One Essay by Peter Lattu

Poems about Fall and the City

While browsing in the local library, I came across Leaf by Leaf: Autumn Poems selected by Barbara Rogasky and Sky Scrape/City Scape: Poems of City Life selected by Jane Yolen. The cover photo of Leaf by Leaf caught my eye: a long vista carpeted with fall leaves flanked by bare trees and empty benches. Sky Scrape/ City Scape also grabbed my attention with its cover illustration of a cityscape. Their content bore out good first impressions.

In Leaf by Leaf, Barbara Rogasky takes the reader from the summery days of September to the chill winds of November through poems by Randall Jarrell, Robinson Jeffers, Gerard Manley Hopkins and others. “November Day”, by Eleanor Averitt, has the striking image of the wind stripping the fall leaves off the trees like an old woman plucking pheasants. The photographs, by Mark Tauss, complement the poems imaginatively.

Sky Scrape/City Scape takes the reader on a journey through the city from dawn to dusk. Along the way are encounters with commuters, children playing, city traffic, street cleaning and the city dump. The book opens with a poem by Langston Hughes and has poems by Carl Sandburg, Lucille Clifton, and others. “74th Street” by Myra Cohn Livingston captures the grit and perseverance necessary to learn to roller skate. Ken Condon’s illustrations beautifully echo the poems with soaring skyscrapers or mounds of garbage. The poems and illustrations sing of city life in all its complexity and raw urban beauty soaring to the sky.

Both of these books, while marketed for children, contain adult fare. Picture books are good for adults too.

{Essay by Peter Lattu}