Earth Verse: Haiku from the Ground Up by Sally M. Walker (review)

The noted nonfiction writer turns from prose to poetry here in nearly thirty haiku about the planet Earth. Topics are divided into eight categories, such as rocks ("Molten magma stew/ bubbles out of its hot pot"), earthquakes ("energy unleashed"), and surface water ("sediment-filled waves/ tumble in a frothy foam"). While there"s an ironic contrast between the massiveness of the subject and the petite precision of the verse, there are some dramatic snapshot moments of earth processes and pleasing imagery ("a gull wears sand socks"). The visuals are less successful, however; Grill employs a limited palette of red, blue, and black, with most images only employing two colors, in soft, blurry colored pencil that results too often in confusingly amorphous images. Additionally, the thumbnail legends indicating which category each poem fits into aren"t clear on their own and are only explained in the extensive end matter, which also gives some contextual information about the more challenging scientific vocabulary. The verses could still pique the interest of young scientists, though, and offer some of the curricular opportunities for earth science that Joyce Sidman does for biology. Suggestions for further reading are appended.