I want this book!

Thanks to NetGalley, I received a digital galley to review, and this is definitely a book that I would love to own,

The collection of classic poems blended well with the very striking illustrations.
I love the fact that the comics are completely different styles to match the diversity of the imagery of the poems.
If I had to pick my favorite section, it would be "Seeing Nature".

I thoroughly enjoy this collection, and I would recommend this to any poetry lover.

Beautiful and charming, great for quick read.
I enjoyed seeing the illustration and how the it poems were interpreted. It added charm.

An absolutely stunning combination of classic poetry linked with and presented through incredible illustrations. It was wonderful to see the different art styles used throughout and what those lent to each interpretation. I'd love to see more of this!

This is not an illustrated collection of poems, but rather a collection of classic poems reformatted as comics. Those enjoying graphic novels and comics are likely to appreciate the volume, but those looking for illustrated poetry are likely to find the accompanying visuals confusing and/or distracting. Best for a middle- or high-school audience (I teach university-level courses).

This is a beautiful collection of 24 famous poems by so many great poets: Emily Dickinson, Langston Hughes, Carl Sandburg, Maya Angelou, Seamus Heaney, e. e. cummings, Robert Frost, Dylan Thomas, Christina Rossetti, William Wordsworth, William Ernest Henley, Robert Hayden, Edgar Allan Poe, W. H. Auden, Thomas Hardy, Percy Bysshe Shelley, John Philip Johnson, W. B. Yeats, Gerard Manley Hopkins, Edna St. Vincent Millay, Tess Gallagher, Ezra Pound, and Siegfried Sassoon

I really loved the artist's take on each of the poems and the fact that they all had a different style, that fit them. Julian's interpretation of all of these poems was quite inspired and really entertaining. I especially loved his interpretation of "Annabelle Lee" by Edgar Allan Poe (my favorite poem), "Birches" by Robert Frost, and "Caged Bird" by Maya Angelou.

Poetry is one of my favorite things so this was definitely a book for me. I can't wait to pick up my own copy of it for my collection.

*Thank you to the publisher for providing me a copy of this book for an honest review*

Poems to See By is the perfect book for any poetry lover. The visuals can make you interpret and see the poems in a new light or different perspective and it is interesting to view the artists interpretation of the classic poems. This book is also perfect for those who wish to dive into poetry for the first time or any younger readers starting out. the visuals can make poetry easier to be read and 'understood' for many and bridges a gap that many people face, where they are intimidated by poetry. This would be a good introduction for many people or even seasoned readers, as the broad amount of authors almost guarentees readers will find a new poet they havent read from before. A well put together book with stunning visuals that everyone can enjoy

This is a beautiful book. I’m familiar with most of the poems in the book, but the illustrations added another level of beauty to them. I also love the variety of the artwork, everything from manga-style to colorful quilt style drawings. My favorite is the illustrations used for Edna St. Vincent Millay’s Conscientious Objector. This would be a wonderful introduction to poetry for kids.

I received a free e-copy of this book from NetGalley in exchange for a fair and honest review.

Damn what a nice idea for a book. Thanks, Julian!
I enjoyed most of the interpretations of the poems to comic, some went over my head but you know, that's life.
Some of them got me so good that I'm currently buying collections of the authors that I liked lol.
Overall a good read for those who love poems as well as comics.

"Poems to See By" is a collection of illustrated classical poetry. I didn't like all of the poems or interpretations, but I think is a great idea. I would like to see more books like this with more diversity.

The description of Poems to See By interpreted by Julian Peters is described as “a fresh twist on 24 classic poems” and that “these visual interpretations by comic artist Julian Peters will change the way you see the world.” The description is accurate if somewhat understated. The visual appeal of the book should be lauded.
Peters has chosen his poems well. Some of my favorites as reimagined by Peters include the following: “Hope,” “Caged Bird,” “Those Winter Sundays,” and “The World is Too Much With Us.” As a comp professor, I almost always included these poems in a study of poetry. Having Peters’ book to go along with our discussions would have enhanced the discussions.

Poetry discussions in a classroom can be difficult. Finding ways to show students how to relate the poetry through different lenses is valuable. Peters does that by pairing poems one might not expect to fit together except on more careful examination.

Peters has created new dimensions for readers of poetry in his Poems to See By. It is a delight.

I loved the idea of this book when I saw it in NetGalley as an arc. Classic poems in the form of comics. So interesting and original, for me. Overall, I really liked the way the author interpreted some of the poems, there were really good drawings and everything. However, I would have loved to read first the poem in its classical form and then see the artist's interpretation.

This past September I resolved to read more poetry, and when I did so I learned that my seven year old daughter loves poetry. Poems to See By, a book of famous poems illustrated in a graphic novel style, is a treasure I plan to enjoy with her this Lent. It turns out that poetry, with its vivid language and appeal to emotion, lends itself beautifully to a graphic novel-style interpretation. Reading poetry forces us to stop and savor the words, slowly, re-reading them and thinking about them, making poetry reading an excellent Lenten practice, training us to do the same when reading Scripture. Julian Peters chooses some very well known poems that we get to read again with fresh eyes through the book’s gorgeous, colorful illustrations for each line. While rereading “Those Winter Sundays” by Robert Hayden with these illustrations, I felt both the cold of winter and the pang of regret the narrator expresses when he finally recognizes “loves austere and lonely offices.” This book makes an excellent gift as well.

