Imperfect ll, A Poetry Anthology for Middle Schoolers

Welcome to Poetry Friday, this week hosted by the amazing Jama on her blog, Jama’s Alphabet Soup, HERE . Make sure you stop by and see the art and poetry she is sure to share.

Poetry can provide a vacation from the small intense worlds in which kids and all of us live day to day. IMPERFECT II, edited by Tabatha Yeatts, is a thoughtful and also entertaining poetry anthology of eighty poems that in different ways address the notion of perspective. This collection will give the middle school audience ways to think about what they see happening, the stress, all the things that seem in any given moment more important than they really are. This is Yeatt’s second anthology after IMPERFECT: Poems about Mistakes.

One of the first poems, in IMPERFECT ll, is “Compared to What?” by Robert Schechter. Written in rhyming quatrains, the poem shows his fun take on perspective. Here are the first three stanzas (out of eleven)

Compared to What?
by Robert Schecter

A pebble isn't all that big
   compared to stones or boulders,
but it's a mountain to the ant
   who lifts it on its shoulders.

And if you were a molecule,
   an atom or a proton,
a water drop would be a lake
   for you to sail your boat on.

An elephant is huge for sure;
   its trunk would crush your scale.
And yet it doesn't seem that large
   if you're a humpback whale.
 

The rest of Schechter’s poem takes us into outer space to consider the sizes of stars and galaxies, that make the pebble or a whale seem small, because it provides a different perspective.

Wisdom is sprinkled generously throughout the anthology in poems such as this:

It takes a lot of courage and strength
to change yourself. You need to be brave
enough to look at what is better for you
and change for that. 

Matt Haig

And here’s one free verse poem that certainly speaks to me, as I remember times when I said the wrong thing and relived that horrid moment for days or much longer:

RUMINATION
by Stanley Dunlap

It's over,
so why
does my brain want to
revisit
reimagine
recreate
What I COULD have said
What I SHOULD have said?

As hard as I try
to get it right
in all these scenarios,
I will
never change what has already happened.

Perhaps I should
stop the endless imagining
of what might have been
give myself a break
and know that I have surely learned
surely grown
and will surely 
do better 
next time.

These are just a few examples and there are many great more poems in this book that are accessible to young readers and fun to read. They might help adults begin conversations with kids about topics that teachers and parents might need a nudge to initiate.

IMPERFECT II ends with back matter about positive thinking and also tips on releasing tension with deep breathing. I think these end chapters would have been helpful to me as a young person.

Imperfect ll can be purchased on Amazon, HERE.

Speaking of perspective, passing though St. Louis recently, I felt small indeed next to the famous arch there. I had no idea it was so big.

Another place to gain a sense of perspective is Badlands National Park in S. Dakota, that filled the horizon.

Imperfect ll can be purchased on Amazon, HERE. I wish all a wonderful weekend, and if you’re in a temperate climate, daffodils, new leaves on trees and forsythias.

Thank you Jama for hosting!