise.”
Here is “The Shark” in its entirety:
The
Shark
The
fin,
the
skin,
the
brutal grin…
The
terror
of
the dark within.
Which
pretty much says it all. In fact, in a positive homage to brevity, on one
spread Elliott gives us four one-word poems for the urchin, the sardine, the
mackerel, and the shrimp. Or rather, since the words in the poems all rhyme,
this is a four-word poem—or maybe four linked poems. I’ll let you discover them
for yourselves.
Some
of my other favorites are “The Clown Fish,” with its commentary on the fish’s
relationship to the anemone and on friendship in general; “The Moray Eel,” with
its strong adjectives and two excellent metaphors; and “The Chambered Nautilus,”
with its philosophical spin. The book ends with a marvelous poem about the blue
whale that begins on a full spread and then departs in dramatic fashion in a
single word on the very last page.
The
illustrations are just as strong, done in woodblock prints (black ink) and
watercolor. The printed black lines not only outline, but highlight details, as
you can see on the cover image of a sea turtle. It’s a striking combination.
I
was happy to discover that In the Sea is the third book in a series of sorts; the
first two are On the Farm and In the Wild. Look for them, too—they’re just as
beautiful, also illustrated by Holly Meade.
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