IMAGINARY GARDENS $1 American Poetry and Art for \bung People edited by Charles Sullivan a About poetry, Marianne Moore has said, "One discovers that there is in it after all, a place for the genuine." Imaginary Gardens is filled with — genuine poems by America's own poets some famous, some lesser-known, some recently dis- — covered anditissumptuouslyillustratedwith theworkofAmerica'smaster artists. Open the bookto any page andbeginreading. Imaginary Gardens has no adult-imposed cate- gories, no chapter divisions. Young readers can maketheirowndiscoveries, select theirfavorite — poems find enjoyment in American poetry and art. Carl Sandburg speaks of skyscrapers, Robert Frost ofroads not taken. May Swenson oflight- ning and baseball; Shel Silverstein imagines being in a rock 'n' roll band; a Native American pondersgreatness. ArtistsJohn Singer Sargent and David Hock- neybringtothepoetryvibrantgardens, Alexan- der Calder an imaginary horse, and Keith Haring60delightfulpigs. Therearehistoricpho- tographs by Mathew B. Brady; there is cartoon humorfrom Gary Larson. And much more. Foryoung people of all ages. Imaginary Gar- dens is a book to grow with, a reading compan- — ion through life's trials and pleasures dazzlingforay intoword and image. 80illustrations, including40platesin fullcolor IMAGINARY GARDENS otappl^ingi"^**^' petals eaugWlast1^8 i,^on. heat asI-^^"u,oak. .didV ^iE*na^^ca^'pt'to°e"'m''asmweffteeson'fti.*s*Wj^^°^„<^s^t^1^t^f"^a^.s^s,s*t„oov^n.,1essppoke?, landlngtowau- "<>- deW-«alU one, 3, ^ ThevoicetthhaattiiV^eatd .^^ u vc e The Garden byDavidHockney, 1980 Qfi^MM, [n^fif^^^^ :j^i,^cuj^^^ Thisbook isdedicatedtomyson JOHN SULLIVAN who taughtmehow tosee thehouseboatand themouse andotherthings Editor: LOISBROWN Designer: CAROLANNROBSON RightsandReproductions: FREDERICROY LibraryofCongressCataloging-in-Publication Data Imaginarygardens : Americanpoetryand artforyoungpeople/edited byCharlesSullivan, p. cm. Includesindex. Summary: Includesaselectionofpoemsby Americanpoetsandworks ofartby a varietyofartists. ISBN0-8109-1130-2 1. Youngadultpoetry, American. 2. Children'spoetry, American. [1. Americanpoetry—Collections. 2. Art appreciation.] I. Sullivan, Charles, 1933- . PS586.3.I43I989 700'.973—dcl9 89.2/1 Copyright © 1989CharlesSullivan Illustrationscopyright © 1989HarryN. Abrams, Inc. Published in 1989byHarry N. Abrams, Incorporated, New York All rightsreserved. Nopartofthecontentsofthisbookmay be reproduced without thewritten permissionofthepublisher ATimesMirrorCompany PrintedandboundinHongKong TO THE READER I boughtmyson a TalkingHeadstapeforhisbirthday, thisyear, and I —playedsome ofitbefore I wrapped it up to mail to him. I didn't understand very much the music wasloud, thewordshard to hear, hardformetounderstand. Then I discovered a little bookletinthetapebox, whichcontainedthelyricstoeachofthesongs. I triedreading them while the tape was playing, and this helped a little. I tried reading them while thetapewasnotplaying, and this helped a lot. Suddenly I could understandwhatthe song"Ruby Dear" was all about: 'Round and 'round and we won't let go And where we stop noone knows Uh-huh Uh-huh Down and down in a spin we turn Looking like we'll never learn Uh-huh Uh-huh Think about what ev'ryone issaying Rubydear Oh don'tyou hear Late at night when the radio is playing Rubydear So looky here Oh, this record's broken .... This isn'tjust noise, I said to—myself, this ispoetry. I can understand thewordsof it, and Icanfeelthefeelings, too sometimes1 getsoconfusedthatI'mspinninglikea broken record, moving around but getting nowhere fast. You may be a lot younger — than I, butyou haveprobablyfelt thisalso. Andyourparents havetheyeverfelt it? I doubtifthereismuchofagenerationgapinbasic humanfeelings. Butwhen I turnthe tape back on, there's a difference between us. You (like my son) can still hear the wordsandunderstandthem andrelatetothem. I (likeyourparents) maybebaffledby the music, by the "noise." — So—it's easier for you to