Helga Aichinger «I never saw…»

Источник иллюстраций: archive.org

In this 1972 work, Judson Jerome, an outstanding American Poet and writer, and Helga Aichinger, a wonderful illustrator and artist in her own right, has brought to us a short book of poetry for children. Each page of this work offers a short poem of what a child sees during a dream. As with most dreams, their content consists of many things we will never see, some exciting, some mundane. We all understand this and it is fun to contemplate the, i.e. our dreams, and children are no different.

I’ve watched the clouds of hours and hours,
lying still upon my back,
but never saw an eagle pass
with wings so wide and black.

or

I never saw a hedgehog with
an apple stuck upon his back
happily walking through the fields,
beneath a sky so black

or

I’ve never seen two lovers float
in such a tiny, pointed boat,
where the moon glows in lake and sky
and fish jump up as though to fly.

This is a sampling of the short, descriptive and thoughtful poems offered. This is only half of it though. The art work here is quite impressive. Each poem is accompanied by a dark, dream like painting which fits perfectly with the poetic offering. The artist has used dark, dream like shades that fit the mood of the text perfectly. There is color, but it has bee used quite effectively here and there to offset the dream quality of the rest of the painting.

This is a wonderful work to read with your child. The poems offered here are short and easy to understand, yet have a complexity to them that offer the opportunity for the adult to get into some great discussions with the child.

All in all, this is another of those books out of print that we should not loose.

Don Blankenship
The Ozarks