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    Poems to See By: A Comic Artist Interprets Great Poetry
    Poems to See By: A Comic Artist Interprets Great Poetry
    Poems to See By: A Comic Artist Interprets Great Poetry
    Ebook126 pages1 hour

    Poems to See By: A Comic Artist Interprets Great Poetry

    By Julian Peters

    4/5

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    About this ebook

    A fresh twist on 24 classic poems, these visual interpretations by comic artist Julian Peters will change the way you see the world.

    This stunning anthology of favorite poems visually interpreted by comic artist Julian Peters breathes new life into some of the greatest English-language poets of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries.

    These are poems that can change the way we see the world, and encountering them in graphic form promises to change the way we read the poems. In an age of increasingly visual communication, this format helps unlock the world of poetry and literature for a new generation of reluctant readers and visual learners.

    Grouping unexpected pairings of poems around themes such as family, identity, creativity, time, mortality, and nature, Poems to See By will also help young readers see themselves differently. A valuable teaching aid appropriate for middle school, high school, and college use, the collection includes favorites from the Western canon already taught in countless English classes.

    Includes poems by Emily Dickinson, Langston Hughes, Carl Sandburg, Maya Angelou, Seamus Heaney, e. e. cummings, Robert Frost, Dylan Thomas, Christina Rossetti, William Wordsworth, William Ernest Henley, Robert Hayden, Edgar Allan Poe, W. H. Auden, Thomas Hardy, Percy Bysshe Shelley, John Philip Johnson, W. B. Yeats, Gerard Manley Hopkins, Edna St. Vincent Millay, Tess Gallagher, Ezra Pound, and Siegfried Sassoon.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherPlough Publishing House
    Release dateMar 31, 2020
    ISBN9780874863192
    Poems to See By: A Comic Artist Interprets Great Poetry
    Author

    Julian Peters

    Julian Peters is an illustrator and comic book artist living in Montreal, Canada, who focuses on adapting classical poems into graphic art. His work has been exhibited internationally and published in several poetry and graphic art collections. Peters holds a master’s degree in Art History, and in 2015, served as “Cartoonist in Residence” at Victoria University in Wellington, New Zealand.

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    Reviews for Poems to See By