understand poetry which is usually words without music than it is forolder people to understand rock. You don't thinkso? Try this: maggie and milly and molly and may went down to the beach (to play oneday) and maggiediscovered a shell that sang sosweetly she couldn't rememberher troubles, and milly befriended a stranded star whose raysfive languid fingerswere; and molly waschased by a horrible thing which raced sidewayswhile blowing bubbles: and may came home with a smooth round stone assmall as a world and as large as alone. Forwhateverwe lose (like ayou or a me) it's alwaysourselveswe find in thesea. — — You've seen shells, starfish, crabs, stones. You know what it's like to be alone how smallyoufeel, comparedtothatbigness. Andifyou'veeverstoodorwalkedquietlyon thebeach, justyou, payingattentiontonothingelsebut thesea,youdon't need me to explain what the last lineofthispoem means. Buta lotofpoetry isn't likethat,you say?A lotofit isold and hard tounderstand and boring, you think? I thinkso, too. But thisdoesn't mean that all poetry is bad; it means that we need to beselective, topickoutwhat isgood from what isn't—just as wedowithmovies, clothes, teachers, orfriends. Orrockmusic. "Good"meanswhatis good foryou; somebody else may likesomethingthatyou dislike. And that's all right. What 1 likebestisthekindofpoem that talks about somethingvery real and true to me. It may besilly orserious; it may be old-fashioned or new; it may be written in simple words or it may take me a while to understand. But it has to be believable. As one poet said, we want to see "imaginary gardens with real toads in them." We can — imagine almost anything a poet asks us to a garden or a beach or a broken record — spinningon a turntable ifit touchesourfeelings in a way th—at we know is true. The poems in this book are about many different things including a garden, a beach, a record, but alsoincludingpetsandfamilies, war, sports, outerspace, livingin — a shoe silly things and serious things that get all mixed together in this wonderful, scary adventure that we call "life." Combined with the poetry are pictures of things that the poets were writing about. Forexample, with my poem, "Houseboat Mouse,"you'll see a littledrawingof a mousedancing, liketheoneinthepoem;you'll alsofindapaintingofa houseboat the wooden kind that some people lived on in years gone by. If my poem is a good poem, thenyou don't need these pictures to make the mouse and the houseboat real for you—your own imagination can do that. But the pictures may help you to see what I was looking at (orperhaps imagining) when I wrote this poem: My house is a boat, my boat is a house, I liveon the river with Morris the mouse .... Did this ever really happen? Who knows? It's happening now, in your imagination (and in mine). You'lljust have to keepon wondering ifI everlivedon a houseboat, or any kindofa boat, with orwithout a mouse. This book has no rules. You don't have to re—ad it ifyou don't want to. Ifyou do want to read it, you can start anywhereyou like at the beginning, at the end, or in the middle. You can read one poem, orseveral, or all ofthem. You can sleepwith this bookunderyourpillow, orhide it in thewastebasket and hope that itwill get thrown outwith the trash. You are the bossofthis book! Naturally (beingaparent) I hopethatyouwon'tthrowthebookaway; somebody had to work hard to get it foryou, and I and other people had to work hard to put it together. But a gift is not truly a gift ifit has any "shoulds" tied to it. So whatyou do with thisgift is up toyou. In fact, whatyou do with poetry is up toyou. I hopeyou learn to enjoy it, but I would bite my tongue ratherthan say thatyou should enjoy it. That'syourdecision. I will askafavorofyou, however. Pleasewriteandtell mehowyou likethisbook. Even ifyou don't like some ofit (or all ofit) I am interested inyouropinions. Here's my name and address. (Doyou think it's real?) CharlesSullivan Houseboat Passages P.O. Box 1775 Annapolis, Maryland 21404