Dizzy in Your Eyes: Poems about Love - Pat Mora

Dizzy in Your Eyes: Poems about Love - Pat Mora

Bibliography: 

Mora, P. (2012). Dizzy in Your eyes: Poems about love. Ember.

Plot Summary: 

An original collection of poems, each with a different teen narrator sharing unique thoughts, moments, sadness, or heart's desire: the girl who loves swimming, plunging into the water that creates her own world; the guy who leaves flowers on the windshield of the girl he likes. Each of the teens in these 50 original poems, written using a variety of poetic forms, will be recognizable to the reader as the universal emotions, ideas, impressions, and beliefs float across the pages in these gracefully told verses.

Critical Analysis:

Pat Mora writes this book of poetry about all different types of love. Mora writes a letter to her readers and explains that she "started out writing free-verse without counting syllables or stresses."I read that her editor recommended to her that she add a Haiku or Sonnet to show readers some challenges that this types of poems can create. Mora ends up writing a Clerihew as her first poem and uses her own name as the first line. She explains to the reader what a Clerihew is.

Her poems tackle common themes of love and includes the Spanish language uniquely woven into them. She writes about pets, family, first love and an encounter with someone that does not speak Spanish as a non-English speaker and their desired attempt to communicate. It was very cute. She also writes a poem about her grandmother and grandfather's courting experience.

As a lover of poetry when I was in my middle school experience, I would have loved to have read this book. I remember writing a lot and often checked out books on poetry. Often, I found poems that were a bit more serious or mature for my age and I feel that this book tackles a commonly felt feeling in a suitable way for teenagers!

Review Excerpt: 

Booklist

Mora writes in free verse, as well as a wide variety of classic poetic forms--including haiku, clerihew, sonnet, cinquain, and blank verse--and...the tight structures intensify the strong feelings in the poems.

Kirkus Reviews 

The poet's voice is multifaceted: tender, humorous and joyful but also profound ... The author employs an extraordinary diversity of poetic forms.

School Library Journal

Peppered with Spanish, the selections define the emotion in countless ways...Teachers in need of a fresh new avenue for teaching poetic form...and teens in search of a broader definition of love will find it here.

Connections:

Pat Mora Website with background to a few poems

Poetry

Emotions and Feelings