|
 |
|||||||
 |
Night Garden
Poems from the World of Dreams . . . dreams grow wild |
||||||
|
|
|||||||
| And the dreams grow in an endless variety, some familiar things, some strange and beautiful, some on the darker side. In this collection, Janet S. Wong records some of the many dreams she or her friends have had. She even watches her old dog while he twitches and growls and dreams in his sleep and finally yelps awake. Illustrated by Julie Paschkis with paintings that reflect the glowing colors that can fill our dreams, these nighttime visions create a special garden, tempting to explore and evocative of dreams of our very own. Comments from the Author Night Garden came into being at a time when I had several ideas for new poetry collections, but no clear favorite topic for a next book. What I wanted, more than anything else, was to do a collection of poems inspired by paintings. I asked an author/illustrator friend, Laura Kvasnosky (of the marvelous Zelda and Ivy books) if she knew of any Seattle-area artists with an extensive collection of "ready to go" art, and she showed me the work of Julie Paschkis. I loved Julie’s paintings immediately. The fanciful dreamlike quality of her images seemed perfect for a collection of dream poems, one of the ideas floating around in the back of my mind. Julie invited me to her studio, where I looked at dozens of paintings that would be perfect for poems. Thankfully, Julie was interested, and I proceeded to write some poems. Julie was my one-person critique group for the next several months, listening to my various drafts of poems and making suggestions as we went along. But instead of letting me use her "old" paintings, she decided to paint practically a whole new set of images to go with the poems! The result, I think, is art that adds meaning to the poems, art that reflects Julie’s dreams as much as the poems reflect mine, art inspiring readers and viewers to dig deep in their own night gardens, too. Awards and Honors
"In this absorbing volume, Wong (A Suitcase of Seaweed and Other Poems) and Paschkis (Play All Day) examine the familiar yet surprising qualities of dreams. The poems recall a weightless feeling of flying, an anxious sense of being late or an unexpected visit from a dead or living acquaintance ("I had forgotten you, friend./ Is that why you came/ into my dream?"). "Gently Down the Stream" alludes to the phrase "life is but a dream" and describes swimming in clear water; the accompanying illustration pictures a sinuous orange-and-turquoise fish with a peaceful human face...Paschkis's swirling imagery and Wong's quiet yet haunting words skillfullysimulate the reveries they recount."
|
|||||||
|
|||||||
