Julian PetersRecensioni

As I get older I have a greater appreciation for poetry. I enjoyed this because it reintroduced me to some poems I haven't encountered since school, as well as many that were new to me. The illustrations are the really joy here. Peters does not stick to any one style of artwork, but seems to let the poetry take his art wherever it needs to go. I also like that he included the text -only version of the poem after each illustrated version.

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.

I enjoyed this one, and have recommended it to others.

I have only recently discovered the joy of graphic novels, never having read comics in my youth. I really enjoy reading poetry from time to time and hadn't come across all these English poems before, some very classic (in language) and others more modern. A range of different art styles are used, from black and white to watercolours. Many are very striking; some with similar themed interpretations of the words. It would be really interesting to see different comic artists contribute to such an anthology and see the differences in interpretations.

I found it useful that the full poem was listed after the comics as my head filled with images and I wanted to absorb the poem both with the images and then without.

The book also made me want to explore some of the poets and poems further.½

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.

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 the book would make a great gift.½

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.

Visualizing poetry involves analyzing the language, structure, mood, and theme of a poem, then creating a visual connection through drawing, watercolor, paint or other visual medium. Or, creating a mental image. Comics poetry blends aspects of comics and poetry.

Read the recently published children's book, then learn more at the website:

POEMS TO SEE BY: A COMIC ARTIST INTERPRETS GREAT POETRY by Julian Peters is an anthology of classic poems presented for a new generation of readers through a rich variety of visuals. Exploring twenty-four English-language poets, the book examines six themes: seeing yourself, others, art, nature, time, and death.

COMICS AS POETRY is an online article by Ivan Brunetti (January 30, 2020) that explores the connection between comics and poetry.

Read the article at https://bit.ly/2F6MJ72

ARC courtesy of Plough Publishing.

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.

I do not read poetry often. I think, since I am not in the habit of reading it, I get too wrapped up in the rhythm and structure and pace - if there is no punctuation, I will ZOOM through and feel breathless even in my own mind. Then I’ll pause and try again. I am sure that, with practice, it would get easier, but I just generally prefer to LISTEN to poetry than to read it myself.

This book really appealed to me when I saw it because it visualizes beautiful poems in comics format. This way, I can read the poem with the pace and flow the author intends with the added bonus of seeing it come to life before my eyes.

I thoroughly enjoyed this book, and I think I will return to it often when I want a bit of respite or just want to the opportunity to be a bit more contemplative. Peters organized the poems under loose themes, and he employs a variety of styles to illustrate them, based on the theme, the author, and the subject matter. Most of the poems were either only vaguely familiar or completely unfamiliar to me, but all of them were beautiful and gave me pause. And the illustrations were such an added richness! I did not always agree with the way Peters illustrated them, but that is part of the fun. Certainly, his illustrations added depth and nuance to my experience of each poem.

A truly excellent visual companion to my old favorite poems. For an avid poetry reader, poet, or a reader new to poetry, this collection will appeal to all audiences. Though the artist has a consistent personal style, his art repertoire spans several approaches to complement the varied poems compiled in the collection. For a few poems, the artwork helped me form a new interpretation of the poem that I hadn't considered previously. This book has an honored place on my nightstand, so I can visit it often.

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.

"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.½

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.

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.

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.

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.

Poems to See By is an illustrated anthology of two dozen classic poems that will be familiar to many readers. They are organized into six sections that consider different ways of seeing: Seeing Yourself, Others, Art, Nature, Time, and Death. You can see examples on Julian Peters’ website, such as “Annabel Lee” by Edgar Allen Poe or “Before the Battle” by Siegfried Sassoon.

The newest poem is “There Have Come Soft Rains” by John Philip Johnson while the oldest is William Wordsworth’s “The World Is Too Much with Us.” Of course, it is impossible to select a perfect sampling from 220 years of poetry, but I cannot think of any that should be excluded. There are two poems from Emily Dickinson but her poems are so short that seems more than fair.

Poems to See By is a great collection of poems and is beautifully illustrated. What is most impressive is the many varied styles of illustration. Peters masterfully fitted his illustrations to the emotional context of the poem. You can look at these examples and see Peters’ incredible ability to adapt his style to suit the poem.

Poems to See By will be released March 31st. I received an e-galley from the publisher through NetGalley.

Poems to See By at Plough Publishing
Julian Peters author site

https://tonstantweaderreviews.wordpress.com/2020/03/30/9780874863185/

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.
So 5 Stars for the Pictures and 1-4 for the selection of poems.

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!

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.½

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.

Poems to See By illustrated by Julian Peters is a collection of illustrated poems broken into groups of seeing — nature, love, time, death and others. Julian Peters is an illustrator and comic book artist living in Montreal, Canada, who specializes in adapting classical poems into graphic art.

Many of the best poems are presented in the collection from Invictus to The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock. Some of the poems and art combine to produce emotions such as Conscientious Objector by Edna St. Vincent Millay others light and with a touch humor like e.e. cummings’ May My Heart Always be Open. Maya Angelou’s Caged Bird appears to be embroidered on a quilt, and watercolors illustrate Langston Hughes’ Jukebox Love Song. Wordsworth, The World is Too Much With Us is illustrated with a modern theme of cell phones, and Shelley’s Ozymandias has a historical twist.

Great poetry supplemented with a variety of art from pen and ink to manga gives an added appreciation to the original work and sometimes adds a modern touch or interpretation without changing the poem’s intent. A very well done selection of poems and inspiring artwork to match.

Available March 31, 2020

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)

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.