The Praise Continues for Thomas and Poetry's Playground

Joseph T. Thomas, Jr., Assistant Professor of English and Composition, was notified this week that his book, Poetry's Playground: The Culture of Contemporary American Children's Poetry (Wayne State UP), has been selected as the Children's Literature Association's 2009 honor book, for outstanding book-length scholarly work.

This is a real honor in the field of children's literature studies. The honor is given annually, the committee choosing the honor book from all scholarly books published in the area of children's literature internationally.

In her review Susan Kreller describes Thomas's "great merit [in Poetry's Playground] is his canny defence of children’s poetry as an important part of poetry and his insistence that there is no such thing as real poetry,only poetry."

Thomas is quite pleased, and elated to share this honor with the department of English & Comparative Literature, SDSU's National Center for the Study of Children's Literature, the College of Arts & Letters, and, of course, the university itself.

You can also read more of Thomas's insights in his review of The Tenth Rasa: An Anthology of Indian Nonsense. This text, Thomas explains, "crystallises our understanding of nonsense, even as it surveys the diverse landscape of Indian nonsense, providing insight into Indian culture,
folk-traditions, and literary history."