I loved that the artist's renderings of each poem fit the style and content of the poem; this was not an attempt to claim all the poems from one perspective, but rather the artist viewing the poet's world from the poet's perspective. The art is beautiful and I loved reading it.

This is a great poetry anthology that covers a lot. I applaud the artist's choice of poems; there's everything from Maya Anglou to ee cummings to Langston Hughes to Carl Sanburg to Chistina Rossetti. Every poem had its own distinct art to it that mirrored the poet's background or the theme of the poem. This collection definitely gives readers a great selection of poetry and makes it very accessible.

However, as a teacher, I really appreciated the fact the poems were organized by genre, which makes them very easy to match with a current concept based curriculum. As mentioned before, the pairing of images to classic poetry really make the texts more accessible to all learners and all peoples. Additionally, I love the inclusion of the original poem at the end of the artist's interpretation. This book has so many applications in the classroom that I definitely recommend English teachers check it out!

*I received an ARC of this book through NetGalley in exchange for an honest review*

Confession time: I love classic poetry.

You can often catch me quoting famous lines, gesticulating wildly with my hands. My students roll their eyes, embarrassed on my behalf, but I digress. There is something charming in the familiar, magic in re-reading known works, in studying the sentences that have endured and enamored us, and witnessing how they change: every generation comes back to the classics and “sees” them anew. That’s the thing about poetry, perhaps; the poet writes and decides and means, but the readers read and feel as they see fit. Readers interpret. And these interpretations can become essays and extensive analyses, but they can also become other forms of art. Maybe a song, maybe a drawing. Why not a comic? Julian Peters certainly asked himself that.

“Poems to See By” is an illustrated anthology of classic poems —24, to be exact. Each poem is accompanied by the author’s visual interpretation in the often breathtaking, sometimes amusing form of a comic. As a graphic designer, this sounded like the perfect marriage of two beloved passions. Excited, I requested the collection.

I wasn’t disappointed. This book is exactly what it promises to be, and more. I thought that a single artist tackling 24 poems would result on repetitive styles or obvious recurrences of motifs. Peters did neither. Overall, the breadth of variety in this book is frankly impressing. So is the use of colors and shapes, the different lines and shades. I would’ve never guessed that this was the work of a single artist; despite knowing it was, I still did a double take on more than one occasion, hurrying back to the start to verify that, yes, Peters was the only illustrator. His love for these poems, and the respect with which he approaches each drawing, is crystal clear. His reverence doesn’t stop him from imagining new meanings, and the results are much stronger for this: “As much as it’s true that a picture is worth a thousand words, it’s also the case that a single word can conjure up as many pictures as there are people who read it”.

The book is divided into six sections: Seeing Yourself, Seeing Others, Seeing Art, Seeing Nature, Seeing Time, Seeing Death. The poetry selection for each, in itself, is lovely, with works from a wide variety of familiar names: Dickinson, Angelou, Cummings, Poe, Hughes, among others. Though many of the poems are extremely familiar, others are overlooked jewels of their author’s. I was happy to find some of my favorites among the selection, and I think everyone will find at least one of theirs.

I wholeheartedly recommend this book to fans of poetry and visual arts. Moreover, it would be a lovely addition to every high school English classroom, and a great reference for classes that study and analyze the intersection of visual and textual art-forms. I know I will use it in my own classes. I leave you with Peters’ preface:

“The truth is, I did it all for love of beauty. A beautiful poem is pretty much the most beautiful creation I can imagine… I wanted to pay tribute to the way these poems made me feel, to spend time with them, to pull them in as close to me as possible in the way that, as someone who draws comics, felt the most natural”.

I have never seen anything like this! This is a unique and gorgeous collection of classic poems that is just as appealing to the poetry major as it is to the person who hasn't looked at a poem in 20+ years. The use of different art styles for each poem added depth so there's a little something new even for those who are already familiar with all of the text itself. The selected poems are all fairly famous and relatively (as far as poetry goes) straightforward to interpret, plus the illustrations help as well, further making this a great choice to introduce (or re-introduce, or use to spark discussion about) poetry overall, for people of any age or educational background. I highly recommend this book to everyone, and look forward to more publications from Peters.

I received a copy of #PoemstoSeeBy for review from #NetGalley :)

I love the idea of this book, poems being illustrated. However, this particular collection of poems wasn’t right for me (there were only a few I liked). I would love to see this concept done with a more diverse collection of poems/poets! I did enjoy the variety of art, especially on the few poems that I was a fan of.

This was a wonderful take on some of the great poems I worked on in school, that I enjoyed reading, that I had to explore and dissect in detail for my school exams and that I learned and recited in front of examines during Speech and Drama exams and classes. It brought back so many memories for me of Dickinson, Wordsworth, Hardy, Angelou, Heaney and Yates to name but a few. It was a novel idea, imaginative, just brilliant. I loved it and I would highly recommend this book of 'Poems to See By' to all!!!

Twenty four English language poems from the 19th and 20th centuries, illustrated with sequential art, some color some black and white, to portray the development of the poem's theme. Most of the poems are well known, but the artistic interpretation is an open invitation to revisit the book again and again.

I loved this little book of poetry. The illustrations were amazing. Each artist had a unique interpretation of the poems. I was amazed and enthralled by their talent and insight.