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OAKVILLE — David Booth, author of Head to Toe Spaghetti and Other Tasty Poems, was recently featured in Canadian Children’s Book News magazine in an article written by Larry Swartz. In the article, Larry talks about Canadian poetry and gets comments from David on what poetry means to him, the process of writing poetry, and sharing poetry with young people both in and out of the classroom. Head to Toe Spaghetti helps bring all of this together. “David Booth knows poetry and with Head to Toe Spaghetti and Other Tasty Poems he serves a banquet of poetic forms to help readers contemplate and celebrate meals, snacks, and international cuisine that may or may not be familiar to them.” Larry calls the book “a delicious collection of poetry that builds connections through the topic of food [and] pays tribute to both rhyming and non-rhyming poems”.

Why food poems? David created Head to Toe Spaghetti from different notes and pieces he had recorded in several notebooks over 40 years. He wanted to honour the power of food to bring people together, and his book of poems is one way to show different traditions, cultural fares, and family favourites.

David has always been a lover of poetry, describing it as “words that haunt; words that shout; words that remain; words that whisper again and again; words that tickle; words that tremble; words that stay in our own cloud of memory; words I never would have known; words that startle feelings hidden in our subconscious; words that turn and twist the rules of language like pretzels”. And certainly, Head to Toe Spaghetti fits this definition well!

When asked about how youth interact with poetry, David explains, “In a sense, young people are surrounded by poetic language today, not necessarily in school, but interwoven in their daily lives. Popular music, from Bob Dylan to rock to rap, captures the emotional power of words and rhythms and sounds, and children join in, move, sing, and feel the internal magic of felt/thought language. It is a unifying force, a way of being collectively among and alongside others”.

Head to Toe Spaghetti and Other Tasty Poems is a great addition to the classroom or your home for your kids and family to get engaged with poetry. To learn more about this tasty collection, click here!