Joyful Noise: Poems for Two Voices

Joyful Noise: Poems for Two Voices, is a poetry book written by Paul Fleischman and illustrated by Eric Beddows. We have all heard about the miraculous Paul Fleischman from our opening obsessed Block A classes, but I was unaware that he was a poet until recently. The poems in this book are simple, nature focused poems, particularly about insects that are only in our company during the summer. I really liked how the poems are set up, with two distinct voices that go back and forth in each stanza, so that the poems operate perfectly for any kind of reader's theater. The pictures in this book are simple line and ink drawn images of various insects, but the way the text is arranged brings me back to my thoughts of images as poetry. The text is almost like two serpents that go back and forth, fighting for the reader's attention. The inclusion of two voices rather than a sole reader brings new life and meaning in these poems that celebrate the summer night music of these most unappreciated life forms. I think that if the book's poems were not arranged in this unusual format, that it would not be nearly as interesting, but it does, and is a successful example for kids to see yet another way how poetry could look.