n Thanks to Irene at Live Your Poem for hosting the first Friday of National Poetry Month. The theme of my poetry month is 'doubleheaders". Double interview Fridays and double videos on my Saturday Matinees featuring my TWU students. World Aquatic Animal Day was April 3 so the first two books feature sea animals. Part II, is an interview with Randi Sonenshine and her gorgeous book The Den That Octopus Built. The book birthday is set for May 21, 2024. JRM: From a lodge built by a beaver to a den built by an octopus, how did you decide on the octopus to be the next book? RS: My agent, Kendra Marcus of BookStop Literary, called me one night and told me I had to watch My Octopus Teacher because it was going to be my next book. She was right, of course! I was spellbound! Octopuses are such fascinating creatures, and though we have learned a lot about them, there is still so much we don’t know. They have an uncanny intelligence and an almost universal appeal. Their dens, though not elaborate structures like the wren’s nest or beaver’s lodge, are unique and central to the life cycle of an octopus. JRM: Are you creating a series? What will be next? RS: I think there’s potential for additional books in the animal habitats series, but there are none in the works at the moment. Currently, I’m working on another project, also a lyrical exploration of one aspect of the animal world, but wholly different from this series. JRM: I am sure you researched octopi in depth. What information did you have to leave out? What was the most surprising tidbit of information from the research? RS: I try to integrate as much of my research as I can within the main text, but given that the text is poetic and spare, that's a challenge, which is why I include back matter. With this book, though, there was so much I wanted to include, I couldn’t fit it all in the back matter. I would love to have included more about their hunting techniques, which I find fascinating. I mention the pounce attack in one of the verses, but they sometimes even trick their prey by reaching all the way around with one arm to tap it. When the backs up, thinking the danger is in front of it, it backs right into the octopus, where it is quickly trapped in the webbing between the cephalopod’s arms. To add insult to injury, the octopus then injects it with a paralyzing neurotoxin from its beak. Of all the fascinating things I learned, though, the most surprising had to do with words. Like you, I always thought the plural of octopus was octopi, but it’s octopuses or octopus. JRM: Wow RS:It has Greek roots rather than Latin. Also, its limbs are not called tentacles. They are arms. Squids have tentacles, which are long and stringy with suckers only on their clubbed ends, while octopus arms are shorter, muscular, and have rows of suckers all along their length. JRM: I love the pattern from the classic This is the House that Jack Built. What was your process for getting the rhyming and the cadence to flow and to include the information about the octopus? RS: As this is the third companion book, the cadence is very natural to me. In fact, while I’m in the writing phase, I often think in that rhythmic pattern, even when I’m not actually writing! While I’m researching, I also jot down words, phrases, and sometimes lines that are evoked by what I’m learning. Those words and the meter are constantly percolating in my brain, and as phrases or lines come to me (usually in the car, the shower, or right before I fall asleep!) I jot them down in the notes app on my phone. I’m a stickler for meter and rhyme, so I will obsess over every syllable until these are perfect. Sometimes that means changing a word or phrase or inverting the two clauses that make up the couplet. Two absolute essentials during this phase of the work are RhymeZone and thesaurus.com. I also read the verses out loud over and over and have others read them aloud. If anyone stumbles over a line or forces the meter, I know it needs work. JRM: Research or create the rhymes? What is your favorite? RS: I love the research, but it can take me down a long and winding rabbit hole! Once I start to write, though, it’s such an exciting challenge. It’s like a puzzle; I need to find just the right “piece” to fit in that poetic space.I also love revising for other sound and meaning elements to make the text as musical and lyrical as I can. With each revision pass, I layer and refine elements like alliteration, assonance, figurative language, and sensory images to create something that’s rich in both sound and meaning. JRM: Was there a verse you wanted but had to cut? RS: I wanted to include a verse that showed her using a shell or some kind of vessel as a temporary shelter: This is the shell she squeezes inside/ a quick, makeshift shelter to rest in and hide/ while far from the den that Octopus built. Instead, I opted for the verse in which she uses shells around her as armor: These are the shells she wears like a sheath/ keeping her safe from Tiger Shark’s teeth/ when she’s far from the den that Octopus built. JRM: How can readers support our aquatic environments? RS:: That’s a great question! First, it’s important for readers to understand that the ocean supports humans, just as it does aquatic life. In fact, about ten percent of people in the world depend on the ocean for their livelihood, and there is a limited supply of that water. The easiest and most important thing we can do is use less water. Taking shorter showers, turning off the water when we brush our teeth, and making sure we don’t have leaks are all great ways to conserve water. Also important is reducing the amount of contamination in our oceans, especially plastics. Recycling, using reusable water bottles, and using less disposable plastics like take-out cutlery, straws, and containers will go a long way towards reducing this threat to our aquatic life. JRM: Thank you for your wonderful interview. I was unaware of the plural of octopus and that they are limbs. JRM: Would you have an early draft of a poem and then the final draft so readers can take a peek at the process? RS: Well, my process is (literally) all over the place! First, I jot down verses and partial verses in my notebook and/or on my brainstorming document on my computer, as well as in the notes on my phone, so I have snippets and scraps in multiple places before I stitch them together into a cohesive draft. Before I draft, I put the rough verses (usually multiple options) on color-coded notecards to help group them and determine the sequence, all the while playing with the language and sentence structure, so by the time I draft the manuscript, I have worked through a lot of revisions, and the changes after that are not as extreme. To show that evolution, I’ve added some of those early octopus “inklings’ to my first draft to share with you and your readers. Please stop by for the Double Feature Saturday Matinee featuring my TWU Students. And I host next Friday.
