Drums and Trumpets

Drums and Trumpets

selected by Leonard Clark

illustrated by Heather Copley 1962

Sometimes these poetry books are worth it for the introductions alone.  Leonard Clark does a fine job of collecting poems both old and new for reading aloud to "the youngest child".  But more than that, he describes just how to read a poem ("Read softly, and naturally, and take your time.  Linger on the words you yourself like the sound of") and the importance of reading poetry to children.

Not all these poems will lie within the physical experience of these youngest, though all of them are concerned with what can safely be called 'the world of childhood'- that world of imaginative apprehension, where everything has its true and proper place, where every inhabitant willingly accepts existing conventions, where the climate of feeling and thought are just right.  Children, with their acute sensory perception, enjoy far more unseen territories than are ever revealed to most grown-ups.  Fortunate they.    

                                                                    -Leonard Clark

Of course I'm happy because Gerard Manley Hopkins makes an appearance!