Children's poetry no longer connotes holidays, nonsense, moral dicta, or the what's, why's, and how's of life, connotations that have frequently stereotyped poetry as sissy, baby, or boring stuff. Children's poems of the seventies suggest that any simple subject has become the province of a poem, including such topics as mud, oil slicks, sharks, elevators, worms, wrestling, skateboards, growling stomachs, moving, growing, and dreaming--all segments of a child's reality. The forms of children's poetry are looser, unrestricted by exact regularities in rhythm and rhyme, and invite a special kind of visual as well as aural interaction. With changes in both form and content, children are showing renewed interest in poetry. (AEA)