And Everything Will Be Glad To See You
Selected by Ella Risbridger and Illustrated by Anna Shepeta
Published by Nosy Crow
AND Everything Will Be Glad To See You targets young readers as a heartwarming introductory poetry anthology.
In selecting these poems, Risbridge made the choice not to include poetry for men, so to better highlight the history of women being left out of literature, with many writers having to stay anonymous or use a masculine pen name.
This challenges the girls of the present who are about to be the women of the future to cherish poetry and writing, even if it is not what they do themselves and to find inspiration in it to take through life.
It’s the perfect gift for the children in your life, a memorable and beautifully illustrated anthology which effortlessly presents not only the exciting tricks of language found in poetry, but also of family, growth and seeing the world with both hope and determination to improve it.
There is not one simple theme to the poems contained within this collection, but rather a -journey of ideas, flowing from one to the next. This is achieved, with no strict subheadings but rather small groupings of similar poems against the backdrop of related illustrations.
Some of these are shorter than others, lasting only two poems while other themes can be found in little ways throughout, such as observations on nature with some references to climate change.
It speaks about growing confidence in your relationships and in yourself to follow all that you want to do and create.
From this there is an understanding of why poetry as a medium has so much power emotionally. How you can be brought to see the world or even one item or one person, from the perspective of someone you’ve never known, to have what they see presented to you in such a way you can almost see it too.
Seeing this for the first time, with such carefully chosen poetry that is accessible for young minds brims with possibility. Seeing something as a writer many years or miles away from you can explain better than any lecture, how we are inherently connected, that all the emotions that feel so revolutionary or even scary are universal.
READ MORE: The Eternal Return Of Clara Hart: Stuck in a loop where rejection of misogyny is escape
When the poetry has all been read there are two indexes, one of poets, and one of poems, with the page number on which they can be found listed. The value of this in an anthology is that you can remember which writer or piece was your favourite and explore further, learn more about one person’s writing, one style of poetry or read more about the ideas it expressed.
In her afterword, Risbridge says: “I hope the poems in this book light your way to all sorts of things. Think of these poems not like still pictures, but more like doors: things you can push on, and that will open on to other things.”
This book is truly something special and loving.
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