Poetry Blog

 The collection of reverso poems "Echo Echo" by Marylin Singer, is poems about Greek Mythology, which is told one way, then reversed. The genre of this book is poetry. The theme of the poems is that of Greek Mythology. The illustrations in the book were done by Josee Masse. They are beautiful illustrations, which are also reversed. So, the pictures are either split in half showing a picture of the original poem, then on the other half it depicts the reverso of the original poem, or it is drawn as a reflection. There is a lot of repititon in colors, but they depict what the poems are about. The poem titled Pandora and the Box starts off saying how humans are weak and ends with the word alone, then in the reverso poem, it starts off with the word alone and ends with how humans are weak. The poem describes how Pandora let the evils out into the world from the box, despite being told not to open the box. In both poems that can be seen and they both make sense, they are just reversed to be seen in a different perspective. The poem titled Perseus and Medusa is about how Perseus tells Medusa that he needs her head, but in the revero, she is telling him that she needs his head. Also Perseus tells Medusa that his curse is to be the hero, but in the reverso, Medusa says her curse is to rid the world of "you nasty creatures." These poems are pretty neat, I had never heard of the reverso poems until this class, and I had never read a reverso poem until now. I really like them, and I would most definitely use the book in class. The appropriate grade level for this collection of poems and book is first or second grade. The book can be used to teach Greek mythology. I would use it in class as an enjoyable read aloud. I would also use it in class to get the students familiar to some of the Greek mythology stories.