Dr Seuss (for poetic use)

Why is this book one of my favourite kids’ books (If I Ran the Circus by Dr Seuss, pictured)? Partly, I suppose, it was a book I read and adored as a child. In fact, it is still a book I can read with delight, as I did again recently. I love the pushed-to-the-limit imagination of the circus acts. Yet I also love the poetry. The whole book is written in zany rhyming verse. The lines have remained ringing in my ears for decades, not memorised, yet familiar in their patterns and effects. 

When my own picture book in verse was published in 2012 (What’s the Matter, Aunty May?), a couple of reviewers noted the “Seussian” feel of it. I took this as a compliment. But I was also a little mystified. I hadn’t consciously copied Dr Seuss’ style or techniques. So I concluded that Dr Seuss’ influence on me had been more atmospheric. I had absorbed from Dr Seuss—and I suppose from other favourites, such as A.A. Milne and Roald Dahl—a number of “techniques” that ended up becoming almost instinctive.

So it was an interesting exercise when I sat down recently with my copy of If I Ran the Circus and tried to analyse exactly what sort of techniques I might have picked up from Dr Seuss. I found I could identify at least three.

Firstly, Dr Seuss (by the way, his real name was Theodore Seuss Geisel) is almost invariably strict about his poetic rhythms. This means two things. His lines have the right number of syllables for the regular pattern he has chosen. Also, the stresses fall in just the right places. When he uses a word like “remarkable”, which he does in the line, “And you’ll now meet the Foon, The Remarkable Foon”, he places “remarkable” so that it fits exactly into the anapaestic tetrameter rhythmic meter he is using. This means the “-mark-” of “remarkable” is stressed and the pairs of syllables around it are unstressed. And of course he doesn’t do this with just one word, but with every word in the book. Each word is stressed naturally, but it is also exactly placed so that the natural stresses create the right rhythm of da-da-DA da-da-DA da-da-DA da-da-DA.

Secondly, Dr Seuss’ lines rhyme. Like the rhythm, the rhyme sounds natural, not forced. Of course, he is helped by the fact that he is creating imaginary creatures with imaginary names. Thus he can have his Foon rhyming with “moon” in the next line. He simply made up a new word to fit the rhyming word!—but, by putting the known word in the second line, it sounded like an absolutely legitimate rhyme. Of course he also rhymes many couplets without creating newly-coined words. The thing to note here, and I have often noted it too in my own creation of rhyming verse, is that a lot of fairly common words in English have some other fairly common words that rhyme with them. Using these simple words sounds natural and unforced. Thus Dr Seuss has rhyming pairs such as head/said, kind/mind, appears/ears, in/begin etc. By keeping it simple, he manages to create a host of successful and unforced rhyming couplets—a whole book’s worth of them. It is a useful tip to keep in mind. Don’t try to be too sophisticated in your rhymes. Keep it simple.

Thirdly, and this is really the most important point of all, Dr Seuss’ story shines through. The rhythm and rhyme become mere servants of the poet in the overriding aim of creating a fun (in fact, a completely zany) imaginary tale. The precisely-written rhythm and rhyme do work their own magic of course, but it is a secondary magic, a music in the background. The main creative thrust is the story itself, which is why the book ends up being so successful. The reader is transported into another world, with consistent characters and a thoroughly satisfying and ridiculous plot.

What interests me is that I too, pretty much instinctively, used the same “techniques” in What’s the Matter, Aunty May? Perhaps this shouldn’t surprise me. Perhaps there’s something universal about these three “keys”. It’s not that there’s really a formula to creating a successful kids’ tale in rhyme. But there seem to be at least some helpful principles. Yes, by all means, use rhythm (but make sure it is precise and consistent and natural). Yes, by all means, use rhyme (but look especially for the simple, unforced rhyming words). Most of all, try to tell a thoroughly wonderful, imaginative and consistent tale from beginning to end, one that delights you as the writer. Then, there’s a very good chance that it will delight others too.

Becoming American

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

Poem of the Month - April 2015

Copying the Bard

Over the years, I have had a number of sonnets published. Since my basic model has always been the classic “Shakespearean” sonnet, I thought it might be of interest to readers for me to dissect the form and make my own brief comments upon it.

Actually, I find that Shakespeare’s own sonnets don’t thrill me much anymore. Recently, I re-read his famous collection of 154 sonnets (pictured above) and found myself, frankly, underwhelmed. I find I can still read some of his plays with delight (which of course have a great sense of story to them, as well as being couched in stirring language). But his sonnets I find are often too idiosyncratic in theme to interest me now, and even the word order is often too convoluted to satisfy my twenty-first century ear.

But the form of the Shakespearean sonnet still enthralls me. And it was the form that was drummed into me (again and again!) as I re-read those 154 sonnets recently. Let me quote for you a typical example (Sonnet 71) and then I’ll briefly deconstruct it.