    4/5

    62 ratings23 reviews

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    • 5/5
      "Poems to See By: A Comic Artist Interprets Great Poetry" by Julian Peters is a wonderful book for both poetry lovers and poetry novices. The conceit of the book is deceptively simple. As the subtitle notes, Peters takes poems and illustrates them in graphic novel style. However, this description does not do justice to the complexity that the combination of poems and illustrations. Rather than using a single style throughout the book, Peters utilizes different types of illustrations based on the poem’s style, topic, theme, and mood. For instance, the pictures accompanying John Philip Johnson’s “There Have Come Soft Rains” are reminiscent of those found in 1950’s children’s books but with an edgier color palette (black, white, and gray) that matches the tone and topic. In contrast, Carl Sandburg’s “Buffalo Dusk” is illustrated in a softer, more pensive style and array of shades that capture the wistful mood.The 24 poems in the book are grouped into one of six themes, such as “Seeing Yourself” and “Seeing Death.” This arrangement makes sense, though it does lead to a sense of thematic sameness if you read the book from cover to cover. Fortunately, the stylistic variations in terms of each poet’s approach to the theme and of Peter’s approach to the illustrations makes reading each poem a different experience. The poems’ words accompany the pictures and are sometimes integrated into the pictures themselves. While this might be annoying for some readers, the way that the language was broken up allowed me to read the poems in a different way than I would when the poems are in their traditional arrangements. For people wanting that experience, the poems in their published forms are included at the end of each illustrated section.Something that I would have liked to have seen in the book is insight from Peters regarding his choices both in terms of the poems he opted to interpret and the way he opted to illustrate them. However, this exclusion allows for readers to form their own theories and perhaps try their hands at reimagining the poems in a different way.
    • 4/5
      Comic artist Julian Peters illustrates 24 short poems in this volume. The poems are organized by broad subject matter (Seeing Yourself, Seeing Others, Seeing Art, Seeing Nature, Seeing Time, and Seeing Death), but that is the only commonality. Peters has selected a variety of poets, but not necessarily their most famous poems. Only one poet is repeated, Emily Dickinson. There are some well-known poems here: Ozymandias by Shelley, Annabel Lee by Poe, Because I Could Not Stop for Death by Dickinson. But a number of them were first time reads for me.The unique part of this book is the multitude of styles Peters uses to bring the poems to life. Stark black-and-white art telling a story sets Henley's Invictus apart from the colorful metaphoric pictures used for Dylan Thomas's The Force through the Green Fuse Drives the Flower.I enjoyed the book, especially the different takes on poems. I did appreciate that the poems also were printed separately. I wish they were printed before Peters art rather than after so that I could provide my own perspective on the poem before seeing Peters.
    • 4/5
      A collection of 24 well known poems interpreted in comic form by Julian Peters. My favorites, based on the illustrations, were Juke Box Love Song by Langston Hughes and Birches by Robert Frost. I also loved Conscientious Objector by Edna St. Vincent Millay, because she's my favorite poet, but I don't remember seeing this poem before. I thought it was clever to illustrate Wordsworth's The World is Too much With Us with images of a man looking at his phone. Recommended for those who love poetry and art.
    • 4/5
      This book is a collection of classic poems, some well known and others more obscure, that have been portrayed through the comic art form. Overall, I was very impressed. The poems are beautifully represented by the comics, adding to the meaning of the poems, and helping to make the meanings more clear. This is a very great book for teachers to help students with poetry. My only criticism is that the written poem came after the poem in the comic form. I would have preferred it before to help me have a sense of the poem before seeing the visual.
    • 3/5
      First, this is a beautiful book. The concept is great and the drawings are well done, if a bit dark at times. I though this would be a great way to read poetry and was really excited about it... but oddly enough, I found the poems really hard to read and grasp in this format. Fortunately, the book is laid out in a way that the graphic panes of the poem are followed by a full page version of just the poem. I found that I had to skip to the end, read the poem and then go back and read the graphic version. Maybe just me, but I found the rhythm to be interrupted too much by dividing it across drawings.
    • 5/5
      Poems to See By illustrations deliver evocative, often wildly dramatic, and compelling inspiration.With the author self-described as "A Comic Artist," I expected more of a balance than the death and sad poems presented.Opening with the Emily Dickenson poem and ending it with the bird in a cemetery set a dark pace.
    • 4/5
      Really loved this little book that turns classic poems into comic strips. Huge kudos to the illustrator as able to show a variety of styles of comics. I think this book will make classic poetry a bit more accessible to younger ages. Enjoyed this one!
    • 5/5
