May Featured Author: Patricia L.H. Black, Children's Literature

 

May Featured Author: Patricia L.H. Black, Children's Literature 

        Who am I?  Answering this question could take volumes and the answer would differ with each person of whom it is asked.  The straightforward answer is:  I am Patricia L.H. Black.  I live in the United States.  I’ve lived here most of my adult life, since 1963.  But set out that way, for those of you who do not know me personally, it tells you nothing.

I am an editor and a poet.  I primarily edit academic papers, I’ve edited some books and, here of late, I’ve edited a few memoires and some children’s books.  I am a formal poet in the sense that my poems usually adhere to some accepted poetic form – an ode, a cinquain, a ballad, a sonnet.  Don’t assume from that that my poetry is solemn, weighty, profound.  Sometimes, yes; usually not.

I come from a wordy family that finds the English language one of the best toys in the world. Puns are a way of family life but we’ve developed some pretty high standards. Straining too hard for a pun is likely to earn one the comment, “You’re reaching and I’m retching.”  I believe that if I have to explain a pun I’ve failed, either pushing the association too far or having misjudged my audience.

It is unfortunate that people think they don’t like poetry.  They like popular music, country music, gospel music; they love rapping.  If you take the music from any of these you’ll find poetry, usually rhyming poetry but not always.  And words do not need to rhyme to be poetic.  Read the King James Version of the English Bible to see what I mean.  With no instrument in sight, the words literally sing off the page.

Word choice can make or break a poem or can greatly improve it.  I have learned to let a poem I’ve just written sit for a week or more after I think I’ve finished it.  When I go back to it, after the  flush of creation has dissipated, I find ways to tweak it that really make a difference. 

For example, I have a poem “Don’t Go There” which originally had the line The jays and the grackles and the big black crows… which is acceptable and the alliteration of big and black is a good poetic device.  But I think the line really benefited from being changed to The jays and the grackles and the great dark crows….  It sounds more ominous and fits the poem’s tenor better.  Later in that same poem is something that I love about poetry – the creating of an impression or atmosphere without being implicit.  The lines are and the moss hangs/ grey as a dead man’s clothes.  Obviously,  a dead man could be dressed in the brightest of colors but the lines suggest a darker picture.

                     Twilliby Pond @ Barnes&Noble     Amazon