Poetry Week by Week: Some Favorite Concrete Poems

When a poet can write a poem that is as fun to look at as it is to read, it doubles the fun of reading poetry! And when the poem is like Jack Prelutsky's I Am Winding Through a Maze, forcing you to turn and flip the book around as you read, it's even more of a hoot!

I couldn't find the poem anywhere online so that I could share it with you in its entirety, so I took a picture of its spread in my copy of the book IT'S RAINING PIGS AND NOODLES.

There are a few other concrete poems in this book that are lots of fun too. Actually, the whole book is just plain fun. So go check it out if you haven't before!

Another of my favorite concrete poems is a little gem that I found in a book I got for my children years and years ago, THE HUTCHINSON TREASURY OF CHILDREN'S POETRY. The poem is Do Not Disturb the Dinosaur by Gina Douthwaite, and the words of the poem form the outline of a dinosaur. You might be interested in her book PICTURE A POEM, which is full of poems that form pictures! Unfortunately, it's not available at my local library, so I might just have to order it.

I found the book TECHNICALLY, IT'S NOT MY FAULT, by John Grandits, at the library recently. It is full of a few rather oddball concrete poems written from the perspective of an 11-year-old boy. My favorite is the one titled What are You Thinking About, Robert? in which the boy's thoughts are swirling about randomly outside his brain. To read a couple of the poems from it, look inside this book on Amazon.

Another fun one by the same author is BLUE LIPSTICK: CONCRETE POEMS, written from the perspective of a 15-year-old girl (the aforementioned 11-year-old boy's sister).

Be sure to come back on Wednesday for my review of WET CEMENT: A MIX OF CONCRETE POEMS by John Raczka.

Do you have any favorite concrete poems? I'd love to hear about them!