Poetry Q & A With David L. Harrison

Learning about poetry informs all of my writing. I’ve asked poet David L. Harrison to answer three questions for writers entering the world of poetry for children. Thank you for the thoughtful answers and resources, David.


What are a few of the key elements that mark the good poetry being written for children today?

What a puzzle that is! Two poems side by side could conceivably have the same number of words, equal lengths of line, identical rhyme schemes and metric patterns. They might have the same number of stanzas, be on the same subject, even be written by the same poet. Yet one poem turns out brilliantly and the other fails. Jean Karl, a highly respected children’s editor, used to say that picture books were like soap bubbles. They either floated or they didn’t. You couldn’t fix one; you simply went on to another. I think the same can be said of a poem. No matter how hard you try to perfect them, some pop with disappointment while others seem to float on their own with little conscious effort by the poet.

 Nevertheless, the poet remains aware of the basic elements of poetry. What is the point of what’s being said? It isn’t enough to begin laying out rhymes or painting imagery willy-nilly. If meter is to be used, it must be applied evenly and consistently throughout the established pattern. The techniques are there and the poet learns how to use them. But they are tools in a tool box. The vision, the plan, the architect’s sketches, come from the poet and cannot be found among the tools.

What guides your choices when writing lyrical lines?

Lyrics sing. Or they aren’t lyrics. Lyrical lines hum in my head as I write. I smile, sometimes, at how good they sound. I frown, often, at a rough edge that stops me in mid-hum to wonder what I could possibly have been thinking when I wrote the line that way. When I walk down the hall from my office to the kitchen for a cup of coffee, I nearly always whistle. It’s an old habit that probably irritates others, but I can’t seem to stop. I almost never whistle the same tune. Some are old chestnuts from high school days; some are from musicals; some move as quickly as the cadence of my steps on productive mornings; some drag like funeral dirges on slow beginnings.

In other words, lyrical lines fit the mood, the time, the place, the tone of the poem. If my writing is excited by a child running through it, my lines will be peppy and short. If I’m inspired by the doves in our maple tree, my lyrical lines will coo gently and take their time revealing their meaning. My sense of purpose guides my selection of words and how they form the lines of my message.

Which children’s literature poets do you read today for inspiration?

First, a reader prospecting for good poetry should know that poetry is hard to sell in large printings and most publishers won’t deal with it. The amount of space allocated to poetry in a typical store is minimal and often represents collections by the best known names in our business. There’s certainly nothing wrong with reading the works of the most recognized writers of children’s poetry except that the menu, when limited only to the works of a dozen people or so, is limited to a small ensemble of voices out of the full choir out there singing their hearts out.

Anthologies give us an excellent opportunity to read samples of poems by poets whose names might be less widely known. The internet is providing wonderful opportunities to meet many poets simply by looking at their blogs and websites.

Renee La Tulippe is building a fine online collection of poems on video.

No Water River

Janet Wong and Sylvia Vardell are creating a growing number of e-book anthologies.

Poetry Tag Time

Falling Down the Page and other good collections of poems have been edited by Georgia Heard.

Falling Down the Page

J. Patrick Lewis, our current Poet Laureate of Children’s Literature, introduces 200 poems about animals by poets all over the world for National Geographic.

Book of Animal Poetry

Lee Bennett Hopkins has set a record with 113 anthologies on a wide variety of subjects that feature numerous poets.

Sara Holbrook has recorded some of her excellent work.

YouTube

Thank you very much for inviting me to your blog!

David

Cowboys (Wordsong, 2012) is David L. Harrison’s latest book. Readers of all ages will find the poems about cowboys engaging and fun to read aloud. The illustrations by Dan Burr are filled with the movement of horses, cattle, and personable characters. Connecting the Dots is David’s blog. And I see that David posted a wonderful poem and comment yesterday at Poetry At Play.
Connecting the Dots
Poetry At Play

In the Moment

My spring odyssey across the American southern states, up and around the east coast to Campobello Island, New Brunswick, and of a flight to explore the Lake District countryside has my writing cup overflowing. Still, I am slightly lost this morning. How can I hold on to the feeling of absolute immersion into living in the moment? Only my decision each day to the direction, the road, and the stopping places I felt like experiencing . . . it was a rare opportunity. Exhilarating. Calming. And grounding for a writer closely connected to the spirit of landscape. Oh, to walk in the footsteps of William Wordsworth, Carl Sandburg, and Eudora Welty, to internalize the sounds and views that informed those unique voices.

So, back to this morning . . . scrambled egg, juice, bike ride, and I’m at my desk. I lingered too late to see the deer family on Frost, was intrigued by the tethered pony on Hemingway, tackled the Faulkner slope with tires needing more air, and stopped on the stairs to my desk to look at a few of the photos in Pilgrimage by Annie Leibovitz.

It is my choice to surround my life with small journeys, books to revel in, writing early, and writing late. Is this the everyday version of living in the moment? True, I must balance in regular life activities. After all, I did need to do laundry even on the road. But, my odyssey steadied the foundation under my feet so I can stay focused. My writing life is living in the moment, spreading my thoughts and stories out through my fingertips, writing by the seat of my pants.

Travels With Beatrix

The black ink lines are razor-sharp, thick, thin, with subtle turns, details illustrating a story. The gallery in Hawkshead displayed the stunning, original art inspired by the landscape outside. Rabbits, ducks, mice . . . add soft watercolors and an enchanted world appears for children to get lost in.

The young in heart can get lost in Beatrix’s vision for that landscape, too. The character of Peter Rabbit enabled the talented artist to tell a story to last for generations—the story found in the Lake District in England.

A mere traveler through the Lake District last month, I was overwhelmed with the achievement of an unmarried woman at the turn of twentieth century, armed with pen and ink, using art and children’s story to set aside the landscape and the fell farming way of life. Beatrix Potter bought farms surrounding her beloved country home and donated over 4,000 acres to the National Trust. Today the Lake District National Park preserves the country life she honored and the beauty of land huddled around mirrored lakes, velvet green hills, howes after fells. Stone walls wandering onward, gentle brooks still flowing, and the baaing of sheep grazing on . . . I looked for bunnies and saw a new family of ducks floating by. I heard the quiet and felt the soul of Beatrix.

My late spring odyssey will be with me always.