Kick in the Head : An Everyday Guide to Poetic Forms

From the simplest couplet to the mind-boggling pantoum, the award-winning team behind A POKE IN THE I shows us the many fascinating ways poetic forms take shape. Please Open this book for something Extraordinary. Twenty-nine different poetic forms await you Inside these pages. How many Can you master? From sonnets to double dactyls, Odes to limericks Raschka and Janeczko (and a frisky mule) Make learning the rules of poetry So much fun! In this splendid and playful volume, acclaimed poetry anthologist Paul B. Janeczko and Caldecott Honor illustrator Chris Raschka present lively examples of twenty-nine poetic forms, demonstrating not only the (sometimes bendable) rules of poetry, but also the spirit that brings these forms so wonderfully to life. Featuring formal poems, some familiar and some never before published, from the likes of Eleanor Farjeon (aubade), X. J. Kennedy (elegy), Ogden Nash (couplet), Liz Rosenberg (pantoum), and William Shakespeare, the sonnet king himself, A KICK IN THE HEAD perfectly illustrates Robert Frost's maxim that poetry without rules is like a tennis match without a net.

Paul B. Janeczko is a poet and teacher and has edited more than twenty award-winning poetry anthologies for young people, including STONE BENCH IN AN EMPTY PARK, LOOKING FOR YOUR NAME, SEEING THE BLUE BETWEEN, and A POKE IN THE I, which was an American Library Association Notable Book.

Chris Raschka is the illustrator of more than twenty highly praised books for children, including YO! YES?, a Caldecott Honor Book; CHARLIE PARKER PLAYED BE BOP; I PLEDGE ALLEGIANCE; A CHILD'S CHRISTMAS IN WALES; and, of course, A POKE IN THE I, which was a NEW YORK TIMES Best Illustrated Book.