Poet Jack Prelutsky Talks to HighlightsParents
Sharing Laugh-Aloud Rhymes with Your Kids
In the June 2008 issue of Highlights®, Jack Prelutsky, the first Children's Poet Laureate of the United States, tells our young readers that "writers aren't just boring dead guys. They're people just like [you]." Prelutsky is far from boring! He's written more than 50 books of humorous poems, including his most recent work, Be Glad Your Nose is on Your Face. He's also made time to visit schools around the country, inspiring thousands of children to create their own verses. If you're not yet familiar with Prelutsky's poems, here's one of our favorites!
Jack Prelutsky
Chuck
I'm Chuck, the chore evader
and adept procrastinator.
I've got a lot of strategies ---
I'll demonstrate them later.
By Jack Prelutsky. From A Pizza the Size of the Sun, Greenwillow Books. Reprinted with permission from publisher.
Highlights: What can parents do at home to encourage kids to become involved with poetry—both listening and writing?
Jack Prelutsky: Spend time with them. Show interest. There's an old saying: "Tell me, I forget; show me, I remember; involve me, I understand." And show enthusiasm! I've seen teachers take something like baseball and make it boring, and I've seen teachers who can make the Yellow Pages fascinating. It all has to do with enthusiasm.
Highlights: Why do you think kids like rhyme?
Jack Prelutsky: There's something about rhyme that sinks into you and becomes part of you. Also, it makes things easier to remember. One of the original purposes of poetry was to report the news. Rhyme helped people remember what they'd heard.
Highlights: Is there a question that you especially like getting from kids?
Jack Prelutsky: Oh, I don't know. I do know that the most popular question is "Where do you get your ideas?" Perhaps my favorite all-time question is "Where did you buy your brain?"
Highlights: Your poetry often tells stories about kids' conflicts and predicaments. How do you know so much about what kids are going through?
Jack Prelutsky: I used to be a kid, and I draw on my own childhood. The more I write, the more I remember. Also, I've gone to hundreds of schools and I've listened to kids. They tell me wonderful things, and sometimes I think, "That's a poem." It's really about keeping your eyes and ears open. Also, I always carry a notebook and at least two pens. As soon as I get an idea, I write it down immediately. I tell kids to do the same.
Highlights: Do you say your poems out loud when you're working on them?
Jack Prelutsky: I do. Also, I keep a guitar by my desk, and I often sing the poems I'm writing. It's a big help. I usually know if a poem works, but not always. Sometimes my editor won't like it, and sometimes she'll tell me that the poem is too long or too short. I take my editor's words seriously.
Highlights: What makes a poem work? What makes a good poem "good"?
Jack Prelutsky: Recently I went to a classical vocal competition where I heard eight very fine singers. I knew immediately which one was the best. Her voice resonated with me. It's the same with a poem—it's like a song that resonates in your ear and your heart. It does what it's supposed to do—it makes you laugh or cry. Incidentally, not everyone voted for that singer.
Highlights: You've said you didn't like poetry as a kid. Which poets did you read or hear that changed your feelings about poetry?
Jack Prelutsky: In my late teens, I discovered metaphysical poets from the 17th century—Andrew Marvell and John Donne, for example. Also, I was involved with folk music, especially the blues and English, Irish, and Scottish ballads, and songs from the Southern Appalachians. I liked and was inspired by their plainspoken language.
Highlights: You give kids opening lines and imaginative questions, called "poemstarts," to help them write poetry. Why?
Jack Prelutsky: Most people aren't going to be poets (or for that matter carpenters, doctors, or politicians) just as I wasn't going to be an artist. But this hasn't kept me from doing art. That's what the "poemstarts" are about. They're stepping-stones for kids to help get them started, so that they don't have to come up with everything on their own.
Highlights: Your career as a poet started in a serendipitous way.
Jack Prelutsky: I got into poetry while working at the Folklore Center in New York. Also, I was playing guitar and singing in coffee houses at night. In my spare time I drew imaginary creatures. One evening I decided that they needed poems to accompany them, and in two hours wrote two dozen verses to go along with the drawings that had taken me six months. A friend of mine, Mike Thaler ("The Riddle King"), saw what I'd done and sent me to his editor, Susan Hirschman. She had just taken over at Macmillan and later founded Greenwillow. She said, "You're very talented! I want to publish your poems. But you're the worst artist I've ever seen!" I'd never suspected that I had this writing talent. I'd flunked English in college, mostly because I was bored. By the way, Susan Hirschman was my editor for 37 years, until she retired. We've remained friends, and I still often consult her.
Highlights: Have there been other fortuitous experiences in your life?
Jack Prelutsky: Many. For example, when I was just six months old and living on the top floor of a tenement in Brooklyn, my uncle rescued me from a fire. He ran up five flights of stairs even though he had polio and had difficulty walking.
Here's another example: We moved to the Bronx, and I became an avid baseball fan. When I was about 12 or 13, I was walking with my father, and I must have said or done something that rubbed him the wrong way. He was about to wallop me when someone put his hand on my father's shoulder and said softly, "Don't do that." We looked up. It was Willie Mays! Yes, Willie saved me from a licking.
Here's one more example: In 1979, I went to a library in Albuquerque to do
a reading. I talked to Carolynn, the children's librarian, for about ten minutes . . . then I asked her to marry me. We're still married.
Highlights: You've also been fortunate in working with wonderful illustrators. How much contact do you have with the illustrators?
Jack Prelutsky: Yes, I've been blessed. I've worked with talented people, including Garth Williams and a lot of Caldecott artists. For years I never met or talked to any illustrators. I certainly don't tell them how to draw. For example, I wrote a book about snow based on my experiences growing up in the Bronx, but the illustrator pictured life in rural Maine. It worked just fine.
Highlights: It was drawing that brought you to poetry. Have you reconnected with doing art?
Jack Prelutsky: I forgot about art for a long time, though I've always been a serious photographer, mostly photographing people. Now I also use my computer to scan things and create my own art. I also make sculptures from found and saved objects. At the moment, I'm working on a silly book about birds. I started off not knowing much about birds, so I took photos as a reference. I discovered that I had a talent for bird photography . . . even my wife tells me that my bird photos are good. I try to capture a bird's essential birdness (whatever that means), and I use a digital camera and several computer graphics programs.
Highlights: You're a poet who seems to like technology.
Jack Prelutsky: I believe in utilizing the best tools available, and I have embraced technology. I still use my old-fashioned thesaurus and rhyming dictionary, but I find the computer to be a tremendous help. It's certainly a time saver.
Highlights: After talking to kids for a few decades, is there anything you'd especially like to say to their parents?
Jack Prelutsky: You love them. I'll entertain them.
Jack Prelutsky and Highlights hope to spark kids' imaginations and develop a love of poetry. Each month, Highlights publishes a small sampling of the many poems children have written and submitted. At HighlightsKids.com, kids can hear poems read aloud.
To find out more about Jack Prelutsky and his work, go to www.JackPrelutsky.com.
To read another interview with Jack Prelutsky, go to TeachingK-8.com.