Tuesday, March 31, 2026

Artists and Poems: Julian Peters and “Nature Poems to See By”


It’s one of those “Aha!” moments. I was reading an illustrated poem, William Shakespeare’s Sonnet 18 (“Shall I Compare Thee to a Summer’s Day”) when I realized I’ve been long fascinated with mixing artistic genres. 

Robin Robertson’s The Long Take is a classic detective novel written as poetry. Sara Barkat has taken classic stories or novels and transformed them – The Yellow Wall-PaperThe Picture of Dorian GrayDr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, H.P. Lovecraft’s The Colour Out of Space, and even Dracula.

 

I didn’t think this was some great personal revelation, but I was struck by how I tend to gravitate toward graphic treatments of classic or contemporary texts.

 

The work that included Shakespeare’s Sonnet 18 was Nature Poems to See By by Julian Peters. It’s a collection of 24 classic nature poems, arranged by season (each with six), and illustrated with what is a literary comic strip. 


To continue reading, please see my post today at Tweetspeak Poetry.


Some Tuesday Readings

 

Happy National Poetry Month! – Tweetspeak Poetry.

 

Letters – poem by Mary Meriam at Every Day Poems.

 

Close and Slow: ‘Poem’ by Simon Armitage – Andrew Roycroft at New Grub Street.

 

3 Poems for Holy Week – Jody Lee Collins.

 

The Mystery of Poetic Imprinting – Denise Trull at The Inscapist.

 

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