The Real Tin Flower: Poems about the World at Nine. Poems by Aliki Barnstone. Published by Crowell-Collier Press in 1968.
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Foreward by Anne Sexton. Drawings by Paul Giovanopoulos.

The Pulitzer Prize-winning poet Anne Sexton has said of Aliki Barnstone's poems, "Here is a marvel....if these poems were written by a girl in her twenties, one would marvel at their vivid qualities."

But Aliki Barnstone is just twelve years old and most of the poems in this book were written when she was nine.

She writes articulately of her responses to color, seasons, places, the Beatles, bubblegum, numbers, nature, the universe. Her imagery is sharp and often witty. Each poem has its own unpredictable yet inevitable logic.

The work of this very young poet will delight readers of all ages.

"Here are poems that startle the senses--in every sense spanking new. One could call them fresh merchandise in a world of stale supermarkets. Aliki Barnstone writes articulately about simple subjects with a new eye for snatching pictures out of everday life ... She has her eye on the object. The poems are limited to a subject matter that one might expect a young girl to deal with but have an exciting precision of language. Aliki Barnstone is the child imagist in each of us and these poems ought to charm anyone of any age."
--Anne Sexton