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Thanks to Irene at Live Your Poem for hosting the first Friday of National Poetry Month. The theme of my poetry month is 'doubleheaders". Double interview Fridays and double videos on my Saturday Matinees featuring my TWU students. World Aquatic Animal Day was April 3 so the first two books feature sea animals. First up is an interview with David Elliott and his gorgeous new book, At the Poles. JRM: What was the seed for writing poems about the two poles? DE: At the Poles is the eighth book in the series, so it might be more fruitful for your readers to understand how it all began. Some years ago, a book friend, through no fault of her own, was in a bit of financial trouble. So someone – I can’t remember who – came up with the idea of New England authors writing a short piece that would be illustrated by local artists. The finished work was framed, hung in a gallery, and auctioned off, the proceeds going to our friend. My contribution was: The Robin/ sings from her branch/but wants to roar./Small cousin of the dinosaur./ This was early(ish) on in my career, 2006 or so. At that point, I hadn’t written a lot of verse. But the exercise opened a door for me. “Hmmm,” I thought. ”I wonder if I can write more of these.” As it turned out, I could. Who knew? The result was On the Farm, published by Candlewick in 2008 and illustrated by the late and irreplaceable Holly Meade. I included that robin poem in the original draft of OTF, but Liz Bicknell, the fabulous editor of the series, nixed it -- can’t remember why, but I know she was right. But all was not lost. A version of the poem found its way into the fourth book, On the Wing, beautifully illustrated by then newcomer, Becca Stadtlander. On the Farm did well (still selling, and is now available as a board book) and led to In the Wild and In the Sea, both illustrated by Holly, who was also under contract for the next two – On the Wing and In the Past – when she was diagnosed with the illness that eventually took her from us. Our hearts broke the day we got her note saying she was no longer able to work. The rest, as they say, is history. Becca bravely took up her brush for On the Wing, and the incredible Matthew Trueman signed on for In the Past. It was the dinosaur book, too, where we began to add backmatter with notes on each of the animals. Next the consummate artist, Rob Dunlavey applied his wonderful story-telling art to In the Woods. Amy Schimler-Safford’s luminous art was perfect for At the Pond. That brings us to At the Poles. (Finally! I hear you saying.) Without ever making an actual decision, we had begun to look at our planet’s biomes as the settings for the books, and so the poles seemed like the next logical choice. The book, like each in the series, had its particular challenges. In this case, it was the extreme climate, which makes the animals who live there somehow more distant from us. (Think of the difference in how you might feel about a panda, say, and an elephant seal.) This is just one of the reasons why I am so grateful to Ellen Rooney. The warmth she brought to the fauna of the poles is exactly what was needed. These artists! They’re amazing! There are two more books in this series on the way. In the Desert, illustrated by the young British artist, Gordy Wright, and the final volume, At the Edge, poems about those strange creatures that live at the edge of our imaginations, animals like the axolotl and the pangolin. I’m over the moon to share that Clover Robins will do the art. By the time all ten books are published, I will have written over 150 poems about the other lives with which we share the planet. Reading, and then writing, about these amazing animals has been one of the greatest privileges of my writing life. JRM: When you wrote Antarctic Shag, did the words look as they do on the finished page with the illustration? (It’s one of my favorite pages) how much say do you have for the way the poem is placed on the page with the illustration? DE: Yes, the physical form of the poem is exactly as I wrote it and is as much a part of the poem as its vocabulary. One of the most difficult things for young writers to learn is that everything on the page conveys meaning. Everything! Every word. Every line break. Every comma. Every period. Every capitalization. Everything. And that includes empty space. Liz is an editor who understands that and gives me a lot of freedom. JRM: What was the most surprising tidbit of information from researching these animals? DE: One of the great pleasures in writing these books is what I have learned about the fauna that tread the earth’s surface, sleep in its caves, burrow into its soil, swim in its waters, fly through its skies. I was well into my sixties when I was working on In the Wild. From my earliest days, I had seen photos of lions, paintings of lions, lions in cartoons, lions in picture books, lions in zoos, in films, in wild animal parks. These magnificent creatures have populated my life since childhood, and yet my learning about them seems to have been arrested nearly from the time I knew they existed. To write about the lion, I had to make up for my many years of ignorance. Now I know that along with tigers, leopards, jaguars,lions are one of the four great cats. And why? Because they are the only cats that can roar. I love to think about the Greenland shark, one of the animals featured in At the Poles and the longest-living vertebrate on