SONNET 71 (by William Shakespeare)

No longer mourn for me when I am dead

Than you shall hear the surly sullen bell

Give warning to the world that I am fled

From this vile world with vilest worms to dwell

Nay, if you read this line, remember not

The hand that writ it, for I love you so

That I in your sweet thoughts would be forgot

If thinking on me then should make you woe.

O, if, I say, you look upon this verse,

When I, perhaps, compounded am with clay,

Do not so much as my poor name rehearse,

But let your love even with my life decay;

    Lest the wise world should look into your moan,

    And mock you with me after I am gone.

The first thing to notice is that it has exactly fourteen lines, as sonnets almost always do. But the structure is much more formalised than just the number of lines. Each line has ten syllables, and those ten syllables are generally arranged in five pairs of unstressed-stressed syllables, which means the lines are (formally) lines of Iambic pentameter. Actually, this stress pattern is not followed slavishly by Shakespeare, or by any other sonnet writer. He lets words and phrases have their own natural stresses so that the “unstressed-stressed” pattern quite often disappears for a moment and then returns.

There is also a subdivision of the whole sonnet into four distinct parts, as is typical in a Shakespearean sonnet. There are three four-line “quatrains” followed by a final two-line “couplet”. The three quatrains all feature alternating rhyming lines in the pattern A-B-A-B. The final couplet has two lines that rhyme with each other. You can also note that the couplet not only rounds out the theme of the whole sonnet, but adds its own new point while doing it, which again is typical of the Shakespearean sonnet form. They like to end with a bang.

But what thrills me about the form—and what has thrilled so many other poets over the past four hundred years—is that this fourteen-line structure is so incredibly versatile. It’s like a matrix capable of being infused with infinite variety, depending on the theme and word-choice of the poet. You can write a sonnet about just about anything! A few weeks ago I shared with you a poem of mine called “Kangaroo Sonnet”. In that blog I was more concerned with the way the topic (kangaroos) was already set up in the mind of a reader by past experiences. Let me now share that sonnet with you again. But this time notice the sonnet form: the fourteen lines; the ten syllables of every line; the three quatrains with the rhyming pattern A-B-A-B; the end rhyming couplet (with its final image). But most of all notice how a four-hundred-year-old form gave me a “matrix” I could work with in the 21^st century on the other side of the planet! That’s why I’m so thankful to Mr Shakespeare.

KANGAROO SONNET

They are—at first—unseen, just like statues

and as grey-brown as the eucalypt trunks.

But then they spring into action, these ’roos

rousing the forest with their thumps and thunks.

Most of their movement is flight; they barely

touch ground—instead they are bouncing, bounding

between trees, through blank intervals of air:

leaves fly—dust dances—amidst the pounding.

And then the action telescopes away

into the distance. The great disturbance

recedes like a train on a lazy day

and the bush unbends from its perturbance.

There is nothing left but some broken sticks

and some leaves, swinging, from those giant kicks.

“Kangaroo Sonnet”© Peter Friend. First published by the NSW Dept. of Educ. in The School Magazine (Touchdown, November 2010)

A purple cat (and all of that)

TWEEDLES

Tweedles is a purple cat.
   (Well, fancy that—
   a purple cat.)
And he sits calmly on his mat,
   and it is purple too.

You cannot see him on his mat.
   (Well, how about that.
   An unseen cat!)
In fact, when Tweedles lies real flat,
   he feels quite mat-like too.

So, if you see a purple mat
   (and it seems flat,
   and all of that),
take care! It’s Tweedles (Aah! That cat!)
   just waiting there, for you.

A couple of weeks ago I published this poem as my poem of the month on Facebook and Blogspot. It’s about a rather tricksy purple cat. The poem had first been published by the New South Wales Department of Education back in 2009 in a magazine for primary schools (Countdown, July 2009). Of all the children’s poems I have written, “Tweedles” remains one of my favourites. I’m not sure why. Probably, it is for two reasons, both of which might be worth recording,

Firstly, the poem paints a picture (and quite a vivid one I think) of an interesting character.  The whole poem is only fifteen lines long. Yet from the very first line the reader is startled—or at least I still am, when I reread it—by the fact that the poem is not merely about a cat, but about a purple cat. “Cats” and “purpleness” are two categories that normally never meet in the real world. Thus the reader realises (with a start?) that Tweedles is out of the ordinary; he’s the sort of cat that a reader is only ever going to meet in literature (as in this poem) or in art (as in the illustration at the top of this blog, painted by my wife).

Yet the “cat-ness” of Tweedles also remains. This only adds (I think) to the interest, for cats are, by nature, intriguing. Cats are moody and individualistic; they display a “don’t care” attitude (which their owners either find endearing or infuriating); they create their own stubborn little worlds in the homes in which they live. All of this makes for interesting characters, and I make full use of this “cat” background in my poem. Tweedles, you see, sits on his mat as if he owns it (like all cats do). He has attitude. He even has an agenda.

