sallymurphy.com.au

Sally Murphy, Australian author

Why Write in Verse: My Thoughts on the Verse Novel

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Tomorrow I am off to the Mundaring Arts Centre and then on to the KSP Writers Centre to present two workshops to young writers. As a result, I have spent the last hour or so thinking about what I might be asked about my choice to use the verse novel form.
I must admit that I didn’t so much choose the form as it chose me. From the time I read my first verse novel (It was Jinx, by Margaret Wild), I had been fascinated with the form, and knew that eventually I would try my hand at writing one. However, Pearl Verses the World (my first verse novel) came like a bolt from the blue, insisting it be written, and be written in verse. There was no conscious decision to try to write a verse novel – rather a story came to me, as a series of poems, and I sat down and wrote it down. Along the way I did a lot of thinking  about what would happen to this very insistent character, but there was never any question that her story would be told in verse. And I think it works.
My second verse novel, Toppling, was similar. This time there was a wee bit more intention. I’d finished writing Pearl, and when the idea for a story about a boy who topples dominoes came, I hoped that it was story which would lend itself to the verse form. Fortunately for me, it did.
It is a form I love to read, and a form I love to write, and I hope I shall write many more verse novels. However, I won’t write exclusively in verse form, simply because it is not a form which lends itself to every story.
For me, a story will work well in verse if:
1.        It is a character-driven story, rather than plot-driven. Yes, of course a verse novel needs a plot, too, but it is the characters of Pearl and John which drive my own verse novels. For this reason both are told in first person, a voice which works well for verse noels.
2.        It is high on emotion. The verse form is wonderful for exploring emotions in a way which  takes the reader close into the emotional vortex of the character. It is also excellent in allowing the reader to imagine the emotion for themselves rather than needing to be told how the character feels.
3.        Setting can be simply defined. For me (and remember every writer is different) I cannot imagine being able to write detailed descriptions of setting in the verse form. My poetry is about emotion, and so the feel of Pearl’s home, or John’s school is far more important than its physicality.
4.       The plot is not overly complicated. Lack of complication does not mean lack of depth. What  I do mean is that the story in a verse novel tends to be fairly linear – with subplots kept to a minimum or forming  part of the main plot. Both Pearl and Toppling have subplots – the friendship between Pearl and Mitchell, for example, and the uncovering of Ky’s story in Toppling, but these happen against the backdrop of the main plotline.
5.      Lastly, the key consideration when choosing to write a verse novel is whether the story can be better told any other way. If a story can be told in prose, it probably should be. Why? Because the verse novel is hard to write and hard to sell. I confess to having unsuccessfully tried to rewrite one of my prose novels as a verse novel following the success of Pearl – and failing. The story needed to be told in prose, because it could be. Could Pearl’s story – or John and Dom’s –  have been told in prose? I don’t think so. But that of Garth (the hero of the unsuccessful attempt) needed a level of dialogue and of description which the verse novel couldn’t lend.   I’ve since worked on that story back in its prose form – which is where it started out. But two other stories have been written since Toppling which began their lives as verse novels – and will stay that way. Hopefully one day they’ll even be published.
If you are interested in the verse novel form, you might like to see what some other verse novel enthusiasts have to say, at the following blog posts:

5 Cool Things About Poetry

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Okay – as a poet and verse novelist, this topic might seem a bit of a no-brainer, because if I didn’t love poetry I probably wouldn’t write it. But in my teaching day job I am just starting on a poetry unit with my two year eight classes, and believe me, these kids need a little convincing that poetry is cool. So, having devoted yesterday’s lessons to sharing some of my poetry with them and (hopefully) showing them that poems can be cool, I thought it might be a good topic for a blog. So, here goes, with my list of cool things about poetry.
  
    1.    It’s quick to read. Generally speaking, prose takes much longer to read than poetry. A poem can be as short as a few lines, yet still say a lot. And verse novels, whilst a little longer than single poems, are generally quicker to read than prose – which is a real bonus for a reluctant reader.

2.   It can say a lot. In just a few words, or a line or two, a poem can capture an emotion, a look, a feeling. I read my classes the opening page of Pearl Verses the World yesterday – and the students could quickly connect with Pearl’s isolation. 

