I'm having a bit of a clear out of old bits of work on my laptop and came across a load of these - children's poems I wrote many years ago.
I've had some published in anthologies and won a few competitions too. Not sure what to do with them now but before I decide I thought I'd give one or two an airing here. So here goes...
This week I've been working on a submission of children's poetry for an anthology for a publisher (in the usual way of things I can't say who, what or when yet). I'd forgotten how much I enjoy doing these odd little bits and bobs. I liked writing to a strict brief too.
Back in the day I did pretty well with small, funny poems in competitions, anthologies and magazines but recent years have all been about books and how long they take and how intense they can be with all the editing etc.
So poetry is fun for me. Here are a few I wrote that didn't make the cut for one reason or another:
When Alex fell into the water,
he made such an awful fuss,
that Benjamin threw him in again,
and delighted the rest of us.
A yellow caterpillar,
who called herself Pricilla,
was slow and dull and really rather plain.
One day she fell asleep,
in a little silken heap,
sleeping soundly wrapped against the sun and rain.
Jack Prelutsky was born on
September 8th 1940 in Brooklyn, New York. His father, Charles Prelutsky, was an
electrician, and his mother Dorothea, a homemaker.
He attended local public
schools in the Bronx but hated it. He also claims to have hated poetry when he
was younger. He says that in elementary
school he “had a teacher who, in retrospect, did not like poetry herself. The
syllabus told her she had to recite a poem once a week. She would pick a boring
poem from a boring book and read it in a boring voice, looking bored while she
was doing it."
Because of his musical
talents, he went to The High School of Music and Art and was happy there. He
graduated in 1958 and attended Hunter College to study philosophy and
psychology. He failed English three times before dropping out.
Prelutsky loved to draw
imaginary animals, and a friend encouraged him to send them to a publisher in
New York. He wrote the poems to go with the drawings at the last minute. He was
astonished that they wanted his work; not the drawings that took him six months
to complete, but the poems which took two hours. They appeared in his first
book, A Gopher in the Garden and Other Animal Poems, in 1967.
He has now written over 50 collections.
Prelutsky married his wife
Carolynn in 1979. They met when he was on a book tour in Albuquerque, she was a
children's librarian and showed him around town. He says it was love at first
sight. They currently live in Seattle where he has a studio with
a writing desk, computer, lots of books, and his collection of miniature frogs.
Five fun facts about Jack Prelutsky:
1. Before becoming a writer he was a busboy, a potter and a door-to- door salesman.
2. In the late 1960s, while singing in coffee houses he became a friend of Bob Dylan.
3. He asked his wife to marry him on the first day they met.
On
Friday, 14th July 2017 I attended the Clippa as a guest. For those
who haven’t heard about it, CLIPPA is the poetry award given by CLPE for
published collections of poetry for children.
This
year’s judge was Rachel Rooney, who herself won the CLIPPA in 2012 and was my
Arvon tutor in 2015 when I dragged myself up to Yorkshire to immerse myself in
the world of children’s poetry.
As
a kid, I loved rhymes and still do. The songs and rhymes
in Tamil which is my mother tongue were often rhyming ones. And the bulk of our
popular music is from the movies – as you know most Indian cinema produces
sing-alongs and musicals. Much of our poets make their living as lyricists for
movies. As much as they publish poetry collections and recite poetry – the rice
and lentils come from the movie industry.
Here is Vairamuthu - who writes amazing poetry in Tamil as well as being one of the most popular contemporary lyricists in the movie industry. I apologise ahead that this is in Tamil and of course would not make any sense if you don't speak the language. But I just wanted to demonstrate a little bit. This is his poem about his mother.
So
most of the songs I know growing up, and most of our poetic references to life,
philosophy, friendships and heartbreaks are lyrics of movie songs not unlike
the pop music lines folks in Britain quote to me (which I should admit goes
over my head).
So
it was no surprise that my first attempt at writing was poems that rhymed. I
was eight I think, when the regional radio came for some recording in our
children’s club – Mum had arranged all of us to perform something and as a
8-year old with an entourage of two – my sister and the sister of my neighbour
– two 4 year olds were put on the spot. I made up a 4-line song (rhymingof course) and they recited it with me and we
were on radio! I still know the song and sing it for my nephews much to the
amusement of my family.
Then
when I was 13, I read a poem in a textbook and loved it. I ended up visiting the
poet –literally landing on his doorstep and being inspired to write my own
poems. You can read that story here.
So
I wrote all sorts of poems. Perhaps influenced by popular culture, I even wrote
love poems even before I knew what love was. I still write love poems every
time someone breaks my heart or makes it flutter. But I don’t usually share it
with the world.
I
still write poetry all the time but I rarely call myself a poet. I’m not sure
whether that’s because I write more rhymes than not. I read a lot of poetry for
sure – more now than before. I enjoy listening to spoken word performances but
I never claim I’m a poet. For a while I wrote 1000s of haikus – I loved putting
nature and life lessons together.
I
had abandoned writing in my mother-tongue long before – I was more proficient
in English than I was in my own language. The problem with rhymes for me was
that they didn’t work when I wrote them especially in English.
It
took me years to figure out that my stress, my accent and my pronunciation was
not how native English speakers speak. And therefore what I thought rhymed
didn’t rhyme or fit the beat for others. Anyway
many people kindly and often in an unkindly way pointed out that my rhymes
don’t work. I wrote free verse, sent them out and even got a couple published
here and there. But most came back.
And
for a while I wrote poetry only in my notebook and focussed on picture
books.Which is a different kind of
poetry anyway.
When
I took the Arvon course taught by Rachel and Roger McGough in 2015, Rachel was not only patient with me, she even
encouraged me to write both free verse and rhyme – except for rhyme of course I
needed more work, more persistence, and perhaps another person to help. And she still remembers the poem about EATING SOAP that I wrote.
Yes
persistence does help. I can now proudly say that I’ve placed ONE poem in an
anthology that’s coming out in 2018 and I have a rhyming picture book come out
in 2018 too. So there’s no holding back anymore – I’m going to be writing
poetry for a long time to come. But I doubt I would ever call myself a poet. At least not yet.
I digress. The
reason I was at the Clippa was because Rachel had kindly invited her Arvon
students to the ceremony. And what a lovely treat it was. The readings from the
poets, the children’s performances and of course Chris Riddell live drawing the
event – it was all brilliant. And I got to meet so many friends and made new friends too.
So to celebrate the Clippa and to encourage most of us to read poetry, here is a selection.
Some
of my favourite poems are simple, yet full of wisdom.
Here
is one that’s so evocative. And every time I read it, it invokes perhaps a new
meaning.
One
of my favourite novel in verse is LOVE THAT DOG by Sharon Creech.
From
India, I’ve just started discovering many poets who write for adults. But for
children, I love Ruskin Bond for sure. Read some of my recommendations here.
Many of my friends are poets and a group of them showcase their work here. Do check them out.
The
list of contemporary poets I love is too long to list here. I have perhaps read
all modern poets who write for children especially. Both from the UK and
America. So instead of listing them I thought I’d share less than 10% of my list
of poetry books I own.
Back
to Clippa though! The winner of this year’s
award is Moon Juice by Kate Wakeling, illustrated by Elīna Brasliņa and published by Emma Press.
