A collection of poems that provide a look at some of the animals, insects, and plants that are found in ponds, with accompanying information about each.

A spider is a “never-tangling dangling spinner / knitting angles, trapping dinner.” A tree frog proposes, “Marry me. Please marry me… / Pick me now. / Make me your choice. / I’m one great frog / with one strong voice.” VanDerwater lets the denizens of the forest speak for themselves in twenty-six lighthearted, easy-to-read poems. As she observes, “Silence in Forest / never lasts long. / Melody / is everywhere / mixing in / with piney air. / Forest has a song.” The graceful, appealing watercolor illustrations perfectly suit these charming poems that invite young readers into the woodland world at every season.

Mapfumo Clement Chihota is a Zimbabwean poet and short-story writer. His creative works have been published Zimbabwe, South Africa, the USA and the United Kingdom in anthologies or journals such as No More Plastic Balls and other Stories (co-edited with Robert Muponde); Writing Still; Writing Now; New Coin Poetry; Tripwire Journal of Poetics; The Warwick Reviewand Where to Now? Short Stories from Zimbabwe. Mapfumo currently teaches into Community and Human Services programs at Federation University in Melbourne, Australia. The collection Before the Next Song and other Poems was initially published by Mambo Press Publishers in 1999. It has been used as an 'A level' literature set book in Zimbabwean secondary schools.

Spells of Solemn Songs is a collection of poems that raises strident voices of confrontation against the bastardisation of the space on political, economic, religious and foreign fronts as well as condemns without fear the lacklustre attitudes of some apathetic figures. It further redirects minds to some ideal African ethos and humane values that engender communal and social well-being and oneness. Carved in a language so mellifluous and so unreservedly resolute, its matchless rhythimic cadence enhances easy reading, flow and comprehension while critically challenging the readers’ perception of the world around.

Marsh Boy and other Poems is a welcome contribution to the tradition of poetry devoted to the revolutionary struggles of the people of the oil-rich Niger Delta region of Nigeria. The poems celebrate the radical spirit of the oppressed and exploited people in their relentless quest for equity, equality, and justice. They are songs of anguish, revenge, defiance, love and patriotism.

With unspeakable tenderness and palpable trepidation, Nigerian poet Obi Nwakanma captures the universal experience of childbirth. From his earlier collection The Horsemen and Other Poems, Nwakanma has become a “sojourner from a tangled past traveling to an uncertain future”, trying to root, shape and steel his unborn child to a world filled with graphic horror and indescribable wonder. Along the way he meets his muse, the sixteenth century mystical Indian poet Mirabai, and recites Elizabeth Bishop over tea. Thematically, Bithcry is intimate, lyrical and unrestrained while retaining a measured, coherent and precise form.

Winner of the ANA/Cadbury Prize, 2009, Heart Songs, Akachi Adimora-Ezeigbo's first collection of poems, reveals the hidden poetic mind of a writer who had previously worked extensively and excelled as a novelist. At one level. the poems read like the products of a souls just out of a certain prison. They break the barriers of the unity of thought that governs the writing of a novel, as Adimora-Ezeigbo is at home with subjects as varies as power, love, culture, gender, philosophy and crime in this collection.