      This beautiful book takes famous poems and pairs the words with gorgeous illustrations. Every single poem has a different style of artwork. I always struggle with poetry. I want to love it more than I do. This pairing worked well for me because it brought the words to life in a way that poems on their own often fail to do for me. Instead of reading each poem quickly, I focused the artwork and how it built a story behind each line. I feel like it made the poems more accessible. Maya Angelou’s poem was illustrated to look like a quilt. Emily a Dickinson’s hope with feathers was a gorgeous red bird flitting around devastating scenes. A few of the illustrations were a little too on the nose, but I mostly loved his interpretations. Highly recommended, even for those of us who don’t particularly love poetry.
    • 4/5
      Poems to See By is a book of poetry illustrated by comic artist Julian Peters. The book is divided into sections using the common theme of "seeing" ("Seeing Yourself," "Seeing Others," "Seeing Nature," etc.)and draws on the work of some of the world's best known poets.I like how the book was arranged and the choices of poems. The artwork is interesting and shows the artist's versatility with regard to style and medium. I thought that some of the lettering was a little difficult to read, so I appreciated that the text of the full poem appears at the end of each comic. I also like that Peters tries to match the style of his art to the feel of the poem. This might be a good introduction to poetry for teens.
    • 4/5
      The varied styles of illustrations really give an interesting new dimension to these poems. My favorite of Peters' interpretations: "The Darkling Thrush," "Choices," "There Have Come Soft Rains," "Because I Could Not Stop for Death, and "Conscientious Objector."(LT Early Reviewer copy)
    • 3/5
      Artist Julian Peters uses multiple comics techniques and art styles to interpret 24 classic poems. The results range from illuminating and moving to experimental and occasionally confusing. However overall it’s an interesting fusion of two media that both rely on the notion of rhythm in their underlying structure.
    • 3/5
      I love the concept of this book: taking poetry and illustrating it as comics. I am a teacher and I think it has two strengths in the classroom. First, this book can really help break down a poem for a reader. Second, I love the idea and could see the benefits of having students break down challenging poetry into comic frames to help them illustrate and understand a poem. I liked that Peters used a variety of comic styles throughout the book. The reasons I only rated it a 3: I think it could also limit someone's interpretation to see one person's illustrations of a poem. I also just didn't agree with some of the interpretations. Finally, I wanted some more variety in the poems. They are almost all very serious poems, I would have enjoyed some lightening of the mood!
    • 5/5
      This author/artist already illustrated my very favorite poem (“The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock by T.S. Eliot,” online here). Now, he somehow managed to figure out what many of the rest of my favorite poems were and combine them in this magical book. He reproduces the full texts of the poems he selected plus adds marvelous illustrations for all of them. And in fact, each illustration is sufficiently unique that it’s a wonder they are all by the same artist.Poets he selected include e.e. cummings, William Butler Yeats, Siegfried Sasson, Seamus Heaney, Emily Dickinson, and more, adding up to 25 classic poems. Peters’ imagination is as much on display as is the poets he selected, as he interprets their meaning through his illustrations. I particularly appreciated his take on “The Force That Through the Green Fuse Drives the Flower” by Dylan Thomas and “Musée des Beaux Arts” by W.H. Auden. Peters clarifies what seems abstruse; his visionary perceptions are revelatory.Evaluation: This is a book for lovers of poetry, lovers of art, and those who just appreciate remarkable talent. Highly recommended!
    • 4/5
      As a literature major, I've had to read a lot of poetry and much of it is difficult for me to get into - I struggle to get into the deeper currents. But this book translated some of those poems into a medium that I understand much more readily, and the beauty opened up to me in a way I've never experienced before. Peters does a wonderful job of translating words into pictures, and I finally understood the feelings the poets were trying to convey through the lens that Peters uses in Poems to See By.
    • 5/5
      Gorgeous! It is amazing how many different styles Julian Peters can illustrate with! And each style really matches the words and feelings of each individual poem! And the colors are magnificent, even when it is in black and white! I really was blown away by the brilliance of the work!This volume contains one of my all-time favorite poems, “Annabel Lee” by Edgar Allan Poe! And, a close 'second' of mine, “Caged Bird by Maya Angelou. There are also poems by Emily Dickinson, Robert Frost, Langston Hughes, and others. Each poem is illustrated, and then in plain text right after the illustrations. I read half of this book with my eleven year old daughter, and she really enjoyed the illustrated versions much better than the plain text. They felt much more alive to her, and to me! I am really, really happy that we got this book! It's a keeper!
    • 4/5
      This book fascinates me; the concept alone is intriguing, to illustrate poetry as short graphic stories. Sometimes, it works very well, at other times, I was left unmoved. I think this is a matter of taste, however. Peters uses different styles each of which seems appropriate to the poem illustrated.
    • 4/5
      Spring 2020 / Netgalley;

