Norris's Ark: Poems

The 30 poems in this volume, all about animals, were originally read on a BBC-TV program for children. (Cassettes may be ordered separately.) Expensively offset on vellum and sparsely illustrated with one color and four black-and-white illustrations, the poems reflect their read-aloud inception with their simple language and tightly structured rhythms. Norris's voice is distinctively British; he speaks of the old horse who has pulled barges through Tewkesbury, and the ploughman's old Dobbin and Sam. Most successful are the narrative poemsabout the dog who saved a village man from freezing to death, about ""Driving to Hampshire.'' Norris's bat has ``wings bare as leather''; the swan is ``a cloud floating,'' its feathers an ``arrangement of enormous white chrysanthemums/ In a shop kept by angels.'' Even the proud ``Camels of the Kings'' kneel humbly on Christmas morning in Norris's quiet and beautifully constructed ark. All ages. (January)