Earth. Scientists estimate these fish live between 250 and 500 years. Think of it! There are Greenland sharks swimming today that were around when Michelangelo was painting the Sistine chapel. I love Ellen’s shark, by the way. We often talk about how books change readers. But they change their authors as well. Writing these books has taught me that every creature on the planet, from the magnificent elephant to the tiny dung beetle deserves my admiration and respect. If we knew more about our fellow creatures, perhaps we wouldn’t be so intent on their destruction, destruction, which will, of course, bring about our own. JRM: Students asked, “Why is narwhal only a two line poem?” DE: But they might just as easily have asked, “Why does the narwhal get to be a two-line poem?” In other words, they could also see the brevity of that poem as a way of honoring the narwhal rather than some kind of diminution. The books in the series are about the animal world, for sure, and I hope they will help young readers get closer to, respect, have admiration for, and even learn to love all of life in its infinite forms. But the books are also about our language, its power, its buoyancy, its playfulness, its malleability. The narwhal is only seven words, but hopefully those words carry with them many layers of meaning. That kind of surprise is what our language can deliver. I hope teachers who use the books in their classrooms will help their students understand that their language, English, is a precious gift, and one which will help them to discover who they are in this wide and wonderful world. By the way, Candlewick has created a fantastic Teachers’ Guide for the series. It’s jam packed with exercises and ideas for classroom activities, all aligned with Common Core standards. Beautifully designed, too. Downloadable and free. Anyone who wants a copy can email me, and I’ll send them a copy tout suite. JRM: Was there an animal/poem you wanted but had to cut? DE: The opposite really. Because the conditions at the poles are so harsh, there were fewer animals to pick from. Unlike say, the Amazon which has over 10,000 species of beetles alone. Choosing the animals for each book has been an interesting exercise. On the Farm was relatively simple. You can ask any child anywhere in the U.S. what animals live on a farm and they will shout “Horse!” “Pig!” “Cow!” But think of undomesticated creatures. Now it gets complicated. A quick Google search will tell you that scientists estimate there are close to nine million wild animal species living on earth. Which of them should be included in a thirty-two page book, a picture book where each creature will appear on a double spread. In practical terms, that means somewhere around fifteen animals per book. Fifteen vs. nine million. You see the problem, right? The animals had to speak to me. But in each of the books, I also had to be aware of the illustrator’s job. Was I able to choose animals of different sizes, with a variety of forms, and shapes? This was especially challenging in books like In the Sea and At the Poles, where the setting and palette was nearly the same for each animal, water in the first case, ice and snow in the second. On the surface, picture books seem so simple. In fact, their production is an amazingly complicated process, requiring so much consideration and decision-making on the part of the author, the illustrator, the editor, and the designer. It’s this collaborative effort that makes a good book. It’s one of the reasons I love to write them. JRM: Would you have an early draft of a poem and then the final draft so readers can take a peek at the process? DE: This is difficult since I revise as I go along. That is, I don’t finish a poem, put it aside, and then go back to it. Well, that’s not entirely true. I do return to each poem. Again and again. But the poem I go back to has already been rewritten many, many times. I’ve already edited, amended, subtracted from, added to, and in general fiddled with hundreds of times. For better or worse, I don’t save each draft. But it’s an interesting thing to think about, revision. Emerging writers often don’t understand it, thinking that it means changing where a comma might go, or replacing one word with another. But revision means to see again. And often when you do that. Everything shifts. For example, here is the first poem I wrote about the Emperor Penguin, a poem by the way that went through many revisions. Some might say you are absurd -- a bird who cannot fly, a blooper in the history of feathered aviation. But you’ve acquired other skills on which you can rely and are a master of the art of close cooperation. Not bad, I guess. But then I started to think about the penguin’s name. Emperor penguin, and I re-saw the poem, capitalizing on the idea of emperor, which led to the poem we see in the book, and is, I hope, a much better tribute to the bird. JRM: What is it like to go between writing a novel in verse and a collection of poems? Do you have both projects happening at the same time? DE: Here, I’ll paraphrase what my good friend and writer (for adults) Hester Kaplan says about the difference between a short story and a novel. A collection of poems is like a date, or more accurately a series of dates, but a novel in verse is like a marriage. To continue with that simile, as in my actual marriage, I don’t cheat. JRM: What do you have in the works currently? DE: Maybe the easiest thing to do here is make a list.
