ABSTRACT
Maurice Sendak observed that picturebooks are "a complicated poetic form that requires absolute concentration and control". The illustration history of Ann Taylor's sentimental children's poem "My Mother" demonstrates how artists shape responses to a poem. While William Blake and Maurice Sendak form one tradition of the visionary poet-artist who works with archetypal themes and apocalyptic imagery, the light verse tradition has long been a stronghold of poet-artists such as Shel Silverstein and Ludwig Bemelman. Another important role that illustrators play in shaping readers' responses to pre-existing verse is when they take compilations of miscellaneous poems and, by creating a unified look and feel, turn the compilation into a single whole that is greater than the sum of its parts. Scholarship on poetry and the picturebook is still in its infancy, and as more scholars study the rich history of poetry in picturebooks, it is to be hoped that more work by children will come to light.
