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A review of The Beauty of the Beast: Poems from the Animal Kingdom

Selected by Jack Prelutsky, Illustrated by Meilo So

Over 200 poems about animals by twentieth century poets.

Reviewed by: Joan Prefontaine
About Joan Prefontaine

The Beauty of the Beast: Poems from the Animal Kingdom This book has been marketed as a children's book, but will appeal to animal lovers of all ages. Poet and anthologist Jack Prelutsky, who grew up close to the Bronx Zoo, has chosen a wide variety of tones here, from the majestic to the ridiculous. His selections are enhanced by Meilo So's playful, expressive watercolors.

The poems are arranged into five zoological categories: insect, fish, reptile, bird and mammal, with a haiku by Prelutsky on each introductory page. For the bird section, for instance, he has written:

Hollow-boned singers
Descended from dinosaurs,
The sky is our home.

There are domesticated animals in some of these poems: cats, dogs, cattle, oxen, horses, sheep. Others take for their subjects wild animals rarely seen by most people: whales, leopards, wolves, polar bears, emperor penguins. There are creatures feared by humans: wasps, jellyfish, centipedes, vipers, rattlesnakes, bats, sharks. And there are unusual species such as the cassowary, the spade-foot toad, the axolotl, the sloth and gold fox.

Many familiar names appear in this collection: Robert Frost, Ogden Nash, Margaret Wise Brown, Jane Yolen, Isak Dinesen, Randall Jarrell, Conrad Aiken, among others. Some of the short poems are the most perceptive and fun. Prelutsky's poem "Spider" is one of these:

The spider, sly and talented
weaves silver webs of silken thread,
then waits for unobservant flies.
to whom she'll not apologize!

Another is Adrian Mitchell's little gem entitled "Turn, Turn, Turn":

There is a time for considering elephants
There is no time for not considering elephants.

Some poems are quiet reflections on nature from a distance, such as this one by Basho:

Patiently the crane fishes in the lake,
His long red legs shortened since the rains.

Others show humans interacting deliberately with the natural world, as when Rebecca Caudill describes the experience of catching a firefly:

I catch a firefly
In cupped hands. My fingers glow
With imprisoned fire.

This book may appear to glow, off and on, as you read it-like a firefly cupped in your hands.

Click here to buy this book, or read more about it at Amazon.com: The Beauty of the Beast: Poems from the Animal Kingdom

Copyright © by Joan Prefontaine, 2003

Reviewed by Joan Prefontaine:
-- The Secret Life of Dust - by Hannah Holmes
-- Lying Awake: - by Mark Salzman
-- The Art & Craft of Playwriting - by Jeffrey Hatcher
-- On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft - by Stephen King
-- Earth Prayers From Around the World - Edited by Elizabeth Roberts and Elias Amidon
-- The Beauty of the Beast - Selected by Jack Prelutsky, Illustrated by Meilo So
-- The Intimate Merton - Edited by Patrick Hart and Jonathan Montaldo
-- Plainsong - by Kent Haruf
-- The Stone Diaries - by Carol Shields
-- City of God - by E. L. Doctorow









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