Water Sings Blue: Ocean Poems

By Kate Coombs/ Illustrated By Meilo So

This book of poems centers around the theme of the ocean and the creatures that live in and around it. The end pages introduce the reader to the ocean through the use of sand colored pages with bird footprints, an arm of a crab, a gull feather and a clam shell. The front matter contains an illustration of an ocean wave against the sky (at the beginning and end of the book.) This introduction/conclusion technique serves as a technique to "transport" the reader into and out of the "lyrical world" of the ocean. 

The poems are organized in a transitional manner. The reader gets gradually "pulled into" the ocean as the poems progress. For example, the opening poem "Song of the Boat" begins the movement of transport with the words "Push away from the stillness of the nut-brown land.." The second and third poems focus on the birds and sand surrounding the surface of the ocean while the fourth poem and on focuses on underwater wildlife and nature.  Each poem is placed either inside, on top of , or 

surrounding the illustrations depicting the subject and details of the text.  You can see in "Sea Turtle," the title is placed above the backside of the turtle while the poem itself is located below.  The turtle appears to be swimming with or towards the "Octopus Ink" illustration.  The illustrations clearly serve as a means to create transition, balance and flow among the poems themselves. 

The second half of the book "moves" the reader back towards the surface of the ocean towards land. The centerfold with the poem "Ocean Realty" begins this "outward" movement.  This poem playfully describes the natural tendency for hermit crabs to search for a bigger shell. This poem acts as a "real-estate listing" by describing the qualities of an oceanfront property. the illustrations of the different shells with the presence of palm trees in the background promotes the coexisting of humans and ocean life. 

The final poem, "Tideline" cleverly concludes the book with the text "Don't forget me- I was here, wasss h e r e, wassss h e r e. . ," The final lines of the book create an "echo" effect suggesting the idea of waking from a dream or the gradual awakening of the reader moving back to "reality" while exiting the "lyrical ocean world." The illustration also serves as a conclusion to the book because it contains a warm color palette, the setting of the dark orange sun, and the position of the ocean (moving away from the reader).