The Girl in Glass: Love Poems

"Now touch the air softly,/Step gently, One, two. . ./I'll love you till roses and robin's-egg blue;/I'll love you till gravel/Is eaten for bread,/And lemons are orange,/And lavender's red." So begins "A Pavane for the Nursery," one of William Jay Smith's most celebrated and charming love poems. Collected here for the first time are this and many more of Smith's enchanting paeans to love, a bevy of bewitched words of the sort no loved one could ever hear enough. Whether committed to a delighted reader's memory, recited out loud at a romantic wedding, or set to music by a love-struck composer (as Ned Rorem has done), the poems in this intimate book, illustrated by the late Ukrainian woodcut master Jacques Hnizdovsky, bespeak love in a variety of forms. Also included are striking translations of such poets as Frederico Garcia Lorca and Jacques Prevert. A most gifted and original poet ... One of the very few who cannot be confused with anybody else. --Richard Wilbur [Smith] is rooted in the concrete and the sensuous--in sight, sound, and touch ... That he has written poems replete with rhythm, rhyme, wit, and melody ... is cause for celebration, homage, and gratitude. --Elizabeth Frank, "The Atlantic Monthly" Poetry by William Jay Smith. Illustrations by Jacques Hnizdovsky. 5.5 x 6.5 in. 31 b/w illustrations