Firecrackers and patriotism, sunburns and shaved ice, July was called the "hot month" in Bulgaria, partly because the people celebrated a fire festival of three days duration beginning on the 15th.  July is also the month in which National Ice Cream Day falls and it’s the perfect month to contemplate a summer reading list.

Here, a selection of poetry flavors for you to savor as this month licks the trickle of days off the cone of the year:

FROM PORN TO POETRY: CLEAN SHEETS CELEBRATES THE EROTIC MIND

Susannah Indigo and Brian Peters, Editors,  Samba Mountain Press, Publisher

Summer is about throwing caution to the (hot and heavy) winds. Do you always wear sunscreen? Sunglasses? A hat? Lay out in the hottest part of the day with nothing on but coconut oil and you’ll get an experience that’s close to reading this book. The steamy contents of this book will leave whispers of sweat tracing trails across a sunburn’s worth of flushed and blushing skin. Clothes will come off – just to make that hot skin feel better – and you’ll find yourself looking for a lapping lapis lake (or other suitable metaphor) to dive into. Hold this book too long and your hands get blistered. See if I’m right.

Available through the publisher or from Amazon.com for $16.95

JAPANESE DEATH POEMS:  WRITTEN BY ZEN MONKS & HAIKU POETS ON THE VERGE OF DEATH 

Yoel Hoffman, Compiler, Charles E Tuttle Co, Inc., Publisher

The ephemeral nature of things born in summer, summer love, summer songs, and summer fireflies (fireflies glow their entire life span, which generally lasts for three to four weeks. Eggs, larvae, and adults all glow. Then they die and the cycle begins anew.), turns the mind to thoughts of death. And in this collection, arranged alphabetically and encompassing work by Zen masters, samurai, Shinto followers and women, death itself hints at being ephemeral. The introduction includes background material and the book has explanatory text.

Available from the publisher or through Amazon.com for $16.95

VERY BAD POETRY
Kathryn Petras and Ross Petras, Editors, Vintage Books

Days so hot that reading too fast gives you a brain freeze quicker than a 7-11 slurpee big gulp require a book like this: “Being a compendium of the worst verse ever written in English – including such (mercifully) forgotten classics as The Stuttering Lover, Ode on the Mammoth Cheese, An Elegy to a dissected Puppy, A Pindaricque on the Grunting of a Hog and the immortal The Dentologia – A Poem on the Diseases of the Teeth.”

The editors assert, “Writing very bad poetry requires talent. It helps to have a wooden ear for words, a penchant for sinking into a mire of sentimentality, and an enviable confidence that allows one to write despite absolutely appalling incompetence.” And I side-achingly agree. Enjoy this collection at the risk of getting a stitch in your side and tears – of laughter – in your eyes.

Available through the publisher or through Amazon.com for $10.00

THE FROGS WORE RED SUSPENDERS
Jack Prelutsky, Petra Mathers (Illustrator), Harper Collins Publishers

Take your favorite kids on a road trip, steer through Tuscaloosa, El Paso, Winnemucca, Indianapolis, Minnesota and the Grand Canyon (just to mention a few destinations) – all from the seat of your hammock, little one beside you, no air bags and no worries:

The frog wore red suspenders
and the pigs worse purple vests,
as they sang to all the chickens
and the ducks upon their nests. 

They croaked and oinked a serenade,
the ducks and chickens sighed,
then laid enormous spangled eggs,
and quacked and clucked with pride.

This geography rich, bright and delightful collection of 28 nonsensical poems, for children five and older, will delight you as much as the child you are reading it to. There’s a tiny baker who bakes a tiny cookie, a granny who lost her footing and fell into pudding, elephants who sit in trees and sneeze, and a small hen who is stuck at the bottom of the Grand Canyon. The illustrations by Petra Mathers, watercolor paintings, add to the poems in a truly complementary way often adding subplots to the poems that children will have great fun pointing out along the way (kind of like car games only way better than “license plate” or “churches and graveyards”).

“Again! Again!” nicely replaces “Are we there yet?” in this verbal road trip.

Available through the publisher or Amazon.com for $16.95

THE BOOK OF HOPE and THE WORLD HEALING BOOK
Birgitta Jonsdottir, Editor, Michael Lohr, Co-Editor and Larry Jaffe, Honorary Editor, Beyond Borders Press

This, our first summer after 911, will also be a time for reflection for most of us. With the July 4th holiday turning thoughts toward country and with daily news releases directing our minds to new terrorist threats, we’ll all certainly be reflecting on 911 and what it has made of our lives.

End your summer reading on an empowering note by buying and reading these two collections. You will be reaching out and actively doing something to make a difference in our world just by buying them – all proceeds from the sales of The Book of Hope and The World Healing Book will go to UNICEF with the focus to help Afghan children.

The poetry is awe-inspiring – a mighty roar of a response that will make the hair at the back of your neck stand up at attention and salute your heart. The works of art included in the collection are astonishing – and among those astonishing works of art are pieces from 19 little children in the Head Start Program. 

From the editor’s press release:

Among the authors and artists in the books are taking part in the project are works by H.H. Dalai Lama, the poet laureate of San Fransico Lawrence Ferlinghetti, former poet laureate of USA Rita Dove, John Kinsella, Icelandic musical phenomenon Sigur Ros, The Poetry House of Morocco, Javanese Sufi Master Muhammed Zuhr, Rabbi Michael Lerner and members of the Buddhist, Hindu, Jewish, Christian and Muslim world communities. As well as new voices and established poets and artists from around the world. It is in this great diversity that the seeds of hope and healing are being sown for our future.

THE BOOK OF HOPE is $16.00 and THE WORLD HEALING BOOK is $22.00. Both are available through the publisher, Beyond Borders Press.