Do you remember the Saturday Night Live "More Cowbell" sketch? It involves a musical performance which is constantly interrupted with a cry for there to be "more cowbell" over and over again.
Well, I feel a bit like that. "More Shakespeare," you can imagine me crying, over and over.
Despite that cry for this book, I think it's terrific. The subtitle basically tells you what you need to know, but I'm providing examples of some of the illustrations to get a flavor of what this anthology does. Here's the eponymous page for January 31:
The illustrations are beautifully done, and the selection of poems is not cliché or old-fashioned (though I tend to gravitate toward the old-fashioned ones, like the Blake poem above (and I might have preferred the original spelling, but I won't strain a gnat to swallow a tyger).
Many spreads have multiple poems. Let's take a look at the one that covers June 20 to 22. It's a nighttime-creatures collation
And there we have our only Shakespeare—right there on Midsummer's Day (depending on how you count it). Nicely played, Waters and Teckentrup.
I still cry "More Shakespeare!" What about twelfth night? What about the Ides of March? But the volume is still most impressive, providing a year's worth of fabulous drawings and interesting poetry.
No comments:
Post a Comment