JRM: Thank you David, for your thorough and insightful answers. I love this : If I’m not writing or thinking about writing. I’m not myself. I may not be talented, but I am dogged. Next up, an interview with Randi Soenshine. And I am hosting Friday, April 12.
.Here's to twelve years of the Progressive Poem! Irene Latham began the tradition in 2012 and hosted until 2019. (Early archives here.) Margaret Simon stepped in and has been hosting since 2020. (Recent archives are tabs at the top of her page.) The rules: The poem passes from blog to blog Each poet-blogger adds a line. The poem is for children. Other than that, anything goes. Each blogger will copy the previous line exactly as written (unless permission from the previous poet is obtained) and add their line, offering commentary on their process if they wish. On April 1, Patricia Franz shared her beginning lines, thinking about our precious planet (we also celebrate Earth Day ion April 22). Her lines contain a dreamy tone. cradled in stars, our planet sleeps,, clinging to tender dreams of peace It's fitting that when I walked Buster, I was greeted with clear skies and the Worm Moon half way to going into the shadows for a few days. sister moon watches from afar, singing lunar lullabies of hope. And now I pass the progressive poem onto the care of Janice Scully at Salt City Verse
Tricia at The Miss Rumphius Effect is hosting last Friday's Poetry Friday. Was subbing in a first grade classroom. It was just before their spring break. They were chatty. I was tired and I couldn't get it done for Friday or even yesterday. But since tomorrow begins National Poetry Month. I want to share what will be happening here.
I am so excited to be featuring these authors. And so thrilled to be sharing ten poetry videos created by my ten Texas Women's University students featuring poems by some of our Poetry Friday Poets. There is still time to share your favorite (or two poet or poems.
Stay tuned. Tuesday, April 2, 2024, I will have the next line for the 2024 Progressive Poem.
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AuthorAll photos and poems in these blog posts are copyrighted to Jone Rush MacCulloch 2006- Present. Please do not copy, reprint or reproduce without written permission from me. Categories
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March 2024
2023 Progressive Poem
April 1 Mary Lee Hahn, Another Year of Reading April 2 Heidi Mordhorst, My Juicy Little Universe April 3 Tabatha, The Opposite of Indifference April 4 Buffy Silverman April 5 Rose Cappelli, Imagine the Possibilities April 6 Donna Smith, Mainely Write April 7 Margaret Simon, Reflections on the Teche April 8 Leigh Anne, A Day in the Life April 9 Linda Mitchell, A Word Edgewise April 10 Denise Krebs, Dare to Care April 11 Emma Roller, Penguins and Poems April 12 Dave Roller, Leap Of Dave April 13 Irene Latham Live You Poem April 14 Janice Scully, Salt City Verse April 15 Jone Rush MacCulloch April 16 Linda Baie, TeacherDance April 17 Carol Varsalona, Beyond Literacy Link April 18 Marcie Atkins April 19 Carol Labuzzetta at The Apples in My Orchard April 20 Cathy Hutter, Poeturescapes April 21 Sarah Grace Tuttle, Sarah Grace Tuttle’s Blog, April 22 Marilyn Garcia April 23 Catherine, Reading to the Core April 24 Janet Fagal, hosted by Tabatha, The Opposite of Indifference April 25 Ruth, There is no Such Thing as a God-Forsaken Town April 26 Patricia J. Franz, Reverie April 27 Theresa Gaughan, Theresa’s Teaching Tidbits April 28 Karin Fisher-Golton, Still in Awe Blog April 29 Karen Eastlund, Karen’s Got a Blog April 30 Michelle Kogan Illustration, Painting, and Writing |