This Place I Know: Poems of Comfort

Artists Respond to a Post-9/11 World

Life is mostly froth and bubble,
Two things stand like stone;
Kindness in another's trouble,
Courage in your own.

In September 2001, New York poetry anthologist Georgia Heard was asked to compile a collection of "poems of comfort" for schoolchildren in lower Manhattan. Soon afterward, Candlewick Press editors learned of the project and, believing that people everywhere could benefit from such a collection, approached a number of illustrators to ask if they would be interested in participating. Within weeks, no fewer than eighteen artists – myself among them – agreed to volunteer their talents to illustrate one poem each. The result is this unprecedented volume of life-affirming verse.

From Emily Dickinson's "Hope is the thing with feathers" to Langston Hughes's "Hold on to Dreams," from Walt Whitman to Georgia Heard herself, the book is an outstanding selection of poets and poems. I am honored to be one of a stellar array of artists whose collective work on these pages is truly spectacular.