These poems from one of Africa's most highly acclaimed poets and the winner of the 1991 Noma Award for Publishing in Africa, are an ironic celebration of collective aspirations, failures, guilts and hopes. They call for change in a society wracked with problems. The poet sets out to produce a collection that captures the significant happenings of the time in a tune that is simple, accessible, topical, relevant, and artistically pleasing and, as he puts it: 'to remind kings about the corpses which line their way to the throne, to show the rich the slums which fester behind their castles, to praise virtue, denounce vice, to mirror the triumphs and travails of the downtrodden, to celebrate the green glory of the rainy season and the brown accent of the dry, to distil poetry from the dust and clay of the vast, prodigious land - songs plucked from the lips of my land in its manifold laughters and sorrows.'

Sing a Song of Seasons is a lavishly illustrated collection of 366 nature poems — one for every day of the year. Filled with familiar favorites and new discoveries written by a wide variety of poets, including William Shakespeare, Emily Dickinson, John Updike, Langston Hughes, N. M. Bodecker, Okamoto Kanoko, and many more, this is the perfect book for children (and grown-ups!) to share at the beginning or the end of the day.

Spring will marry you. A promise! Cuckoo brings the message: May. O new clothes! O get your house ready! Expectation keeps you starry. But at which church and on what day? In these poems Ted Hughes invites the reader to try and catch the spring (but she's elusive); to take a closer look at the March calf; to listen to the happiness of the summer grass; and to notice the 'weak-neck snowdrops' in winter. Earth is revealed in all its surprising richness and rawness, and so is humankind's own constantly changing relationship with the seasons.

"A magical story of the seasons by Margaret Wise Brown"--Back cover.

A hymn by the author of Moonsong Lullaby offers a gentle reminder that humankind is not the center of the natural world.

An illustrated version of the traditional English carol centering on good cheer and figgy pudding.

Swinger herself composed several of the tunes, but most are time-tested folk melodies. Gathered from dozens of countries - including Finland, Japan, Sweden, Jamaica, Poland, China, Russia, Germany, England, and Peru - they represent a broad spectrum of traditions that will suit the multi-cultural sensibilities of almost any home or school.