The fact that the mat is as purple as Tweedles not only accentuates Tweedles’ possession of it, but also allows the essential trickiness of this particular cat to display itself. Tweedles can disguise himself in the purple. He can disappear. He can lie hidden (with his claws at the ready!) for his unsuspecting owner, or for any unsuspecting visitor.

It is at this point that the poem simply ends. The character of Tweedles has been presented. And that’s that.

But there’s a second reason why I think I find this poem appealing. I enjoy the sing-song of the rhythm and rhyme. The rhythm is a definite one; it is almost entirely made up of pairs of syllables, where the first is unstressed and the second stressed, and these occur in groups of four (the literary term is iambic tetrameter) except for the last line of each stanza which has just three of these unstressed-stressed pairs (and is therefore called iambic trimeter). It’s a pretty common meter in English poetry. Actually, I have varied it a bit by dividing the second group of four stresses in each stanza into two half lines (lines 2 and 3 in each case), which strictly makes these lines iambic dimeter. It gives a short, punchy effect at that point in each stanza.

The rhyme also adds to the musical effect. Except for the last line in each stanza, every line in the poem ends in an “at” sound (cat, that, mat, flat). And the last line of each stanza ends in an “oo” sound (too, you). The limited number of rhyming sounds helps tie the poem together tightly (and none of the words were difficult rhymes—they were all common words).

Thus you end up with these two main features in the poem: a vivid character, and arresting rhythm and rhyme. Perhaps you’d like to try composing your own crazy poem along similar lines? Hopefully, by developing the same sorts of features in your own original poem, you will end up with something that you too will enjoy reading and re-reading into the future!

Imagining a land

This month marks two years since my first little fantasy novel,The Cliff Runner, was published by Blake Education (www.blake.com.au). It was a new genre for me. I have other ideas for fantasy novels—more elaborate, more adventurous—which I’d love to get my teeth into soon. But The Cliff Runner was a start, in which I imagined and built a land and set a story in it.

It began with a made-up map. But it was a map that intersected with the real world. You see, I wanted a landscape that was at least a bit like the coastal area in which I lived. That’s because I wanted to get out along the real coast for inspiration, where the cliffs rose and the waves crashed upon the rocks. The real coast was to be the beginning—though only the beginning—of my made-up land. So, when I began on that first day to sketch out a map of my fantasy land, it was a map with a long eastern coastline that ran right down the page, like my own known bit of coastline in eastern Australia. In fact, I made that first sketch overlooking the real coast, with the crash of waves sounding in my ears.

This, as a writer of fantasy, was my compromise with reality. It helped me stick to that old rule-of-thumb of writers that you should “write what you know.” But then—and here’s the important point—I stretched it all into fantasy. I made the cliffs higher and the surf more treacherous than the coast I knew. I added things too—new bays, headlands and mountains. The most dramatic of these was Mount Targ, an active volcano. In the novel, Mount Targ would often colour the night sky with a ghostly orange glow, and sometimes fresh lava would burst down its slopes to crash, boiling, into the sea. I knew nothing first-hand of volcanoes, but I knew enough in general terms to add it (without giving much detail) to the landscape I did know. Beyond Mount Targ, to the north, I created the Bay of Thularn, strewn with boulders; its treacherous waters had been the graveyard for many vessels. To me, it was reminiscent of a real bay that I had visited, where I had seen rusting wreckage on the rocks from a hundred-year old steamship called the S.S. Maitland.

I created a little fishing village too called Leoden. That’s where the main character of The Cliff Runner was to be based, for Arun was an apprentice runner. He was tasked—in thismedieval-style world—with running vital messages along the otherwise inaccessible coastline. That’s what would lead to his adventures; for the day would come when the sails of enemy ships would be sighted across the sea, and a message would have to be raced along the cliffs to the military commanders.

At least one more detail is worth mentioning. High above the real cliffs of my own world, I would sometimes sight a White-Bellied Sea-Eagle (Haliaeetus leucogaster). This is Australia’s second largest bird of prey, just slightly smaller than the famous Wedge-tailed Eagle of the outback. The Sea-Eagle is an impressive bird. With a wingspan that can measure more than two metres, it glides swiftly on the heights above the cliffs, a master of the air currents. It is also a formidable predator, with knife-sharp talons and beak. I can’t remember now if it was this bird that specifically gave me the idea of the deadly flocks of korakim in my novel. But I knew, when I created the korakim, that they somehow fit the landscape, just like Sea-Eagles did along the real coast. But then I stretched my made-up birds into fantasy, just as I had stretched into fantasy my landscape: the korakim were to be trained by the enemy invaders to attack runners—like my main character!—on the cliffs. That’s why my main character had to become an expert fighter as well as a runner. There would be big battleson the cliffs before the novel reached its end!

Of course, there’s much more that I could say about my writing of The Cliff Runner novel. I haven’t said anything much yet of my characters, or of my made-up back-story, or of my writing style, or of plot development. But the main point I’ve been trying to make is that the story itself grew out of the land I imagined. And the land I imagined was inspired by a landscape I had already often walked in.

Poem of the Month - March 2015