National Poetry Month is held every April in Canada and the USA to celebrate poetry and its vital place in American and Canadian culture. Schools, literary organizations, communities, businesses and more celebrate National Poetry Month with a plethora of events including poetry readings, festivals, book displays, and workshops. The kidlitosphere is sure to be active with bloggers celebrating the month – and one blog that you definitely don’t want to miss out reading is Sylvia Vardell’s Poetry for Children!
Sylvia is a professor of children’s and young adult literature at Texas Woman’s University, author of Poetry Aloud Here! Sharing Poetry with Children in the Library (ALA Editions, 2006), Poetry 
People: A Practical Guide to Children’s Poets (Libraries Unlimited, 2007), and Children’s Literature in Action: A Librarian’s Guide (Libraries Unlimited, 2008). She is co-editor of Bookbird, the journal of international children’s literature, co-editor of the annual review guide Librarians Choices and is also the poetry columnist for the American Library Association’s Book Links magazine.
Our April 2008 PaperTigers’ Poetry issue featured a reprint of Sylvia’s article Pairing Poems Across Cultures (which offered insights on the similarities and differences in poetry from parallel cultures) as well as a reprint of an interview that Cynthia Leitich Smith did with Sylvia in 2007. In 2010 we were thrilled to meet up with Sylvia at the Bologna Children’s Book Fair and had a great chat with her.
Last April, to celebrate National Poetry Month, Sylvia played a game of Poetry Tag on her blog. Poets shared original poems, tagged another poet who shared a poem connected with the previous poem, and on and on. It was such a success that it led her and author Janet S. Wong to compile an anthology of 30 e-poems by 30 e-poets called PoetryTagTime. This first ever electronic-only poetry anthology for children has new poems by many top poets writing for young people, and can be purchased for 99 cents here.
For this year’s National Poetry Month celebrations Sylvia says :
I’m sticking with my “tag” th
Marjorie and I weren’t quite part of the willing and dealing that is normally associated with the Bologna Book Fair (unlike Blue Rose Girls‘ Alvina Ling, Little, Brown publisher extraordinaire. See her photo of the fair’s agent center, with all the rows of numbered tables). We weren’t there to to buy or sell rights, but to take it all in: we renewed old contacts and made new ones, we lined up interviews for the website and, most of all, we spread the word on PaperTigers. We spent the bulk of our time on three main halls, where most of the publishers of multicultural books were – and that was by no means a small feat – but we did have time for a few blood orange juice-breaks, and to attend authors’ presentations, gatherings at the Illustrators’ Café and an award ceremony or two. All very much worthwhile.
One of these inspiring, ‘off the beaten book aisles’ moments was the Bologna Ragazzi Award ceremony, which took place at the end of our first day – a day which had begun with the poetry panel Marjorie recently wrote about. The fair this year had a special section dedicated to poetry and a poetry category “to encourage the publication of poetry for children throughout the word” was especially added to its prestigious set of awards. Judged by an international jury, the winner of the poetry prize was the Polish publisher Wytwórnia, for “Tuwim: Poems for Children,” a celebration of the Polish poet Julian Tuwin’s children’s poems (his work has been compared to Shell Silverstein’s) by seven talented graphic artists. I can’t read Polish, but I could pick up on Tuwin’s virtuose and the poems’ vitality just by looking at the expressive typographic lines and the exuberant graphs and whimsical doodles that accompanied them.
A gorgeous poetry catalog including profiles of renowned poets from around the world was created to accompany an exhibition that will travel to major Italian cities. The exhibit’s first stop was at the Palazzo dell’Archiginnasio in downtown Bologna, where colorful leaflets with poems in different languages were distributed to those attending the opening (and what better invitation to poetry lovers than to sail between all those languages!…). Among the American poems distributed was Karla Kuskin’s “Words, and Words, and Words:”
What separates each one of us
from all the beasts and bugs and birds?
Well they have feathers, fur and wings
but we have words,
and words,
and words.
And since today, April 22, we celebrate “Earth Day,” I’ll end this post with another poem by Kuskin (the poem from Bologna introduced me - at last! - to her work, and the library books I borrowed upon returning home made me fall in love with it):
Dear Earth,
I miss your green and blue.
I miss my room and bear.
It’s dull and lonely here on this old star.
I miss your night, Dear Earth,
the moon above,
the cool dark grass below.
I miss each always-different, ever-changing day.
You know the way you are, Dear Earth.
Well, stay that way.
Mark Williams is the author of the DANGER BOY (Candlewick) books, a time-travel series that chronicles the adventures of Eli Sands and his friends. The newest title, DANGER BOY CITY OF RUINS, is set in Ancient Jerusalem. Through Eli’s adventures, readers are taken on an exciting action-packed ride that will thrill kids (and adults) ages 9 and up.