3.    It leaves you thinking. The best poems don’t tell you how to think or feel. They evoke feelings, certainly, and present ideas and images, but then leave you to form your own response.

4.   4.    It can be a lot of fun. I read Pemberthy Bear 
      to  my year eights as well – and whilst I could see them initially resistant to being read a pretty pink picture book, they liked it enough to ask me today if I’d read it again. They also laughed at my poems about spiders and baked beans. And, when I read on a little into Pearl, they realised that even such a sad story could have light moments, when we came across Pearl’s first limerick.
5.    
           5  It’s easy to write. Don’t get me wrong, poetry can be a lot of hard work. But for young writers I always find that they feel a real sense of accomplishment when they produce their first poems. Often kids who are really daunted at the thought of writing a story or an essay are much more willing to write when they realise they only need a few lines to make a poem. And with list poems and other structures their success levels are really high. 
I love poetry – and I’m hopeful of making a few converts.

Writing Quote of the Week

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Poetry is the opening and closing of a door, leaving those who look through to guess about what was seen during a moment.

Carl Sandburg

Yup. A moment to read. An hour (or a week, or a lifetime) to ponder. And as for the writing of that poem – waaaaay more than a moment, I can guarantee.

What Laura Evans Likes About Children’s Poetry

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I am having such fun having so many different people drop in this month to blog about poetry. If you’ve just arrived here for the first time, I am having a month long bloganza of visiting bloggers telling me (and you) what they like about children’s poetry. This is my way of celebrating the release of my new verse novel, Toppling. So, to today’s post. Today I am delighted to welcome Laura Evans, blogger and all round nice person. Over to you, Laura.
The Beginner’s Mind
By Laura Evans

One of my favorite things about children’s poetry is the beginner’s mind. Babies acquire up to 40 words a day. As the baby grows she will share her word collection: “Da Da” and “Ma Ma.” In the next step, she will actively start collecting words by asking, “What is it?” Sometimes children don’t even need to know what it is, to appreciate a word.

When my son was three, we moved to a new house. After checking that I had packed his toys, he asked, “What else are we taking?” I said we would take our couch, chairs, and tables. Then he asked, “But, Mom, what about the furniture?”

Young children appreciate the sounds of words. To my son, “furniture” sounded like a grown-up word. It was big enough to correspond with the huge task of moving a household. Children like the way that words snap, tickle, and slide over each other. They enjoy the musical sounds of rhymes.

Besides sound, poetry deals in details. Nothing is too small to be captured in a poem. The answers to “what is it” are the details of life. A child begins by naming the things around her: banana, apple, a spoon, a cat or dog. In poetry, the details are so specific that readers are compelled to step closer to see them just as we draw near to examine a small painting. So, when poets write about the red-winged black bird or a giant panda, readers are brought closer to the natural world.

As children grow they continue to gather more words. Words become a basic part of their relationships in life. A child might talk to his Mom different from how he talks with his best friend. A boy can tell his Mom that he was scared at a movie. But he will not admit this to his friend.

Poets use words to crack open silence. Then we gather the silence back around the words in the art of the pause. This creates a frame to showcase the language. A poem may be built on the tension between pauses and the right words. And the right words are arranged on scaffolding that disappears in the poem, especially in free verse poetry.

Choosing exactly the right words is part of the thrift of poetry. Words are chosen and spent with great care. Non-poets will collect and discard words to participate in a common vocabulary of a community. But a poet will not limit herself. She collects words that lay on the fringes of society. Poets extend a democratic hand to any word. Then they save it and wait to use it in the right poem.

By the time a child reaches adulthood, the world can begin to look a bit tarnished and old. Adult poets try to find new ways of looking at our old world. This brings us back to the beginner’s mind. When it is applied to poetry, this is the stuff of miracles. Anything can happen.

Thanks for dropping in Laura and for sharing such insightful thoughts. Laura Evans has published more than five dozen poems in literary journals. Her blog at http://www.teachpoetryk12.com/ introduces newbie
children’s poets to the world of children’s poetry. And she reviews  poetry books for teachers and parents.

