Poems to See By illustrated by Julian Peters is a collection of illustrated poems broken into groups of seeing -- nature, love, time, death and others. Julian Peters is an illustrator and comic book artist living in Montreal, Canada, who specializes in adapting classical poems into graphic art.

Many of the best poems are presented in the collection from Invictus to The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock.  Some of the poems and art combine to produce emotions such as Conscientious Objector by Edna St. Vincent Millay others light and with a touch humor like e.e. cummings' May My Heart Always be Open.  Maya Angelou's Caged Bird appears to be embroidered on a quilt, and watercolors illustrate Langston Hughes' Jukebox Love Song.  Wordsworth, The World is Too Much With Us is illustrated with a modern theme of cell phones, and Shelley's Ozymandias has a historical twist. 

Great poetry supplemented with a variety of art from pen and ink to manga gives an added appreciation to the original work and sometimes adds a modern touch or interpretation without changing the poem's intent.  A very well done selection of poems and inspiring artwork to match. 

Available March 31, 2020

This was a very pleasant book, although not one I would deem an urgent must-buy for either poetry lovers or fans of adapted works in graphic form. It's a very canonical poetry collection, from cummings to Eliot and from 'Not Waving But Drowning' to a bit of death and glory from Poe of all things, and we get the plain text after each illustrated version. But the key to the book of course is going to be the visual interpretations. And these work, those that managed to surface before the cut-off for my e-proof sampler. They are suitably varied, so the Heaney is desperately wind-blown and colourless, whereas Maya Angelou (yes, that one) gets the patchwork quilting circle approach. But that's not to say more off-kilter choices have not been made – Wordsworth now comes to us via mobile phone messages and memes, which in this instance does actually work, as does the modern politics given to Ozymandias. The media used vary suitably, too – a lot is nicely painted, or at least looks water-colour, only for Yeats to be dressed up like a manga. Many times the text appears within the image as part of it, and not just as caption. If anything knocked the marks down, I think it's a misreading of the Poe – I'm sure he enters her sepulchre for a nightly kip, and not just stays beside it like a lovesick sea otter waiting for a beachcomber – and that for all its merits it will probably best serve as the publishers suggest, as evidence for school use of how poetry can be reinterpreted by other creators. It sounds daft to knock a book for doing what the publishers want, but I would have thought this format could perhaps have done more.

I really enjoyed the fresh and innovative techniques used by the illustrator and the diversity of different types of styles that were used. Some of the poetry was a bit bland for me the art was always exceptional.

Julian Peters' Poems to See By collects 24 popular poems and pairs them with illustrations drawn by Peters based on his interpretation of the poems' meanings.

I found this collection to be a refreshing reread of poems by Maya Angelou, Christina Rossetti, W.H. Auden, Emily Dickinson, Langston Hughes and others. While Peters included some of the most well-known poetry taught in high school and college-level classes, he also featured lesser-covered poets and their works, which I appreciated.

Peters' idea of illustrating popular poems will be useful for English teachers and poetry readers--close readings are enhanced by being able to actually see what is going on in the scene itself. His illustrations offer new images to go along with these poems, as well as a new spin on how to interpret them in more modern times.

I was shocked at how many different art styles Peters was able to do; they not only seemed to fit the overall style and tone of the poems, but furthered the experience of the reading. It was as if continued meaning was being given to them.

Overall, this is a book I'll be recommending to faculty who teach poetry and high school English teachers. I'm excited to go out and get a finished copy when it's released in March!

This book contains 25 classic poems converted into comics. I loved how the artist used different colours, panel structure and drawing style for each poem. Each comic is interpreted in a way that suits the theme of the poem.

As someone new to poetry and a comic lover, I appreciated how this book illustrated lines from classic poems as comics followed by the full text of the poem. This book would be of interest to ardent poetry lovers and poetry newbies alike.