Poetry - General & Miscellaneous, Marine Life - General & Miscellaneous, English Poetry, Poetry - General & Miscellaneous, Poetry - Animals

The Mermaid's Purse

Name: The Mermaid's Purse
Author: Flora McDonnell
ISBN: 9780375905698

by Flora McDonnell

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Overview

In The Mermaid's Purse, Ted Hughes explores the ocean. From starfish and seagulls to mermaids and monsters, 28 poems capture the beauty, drama, and mystery of the sea and the seashore. Here is the ghostly cormorant: "Drowned fishermen come back/As famished cormorants/With bare and freezing webby toes/Instead of boots and pants." The strange and comical flounder: "The flounder sees/Through crooked eyes./Through crooked lips/The flounder cries." And the mermaid herself: "Call her a fish,/Call her a girl./Call her the pearl/Of an oyster fresh/On its pearly dish."

By turns lyrical, whimsical, and robust, The Mermaid's Purse showcases the distinctive voice and appreciation of the natural world that made Ted Hughes among the most respected of late-20th-century poets. Made doubly accessible by Flora McDonnell's distinctive black-and-white art, this sea-themed collection will delight children and be welcomed by educators.

A collection of poems about the creatures of the sea, including the limpet, crab, and conger eel.

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Editorials

School Library Journal

Gr 4-8-As in Moon Whales and Other Moon Poems (1976) and Under the North Star (1981; o.p., both Viking), Hughes's words evoke the elemental power that defines the poems' subjects. Each of the 28 selections explores the nature of a different sea creature. Hughes conjures an encounter with a monster of the deep ("So huge, so near,/So really here,/Your stare goes dry/To see me come/So like a swan,/So slow, so high/You cannot cry-"); the mystery in a shell ("You may wash out the sand/But never the sound/Of the ghost of the sea/That is haunting me"); and the artistry of a whale ("And wild as a hand/Among harp strings/Plunging through all/The seas she sings"). McDonnell's dramatic black-and-white paintings capture each poem's mood. While this is not the author's strongest collection, The Mermaid's Purse is still a rich source of thoughtful images by a master poet.-Kathleen Whalin, Greenwich Country Day School, CT Copyright 2000 Cahners Business Information.