POEMS FOR EVERY SEASON

In this Dutch import, Westera presents 16 seasonally arranged poems representing 13 separate verse forms.

Each section begins with a scene-setting haiku, nestled against four repeating, multicolored woodcut spreads whose farmhouse, field, pond, and trees reflect seasonal changes. Westera employs traditional and modern forms and invents one herself: the stacking poem, “in which words are stacked upon each other.” The four haiku embody the Japanese form’s crystallizing turns of phrase and traditional focus on nature. “Ice forms on the pond / It can grow thicker or thaw / Winter will decide.” The rondel, the pantoum, the tanka, and the sonnet all appear, reflecting poetry’s cross-cultural roots. Playful modern forms include the double dactyl (invented in 1951 by two American poets) and the diamante, a diamond-shaped form created by another American, Iris Tiedt, in 1969. A Dutch form, the elevenie, is just as it sounds: 11 words in a specified sequence. (In a note, translator Colmer explains that, in consultation with Westera, he substituted certain forms, such as December’s limerick, for those less familiar to English-speaking readers.) April’s “Spring Fever” is an acrostic whose lines’ initial letters spell “Vincent Van Gogh.” The middle stanza reads “Velvety bees / Attack the almond blossom, / Nectar sweet as honey.” Boerendans’ facing woodcut is a distinctive homage to Van Gogh’s Almond Blossoms, and her work throughout is masterful. The book’s design is innovative, while the verse is thoughtful and immersive.

A remarkable collaboration.