Christine Heppermann's _Poisoned Apples: Poems for You, My Pretty_

The Plot: Christine Heppermann's Poisoned Apples: Poems for You, My Pretty (2014) is a collection of fifty poems that uses fairy tales to confront the realities of contemporary girlhood. I am not sure that I would categorize Heppermann's Poisoned Apples as a verse novel; it more clearly resembles a traditional collection of poems with strong narrative impulses (it reminds me a lot of Francesca Lia Block's 2011 collection, Fairy Tales in Electri-City). While there is no primary character within the collection, the speaker of the poems is almost always concerned with the bodily experiences of the teenage girl. As Heppermann explains in her author's note: "fairy tales and reality... run together, even though the intersections aren't always obvious. The girl sitting quietly in class or waiting for the buss or roaming the mall doesn't want anyone to know, or doesn't know how to tell anyone, that she is locked in a tower" (109). The poems in Poisoned Apples tell the story of the social and cultural regulation placed upon the female body through the lens of fairy tales and the voice of a present-day young adult heroine. 

The Poetry: The poems in Poisoned Apples make use of lyricism, metaphor, and imagery. Formally, Heppermann primarily employs free verse, but also includes haiku and villanelle. Many of the poems are quite arresting. For example, the poem "Spotless" features a five-stanza poem juxtaposed with a black-and-white photograph of a woman in white buried to the waist in a mountain of snakes, her face averted from the viewer. The speaker of the poem in "Spotless" begins, 

So I whet one razor 

after another against the stony

flesh of my leg until in barely

any time at all I have seven sharp

lines (95).

The poem then uses anaphora and imagery in its description of the body: "as deep as the silence of my days, / as straight as the path I ran from / the huntsmen, / as red as those three drops" (95).

The Page: The poems in the collection are accompanied by black-and-white photographs by various artists. The photography adds considerably to the collection in that it contributes yet another example of the way in which fairy tales can be updated to reflect contemporary realities. 

I thoroughly enjoyed Heppermann's collection, and I give it four stars. 

Nikki Grimes's _Garvey's Choice_

The Plot: Nikki Grimes's 2016 verse novel Garvey's Choice is a slim collection of poems, each of which uses the tanka form, to tell the story of a middle school boy named Garvey. Garvey desperately wants his father to see him. He is constantly teased because he is overweight, and his father laments the fact that he is more interested in books and music than in sports. He eats to fill the gap of loneliness, sadness, and longing to be seen as valuable just as he is by his father, his family, and his friends. Throughout the book, Garvey comes into contact with friends who encourage him and help him cope, including Manny, a boy who is passionate about cooking although his father thinks "that cooking is for girls" (62). Manny also has albinism and is picked on just like Garvey. Half-way through the collection, Garvey joins the chorus and finds his voice and a way to connect with his father through singing.

The Poetry: Grimes's verse novel is told entirely in the tank form. Tanka, as she explains in a section at the close of the book, is "an ancient poetry form, originally from Japan" (107). The tanka is five lines long, with each line adhering to a syllable count of 5-7-5-7-7. Grimes goes on to say that "traditional tanka poems focus on mood" and are "often poems about love, the four seasons, the shortness of life, and nature" (107). In addition to the use of the tanka form, Grimes also employs imagery, metaphor, and lyricism throughout her collection, and each of these poetic devices provides for greater emotional resonance for her narrative. For example, the poem "Phone Call" begins:

All evening long, I

try tucking in my sadness,

but it keeps getting

snagged on my voice when I speak (19).

In the poem, Garvey explains to his friend Joe about his desire to be seen by his father and to connect with him, but Joe response dismissively by saying, "I get it. Seriously. / But you've got a dad. / Mine skipped out long time ago" (19). In other poems, such as "Unique" Grimes uses Garvey's sadness and feelings of loneliness to bring up issues of the lack of diversity in literature for young people: "I search stories for someone / who resembles me" and "If it weren't for books and Joe, / "different" would just be lonely" (10).

The Page: Garvey's Choice is a short, but extremely impactful verse novel that utilizes poetic form and devices to tell a much needed story that addresses body image, cultural constructions of masculinity, bullying, and the black experience. I highly recommend Grimes's Garvey's Choice, and I give it five stars. If you are interested in the "story behind the story," you can read more about that from Grimes HERE.