Poetry Book Review: "Multicultural Poetry"

Citation:

Mora, Pat. Dizzy in your eyes: poems about love. New York, NY: Knopf Books for Young Readers, 2010. ISBN:978-0-375-84375-4

Review:

Mora presents a wonderful collection of poems that focus on the life experiences of teenagers, i.e. crushes, love, breakups, divorces, etc. Mora's poems are written in many poetic forms such as free verse, blank verse, sonnets, haiku, letter and pantoum form to name a few. Each poem has an introduction of the type of poetic form on the previous page for the reader. This is a nice touch especially for beginner poetry readers to understand the different poetic forms and how to read the poem in the appropriate rhythm. The text format and language was easy to follow throughout the book due to each poem's introduction. The reader will be able to connect with many of the poems since they relate to life experiences.

Excerpt:

"Dumped"

I can't believe you dumped me.
For months, I felt so happy inside.
What a catastrophe!
Now I feel ugly and just want to hide.

All those months, I felt so happy inside.
Was everything you said untrue?
Now I just want to hide
and try to forget I loved you. Still do.
I ache at the mean rumors I've heard.

"Let's just be friends." Haunting words.
Me, a lump you dumped, casually.
How I ache at the rumors I've heard.
My heart broke, my private catastrophe.

Introducing the poem:

I feel this is a great example of a pantoum poem to teenagers who can relate to the realism of how happy and difficult romantic relationships can be. For example, I would ask the class after introducing them to this poem to journal an experience of having a crush or romantic relationship and then demonstrate how the journal entry could be put into a pantoum, sonnet or letter poetry.