In November 2012 one of my poems was published in the USA in an issue of Cricket magazine (pictured). I had had many children’s poems published previously in Australia, but this was the first poem that had appeared overseas, apart from my picture book in verse (What’s the Matter, Aunty May, which had been published a few months earlier than this in the UK as well as Australia). Cricket magazine has a reputation of being America’s premier literary magazine for children, so it was a real privilege to be published in its pages. The poem, “In Alabar”, was a fantasy poem in four eight-line rhyming stanzas. It told the story of an enchanted market—in an imaginary land—that sold the most amazing treasures.
There were two things that struck me about getting this poem published in America. The first was just mercenary; the second was not at all mercenary and was actually rather delightful.
Firstly, let me mention the first thing, because I guess it could be of some interest to aspiring writers. It belongs to that somewhat tiresome department of life called “making a living.” As a struggling writer, I was keen not only to try to sell my individual poems, but to try to re-sell them in other markets. This is actually harder than it sounds, because children’s poetry markets worldwide are few and far between. I had managed to sell one-time rights of “In Alabar” to The School Magazine in Australia, and they had duly published the poem in their Blast Off magazine in May 2006, with a double-page illustration by leading Australian illustrator Kim Gamble. They paid me $125.29, according to their standard rates at the time for a poem of 25 to 40 lines (mine had 32). Some time later I sent “In Alabar” and four other poems to Cricket magazine in Chicago. They replied a year or so later (it can take time!) offering me $US64 for reprint rights for “In Alabar” (Their rate was $2 a line for a poem that had already been published elsewhere.) They declined the other four poems. The poem eventually appeared in their end-of-year issue for 2012, with a very different but enchanting illustration, this time by an illustrator called Micha Archer. Thus I managed to increase my income for a single poem, by sending it elsewhere (though be warned, fellow poets, it took years). By the way, when I want to earn larger sums, I write prose, not poetry!
But the other thing that struck me about getting this poem published in America was much more delightful. It was the thought that thousands more children (and their associated adults: parents, teachers and librarians) might read, and even enjoy, “In Alabar”. The editors, in their correspondence with me, had described my poem as “imaginative and enchanting,” which was very nice of course, but more than that it filled me with hope. It was a hope that children across America could enjoy those strange, fantastical items-for-sale in my market in Alabar: The ruby-feathered birds, the fish that breathed in “water, air and fire,” the fountain spouting liquid gold, the turquoise swan that sang, the helmet carved from asteroid, the lamps aflame with dragon’s breath. And I wondered whether my American readers would also be taken aback—when midnight struck in the poem—when the market turned into a bird and spread its silver wings to head towards the nearest star? The American editors had changed “towards” to “toward,” because that is American usage, and they had similarly hyphenated my “goodbye” to make it “good-bye”, but otherwise my poem had remained unchanged.
An interesting thought, that has never occurred to me until right now when I sat down to write this blog, is that “In Alabar” was probably read out aloud in America hundreds (perhaps thousands) of time) in an American accent. What a wonderful thing English-language verse is! It is capable of being written down in one English-speaking country, and then read aloud in all sorts of other accents around the English-speaking world. I had written down my poem in Australia (and had read it aloud in an Australian accent). Yet, by being published in Cricket magazine, my poem had become American.
If you’re interested, you might like to track down “In Alabar” in back copies of the magazines, either in Australia (Blast Off, The School Magazine, May 2006) or in America (Cricket, November/December 2012).
www.theschoolmagazine.com.au
www.cricketmag.com
