Artwork and Grimm fairy tales — with a contemporary twist — inform the poems in “Things Seen,” the fifth and newest book of poetry by Joseph Stanton, a professor of art history at the University of Hawaii at Manoa.

In “Prince Frog” the narrator, turned into a man by a kiss, can’t help but miss “green women I have known.” In a poem describing scenes in Edward Gorey’s “West Wing,” the narrator is startled by another visitor as “a ghost peers through a window.”

From 3 to 4 p.m. Saturday at Barnes & Noble Ala Moana, Stanton will sign his book and give a poem to anyone who stops by to say hi.

Author examines hula master’s innovative twists on tradition

Journalist and best-selling author Constance Hale, who grew up on Oahu and lives in California, has published “The Natives Are Restless: A San Francisco Dance Master Takes Hula Into the 21st Century,” a history of the work of kumu hula Patrick Makuakane.

Hale, who studies with the Hawaii-born hula master, understands his impulse to take traditional moves in contemporary directions, setting dances, for example, to Cyndi Lauper and Tony Bennett. Plus, his dancers have the option to wear sweatpants. Makuakane’s inclusive and creative approach has proved popular: His San Francisco halau, Na Lei Hulu i ka Wekiu, has 350 members of diverse backgrounds and ages. The coffee-table book, lavishly illustrated with color photos, is also full of life and wit.

From noon to 3 p.m. Nov. 20, the public is invited to meet and chat with Makuakane and Hale and enjoy the music of Kupaoa at a free event at Na Mea Hawa‘i in Ward Warehouse.