What Claire Saxby Likes About Children’s Poetry

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Continuing my month of celebrations of all things poetry. I am delighted to welcome another visitor to my blog. Today my good freind Claire Saxby, children’s book author and poet, drops by to tell us what it is that she likes about children’s poetry. Welcome Claire, and thanks for helping me to celebrate the release of Toppling in this way. Over to you.

When is a photo not a photo? When it’s a poem.

I write across a range of genre and markets in writing for children. My shortest book has only 26 words. I’ve written fiction and non fiction for preschoolers, emerging readers, confident readers all the way to upper primary. And I write poetry.

When the rest of my life is swirling madly and it seems there is no time to write, that’s when poetry is my salvation. When I have no time to work a plot, refine a setting and get to know my characters, I do have time to catch an image, to write a poem.

I think of writing longer fiction as being a bit like filming a movie and a poem as capturing a single image. A poetic image can sneak up and snare me and often does.

Of course capturing the idea is just the beginning and there’s work to be done refining it, just like post editing a photo. Framing, light, shading. The more I catch in the original image the better, but I know as long as I have the essence, the rest will come.

On Glenelg Pier

I lean against the wind
scuttle sideways
as waves clap pylons
and explode upwards
in daygrey fireworks

seagulls hunker
sea thumps shore
even fishermen
pull in their lines

only sealboys smile
slickblack surfers
ride water to sand
then footprint the pier
to leap again
into deepest wavecrest

I was in Adelaide last year and went for a walk on a windy pier. Black wetsuit-ed teenagers were running along the pier, carrying surfboards. Then they’d watch the wild choppy waves and leap into the crest. They’d catch the next wave to shore then do it all again. Joy and exhilaration was written loud across their faces, in complete contrast with all the other beachgoers, all struggling with the wind and cold. It was a lovely juxtaposition and I can still see the scene in my mind.

moon
round and ripe
the moon is a mango
with one slice gone

I was driving home late one night, quite tired and feeling not a little jaded (too much to do, not enough time to do it etc) . I turned a corner and there was the moon, hanging orange and large, just above the horizon. It was almost full, but not quite round. It was stunning. I slowed down and just kept stealing glances at it. It slowed down my racing brain too and reminded me of the beauty that is all around. Cheered me up no end.

A friend of mine suggests looking at the world through poetic eyes, looking for surprising details in the ordinary, the everyday. It took practice at first, but then it became almost second nature and images sneak up and grab me as I’m walking, or driving, or just about anywhere.

Beautiful Claire. Thanks for visiting and for sharing such lovely poems. You can visit Claire online at her blog, or her website.

Say It Once: Then Stop

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Somewhere in my recent reading I read a piece of writing advice that spoke a little at the time, but resonated further later on. The writer, speaking about poetry, advised writers to be succinct – to say what they want to say and then stop. Too often, he said, a poet will presume the reader is a little stupid, and not only say what they want to say, but then say it again differently, or even interpret what they’ve had to say.

Yesterday, I wrote my daily poem from the perspective of a child whose mother is an author. I imagined the poem giving all sorts of examples of how the child appears in his mother’s books. But, in line ten, before I got to the list, I wrote ‘those characters are me.’ Suddenly, that earlier advice came back to me. A list would be nice, it would certainly make the poem longer, but was it necessary? I’d just made the point of the poem: The kid sees himself in the stories his mum tells. So, I stopped.

Then, just to be sure, I read the poem to my kids – and guess, what? They got it. They didn’t need me to explain that the kid sees himself in those stories. Just saying ‘those characters are me’ was enough.

I wish I could remember exactly who offered the advice I read (I’ve been doing quite a bit of reading lately) so I could properly attribute it, but, like so much good advice, it took a little while to make its mark and so someone is missing out on the credit. But I wanted to share it, because, whether you write poetry or prose, it’s advice that bears heeding, especially when writing for kids.

Children are smart. They can interpret things for themselves. Give them the information and let them have the satisfaction of arriving at the answer, the emotion, the response. Use your dialogue, your description, or your rhythm to create that response – then leave them to it.

And I’m going to say no more – for fear of not taking my own advice.

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