Poems profound, beautiful — even from a 4-year-old

Step into the world of a poet: Examine the world with magnifying-glass eyes and open your heart to the joys that sneak up on you, of swooping owls, and the smell of cookies, and the wispy clouds of a June afternoon. April is National Poetry Month, and the shelves are full of gorgeous new books that sing, shout and whisper about the power of poetry by authors old and new.

“Marshmallow Clouds: Two Poets at Play Among Figures of Speech” by Ted Kooser and Connie Wanek, illustrated by Richard Jones. (Ages 10 through 14. Candlewick Press. $19.99.)

Ted Kooser, former U.S. poet laureate and winner of the Pulitzer Prize, partners with another acclaimed poet, Connie Wanek, in a collection of nature-centered poems full of Midwestern scenery (the two are based in Nebraska and Minnesota) and quiet moments at home (with odes to a TV remote and a fly swatter).

The poems are gorgeous and assured, recounting meteors “scratching the heavens,/ just little scratches,/ the kind a cat might make” and summer days that leave you feeling “boiled and salted/ like a peanut.” The poets even ponder the important question of why pets don’t write. “Dogs don’t have time to write./ Cats do, but they say things like/ ‘Guess what I think? You never will.’ “

Fortunately, Kooser and Wanek, unlike their pets, had the time — and the inclination — to put pen to paper.

“Take Off Your Brave: The World Through the Eyes of a Preschool Poet” by Nadim, illustrated by Yasmeen Ismail.

(Ages 4 through 8. Candlewick Press. $17.99.)

What on Earth could a preschooler have to say about the world? A tremendous amount, as it turns out — about love, school, flowers, life underground and favorite things.

Some poems are profound in ways that only the very young, who wear their feelings out in the open, can be: “Everything you ever know loves someone/ Everyone has love/ Even baddies.” In “My Dream School,” the kids are kittens, the teachers are dinosaurs, and “the school smells like daffodils, honey,/ And sometimes stinky socks.” In “Scared-Sugar,” 4-yearold Nadim captures the feeling of doing something new, scary and sweet at the same time, “Like touching a sea anemone/ Like sleeping over at your cousin’s house ... Like becoming 5 instead of 4.”

Nadim’s poems, both deep and light, are great inspiration for other young poets — and a promise of more exciting things to come from the young artist.

“I’d Like to Be the Window for a Wise Old Dog” by Philip Stead.

(Ages 3 through 7. Doubleday Books for Young Readers. $18.99.)

Author and artist Philip Stead’s book pairs a poetic text with softly colored illustrations of thoughtful animals, showcasing the sensitivity of both his writing and his art.

His rumination considers all the things he’d like to be: “the raindrop falling on a turtle shell” and “the puddle for a big bullfrog,” but most of all, a window for an old dog, “who’ll look through me and wonder happily about everything she’s never been and ever been.”

Look through this book like a window, and ponder who and what you could be — poet, artist, thinker or dreamer.