      This was a gorgeous read from start to finish. Julian Peters has collected together dozens of the most well known and lauded poems of the decades, setting each to comic, but not only that. Each comic's design, style, and layout is different from all of the others around it, and it's chosen specifically to fit the feel and messages of each of the poems. I deeply, deeply, deeply loved read this.
    • 4/5
      This is an interesting book. I love the premise - comics and poetry make such a natural pairing that I can't believe it hasn't been done more often. And there is a decent variety of works to be found here, and the artist explores a number of different styles, taking care to match the art to the poem.A few downsides: one is that the artistic interpretations here are extremely literal. The other is that this book would have benefited greatly from being a true anthology: having a single artist means many similar interpretations over and over again, and similar choices made. (Did we need two Emily Dickinson poems here? In a volume already dominated by white folks?) Having different comic artists interpret different poems would have been a great improvement.But overall this is a good book and not quite like anything I've seen before. I'd love to see more like it in the future.
    • 5/5
      Talented artist Julian Peters interprets and illustrates 24 different poems by a variety of poets.I enjoyed this so much! Peters is an incredibly talented artist in many different styles, and used everything from abstract to watercolor to anime to view these classic poems in a different way. It really made me think about them in a way I hadn't before. I also tend to skim over poetry but the comic-like format made me take my time. I'm definitely going to keep this early review copy in my permanent collection. I think it would make a great gift.
    • 4/5
      Peters uses a wide variety of styles to illustrate this short collection of two-dozen nineteenth and twentieth century English language poems: a watercolor painting in oriental style for “In a Station of the Metro” by Ezra Pound; a manga strip for “When you are old” by William Butler Yeats, a series of pastel sketches for “Choices” by Tess Gallagher, a collage for Maya Angelou’s “Caged Bird,” and heavy black and white line drawings for William Ernest Henley’s “Invictus.” Using pencil, brush, ink, and watercolor Peters has matched his media to the poets’ words, and his panels to the rhythm of the poetry.
    • 4/5
      Poems to See By: A Comic Artist Interprets Great Poetry by Julian Peters collects 24 poems along with Peters' visual interpretations. Most readers won't necessarily connect with every one, maybe even very few of them. But it is still an interesting way to understand poetry.On Edelweiss, where one of the categories is to suggest target age groups, they suggest 13-18, grades 8-12. Like any anthology, the key is going to be how it is used by the instructor, the book, any book, is not what is doing the work of helping students learn, it is a dynamic between teacher, student, and any texts used. That said, the range mentioned seems about right. When I taught at university I might have considered using a couple of the poem/comic sets but I would not have assigned the book. Like any interpretation of works literature, everyone will see things a little different. Even though I was not crazy about a few of the comics, I didn't think he was untrue to the text. Or, to put it the way most of us have heard it, it can be grounded in the text itself. So I don't have a lot of complaints just because I don't read a few of the poems the same way he does. That kind of “criticism” is really a statement of entitlement, namely that such a person feels entitled to state what is and is not proper for someone to get from a text. I don't presume to be God-like nor quite that narcissistic, so I simply don't see some poems as he does. These are his interpretations, not things drawn to meet someone's particular agenda priorities. Yes, a couple things might be problematic, but if you can read a book of interpretations, comic or otherwise, and not find some things problematic, then you're either not paying attention or you're reading something that is adhering to some dogmatic manifesto so as not to offend anyone.This book would also be something that readers who don't usually feel comfortable with poetry might enjoy. The value in this work, as something to help people, is to show that there is more than one way into any work of art. Even these classics can be approached from perspectives that once would have been shunned for being too common or too masculine/feminine, or any of the other ways that people have kept others marginalized. Unfortunately, many who are marginalized feel the need to then marginalize to compensate rather than inclusively embracing and debating.I think I like the idea of this book better than the actual execution but I do still believe this volume can be enjoyable for many and used to help grow appreciation of poetry for many more. With that in mind, I do recommend this for both the ages mentioned above as well as any adult who wants to read more poetry but hesitates because of the way it may have been presented to them in school.Reviewed from a copy made available by the publisher via NetGalley.
    • 4/5
      Peters uses various styles—including manga-esque for “When You Are Old” by Yeats—and both color and black-and-white to illustrate (and indeed, interpret, though often enough the interpretations seem pretty obvious) the poems. Maya Angelou’s “I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings” gets some interesting color and imagery, with birds apparently made out of paper and scissors. And the last poem, Edna St. Vincent Millay’s “Conscientious Objector,” with which I wasn’t familiar before, was made genuinely disturbing by Peters’ use of skeletons dressed in various military and other uniforms, threatening the protagonist.
    • 3/5
      First, this is a beautiful book. The concept is great and the drawings are well done, if a bit dark at times. I though this would be a great way to read poetry and was really excited about it... but oddly enough, I found the poems really hard to read and grasp in this format. Fortunately, the book is laid out in a way that the graphic panes of the poem are followed by a full page version of just the poem. I found that I had to skip to the end, read the poem and then go back and read the graphic version. Maybe just me, but I found the rhythm to be interrupted too much by dividing it across drawings.

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    Poems to See By - Julian Peters

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