Water Sings Blue

Starred review from February 27, 2012
Coombs punctuates her sweeping, lullaby-like poems about the ocean with surprising personification and unexpected imagery. “My name’s Frank Hermit,” says a hermit crab, a seaside real estate agent. “I have listings for periwinkles,/ whelks, and wentletraps;/ turbans, tops, and moon shells;/ a palatial conch, perhaps?” She describes a jellyfish in short, lush lines: “Deep water shimmers./ A wind-shape passes,/ kimono trailing.” So’s watercolor spreads are supple and filled with life—fish cluster around the “wide green map/ on Sea Turtle’s back,” while a gulper eel is entwined with a dragonlike oarfish. Like the tide that repeats, “I was here,/ wasss here/ wasssss here...” the evocative descriptions and images echo and linger. Ages 4–8. Agent: Brenda Bowen, Sanford J. Greenburger Associates.