Poems to See by: A Comic Artist Interprets Great Poetry

"Poetry and comics. It sounds like an uncomfortable union of arts, joining the spiritual desolation of T.S. Eliot or the restlessness of Arthur Rimbaud with the text balloons and exclamation points that have traditionally filled a newspaper's ‘fun pages.’ But the forms merge beautifully in the work of Julian Peters…. Peters's work is a great argument for the commonalities between poetry and comic books. The lines of poetry and his comic panels hang together with an unexpected ease, as if their forward rhythms are in synch. Both the words and the images unroll across the page, visually, with…

"Peters gives 24 classic poems the graphic novel treatment. Entries are grouped into six themes, and the artwork varies in technique and texture. While Peters adopts a manga style for William Butler Yeats's ‘When You Are Old,’ he uses charcoal for Emily Dickinson's ‘Hope is the thing with feathers’ and a crayon's waxy patchiness for Tess Gallagher's ‘Choices.’ Most of the others have a watercolor aesthetic. After presenting a comic interpretation of a poem, Peters lists the full text. Within the comics, words frequently exist in the margins of the panels, sitting just above the imagery. In…

"Comics artist Julian Peters performs a sleight-of-paintbrush, as it were, with an array of powerful verses in Poems to See By, a collection for readers ages 10 to adult. It is a wide and varied collection, both in visuals and text. Here are pieces by Carl Sandburg, Edna St. Vincent Millay and William Ernest Henley. Mr. Peters sets the aching lines of Robert Hayden’s 1962 poem ‘Those Winter Sundays’ as if in the illustrated panels of a graphic novel....Other poems are illustrated with delicate watercolor panels or cartoon drawings in the style of Japanese manga....In a preface, Mr. Peters…

"Julian Peters sees with his heart, and it’s clear in these loving, deliberate works. ‘The truth is, I did it all for love of beauty,’ he says in his preface, and it is this love of beauty, this curiosity of spirit, and appreciation for the work he covers, that makes Poems to See By both moving and meditative."

"Poems to See By is a perfect fit not only for die-hard poetry fans and curious new readers—it’s also a fantastic teaching tool that any educator trying to get their students excited by poetry should pick up for their classroom.…[It]harnesses the power of lush visuals, timeless poetry, and the magical alchemy that arises when words and pictures come together to create a reading experience that’s truly unique—one which might even change the way you see poetry for good."

"The selections . . . encompass a range of moods and media, from a twinkly black-and-white manga version of W.B. Yeats' ‘When You Are Old’ to poignant watercolor scenes illustrating Robert Hayden's ‘Those Winter Sundays.’ The text is easy to follow, even when incorporated into the art, and the poems are reprinted at the end of each piece. . . . Fresh angles aplenty for poetic encounters."