Mark is my SCBWI colleague, and I am thrilled he was willing to share thoughts and insights about his work. Aside from authoring highly acclaimed books, Mark is a columnists for a Hollywood trade paper, and his work has appeared in numerous publications. He is also a Judaic studies teacher at Leo Baeck Temple in West Los Angeles. Most importantly, Mark is the proud dad of two boys who were the inpiration for the Danger Boy books.
In your latest book, DANGER BOY:CITY OF RUINS, Eli travels back in time to Ancient Jerusalem. What inspired you to choose this setting?
Multiple, overlapping reasons: I'm Jewish (well, a lively mix, between mom and dad, of both Jewish and Celtic traditions!), I was sitting in my Sunday school classroom one morning after teaching about the prophets Jeremiah and Huldah, and thinking about ideas for future "Danger Boy" books, but mostly thinking about how rigid adult belief structures, and old inescapable grief, lead to "cities of ruin" for our children. That, plus the fact that particular region was again keeping the world dancing on the edge of the abyss.
How extensive was your research?
Did I get to go to Israel? No. I asked a lot of the Israelis I teach with questions about how the weather feels at certain times of year, what the "air" is like, etc. That and a lot of Internet, a lot of reading, etc.
When writing a time travel story, how concerned must an author be about accuracy?
Being as accurate as you can is the payoff for the stuff you make up -- especially when the "real" history is more incredible than the "storytelling" parts, which is usually the case. And it's also relative -- I had to be really accurate in my "Lewis & Clark book" (DB #3: Trail of Bones), since they all kept journals!
As for Jeremiah and Huldah -- there are no records, outside Tanakh, of family names, any kind of life outside their described mythic roles. Which made it simultaneously easier and harder because they are already large, mythic, etc.
Do you have any advice for authors who are interested in writing time travel stories?
Emphasize the history, over the quantum science. As fascinating and great as the quantum science is. In other words, what's the reason your characters are time traveling in the first place? Where are they going?
Of course, if you have them traveling *ahead,* to a still unchartered future, forget I said anything.
Why did you start writing children's books?
I'd been writing comics and videogame scripts (in the early Jurassic era of the medium), and then became a dad. As I revisited early/mid-90's picture books, there seemed to be a renaissance similar to what comics went through in the 80's! But nothing new appeared to be happening in series fiction, for when readers "graduated" from picture books (never mind that I still like a good Chris van Allsburg offering...)
So I thought, "what if you had a series that was interconnected, somewhat dark, where people aged and came and went -- like in life?" Apparently, I was looking for psychic real estate in the suburbs of J.K. Rowling's zeitgeist, but hadn't heard of Harry Potter when I sat down to start "Danger Boy" (the title coming from my then toddler -- now a teenager -- as he ran up and down the halls one night proclaiming himself, yes, a "Danger Boy!")
However, the year I was shopping chapters and proposals around, the adventures of a certain young British wizard at boarding school took off, and other editors and houses thought, "hey! yeah! darkish interconnected series!" So -- thanks, J.K.!
What are you working on now?
I' m revising the last contracted "Danger Boy" book, "Fortune's Fool," about Shakespeare, Marlowe, the Elizabethans, and their fondness for political intrigue, rendition, torture, etc. (Plus, you know, I get to write about "King Lear.")
And then there's the post "Danger Boy" stuff -- a YA set in Jamaica, a mystery series, still nascent, and, well, another stand-alone, set in the SoCal desert, involving, well, the cosmos again, kinda.
Plus, I'd love to get back into graphic novel writing, and have some feelers out.
What is the best thing about being a children's writer?
It's just such a fun thing to be! I get to write stories about baseball and dinosaurs and Shakespeare and Marlowe and Sacajawea and the secrets of Alexandria, and it's my job!
Well, of course, I have to take on some other jobs, too -- did I mention I teach writing classes?
What is the hardest part about being a writer?
You actually have to sit down and write.
What do you like to read?
I love reading new work by my various colleagues. On a recent panel with Lisa Yee, Kerry Madden, Amy Koss, Cecil Castellucci and Sally Nemeth, I likened the LA YA scene with late 60's rock (well, you know, I couldn't resist) -- i.e., everyone "hearing" each other's work, learning from it, pushing past what's been done, everyone helping amp up everyone's chops, etc.
I read news all the time, online, still read comics, been rereading some Kesey and trying to make new sense of "Sometimes a Great Notion," and lately, on a mini-Cormac McCarthy tear.
Do you have hobbies besides writing?
Watching baseball. Taking long walks, preferably, in wild or semi-wild areas(a.k.a. hiking) whenever possible.
Thanks, Mark! It was a pleasure blog chatting with you. See you in the "future!"
If you would like to know more about Mark,or the adventures of Eli Sands in the DANGER BOY series, check out www.dangerboy.com
People: A Practical Guide to Children’s Poets (Libraries Unlimited, 2007), and Children’s Literature in Action: A Librarian’s Guide (Libraries Unlimited, 2008). She is co-editor of Bookbird, the journal of international children’s literature, co-editor of the annual review guide Librarians Choices and is also the poetry columnist for the American Library Association’s Book Links magazine.
