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His temper short, \/ his suffering long — \/ once was sixty-million strong. \/
In burning sun, \/ in blinding snow, \/ behold! The mighty buffalo!”
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And there are many reasons I enjoyed this interview with David—I was quite enamored with his thought-provoking responses to several of these questions, for one—but the best thing that came out of it was re-discovering my love for his two poetry picture book titles, On the Farm<\/a><\/em><\/strong> and In the Wild<\/a><\/em><\/strong>, both illustrated by Holly Meade<\/a><\/strong>. The latter was released this August (Candlewick), and as I formatted this interview, I fell in love all over again with the poems in the book, as well as with Holly’s luminous woodcut and watercolor illustrations. The above spread is from this collection of verses. School Library Journal<\/em> writes, “Elliott’s spare verses vary in length and form with bits of humor {and} some lovely use of language and imagery.” Elizabeth Ward wrote about the first collection of poems (The Washington Post<\/em>), “Elliott’s little verses pack a deceptive punch.” <\/p>\n David’s here for a breakfast interview. I’ve got the cyber-coffee on, and we’re ready to chat. I thank him for stopping by to talk about a little bit of everything regarding his work as a children’s book author and poet — humor in children’s books, the joy of having a good editor, the art of listening, not undervaluing children, the challenges of writing picture books for the very young, the “imposter syndrome” of a writer, how prose picture books are like eggs, what is most liberating to him in his writing, and (my favorite part of all) still feeling as scared and awed by the world as he did as a kid. Oh, and lots more . . . <\/p>\n <\/p>\n Jules<\/font><\/strong>: Can you talk about the genesis of the two poetry titles, On the Farm<\/a><\/strong><\/em> and In the Wild<\/a><\/strong><\/em>)? And, on that note, what was your inspiration for the Evangeline Mudd<\/a><\/strong> tales?<\/font><\/p>\n Evangeline<\/em> was originally a totally different story. No primatologists, no apes. I was about a third of the way into the book and hitting a wall. Didn\u2019t know where to go next and the narrative was very stubborn about telling me. Not a good sign. Just about that time, younger friends of ours were expecting their third child. Through the miscalculations of all concerned, the baby arrived when the parents were walking in the forest surrounding their home, and, well, she was born in the New Hampshire woods. In winter. I started wondering what a girl who was born al fresco might be like and realized that this was the real Evangeline. I put those early pages aside and started over. Oh well. (That baby, by the way, was just fine. A happy ending all around.)<\/p>\n On this topic, inspiration, I love what the late Octavia Butler had to say: \u201cHabit is more important than inspiration.\u201d<\/p>\n Jules<\/font><\/strong>: Discuss any pressure you may have felt, if any, in writing a sequel of sorts to On the Farm<\/em>.<\/font><\/p>\n David<\/font><\/strong>: Like many writer friends, I suffer from the imposter syndrome. \u201cOkay,\u201d I tell myself, \u201cI wrote that book, but it\u2019s very doubtful if I\u2019ll be able to pull off the next one.\u201d These feelings are legitimate, I guess. Every book, like every child, is idiosyncratic. None of the old rules apply. This is especially true for novels, by the way.<\/p>\n But In the Wild<\/em> presented different challenges. First, there was the problem of choosing which animals to include. Farm<\/em> was much easier in that regard, since a farm is, in fact, a container holding a particular set of animals that we all agree belong there. (We hear “farm”; we think cow.) But there is no such container for wild animals. They live all over the world in every possible habitat, and there are thousands of them. It took a lot of trial and error (mostly error), trying to come up with the right combination of fourteen. Thank god for the wisdom of my wonderful editor at Candlewick, Liz Bicknell. <\/p>\n A rather larger problem was that it soon became clear that I knew very little about these animals beyond the superficial. To correct that, I read a great deal and looked at a lot of images. Even so, my initial draft of a poem almost always seemed to focus on the obvious. My first go at the zebra for example was about -\u2013 guess what? Stripes! Very humiliating. Liz encouraged me to say something new. (Let me say it again; thank god for good editors!) <\/p>\n Finally, there was the enormous challenge of writing a book for a young audience about animals that could become extinct in their lifetime. It seemed irresponsible to say to children, \u201cTough luck, kids! Your world is changing! Get used to it.\u201d At the same time, it seemed very wrong not to find a way to acknowledge the truth. To complicate matters further, I also wanted to give children a choice about how much they wanted to know concerning the worrying plight of so many of these animals. I tried to integrate these conflicting ideas through the last poem, the polar bear, hoping it would reverberate back through the book. <\/p>\n It may sound strange or even pretentious to say it, but having written those verses, I feel much more closely connected to these animals. It was a gift, really. I\u2019m very, very grateful to have been given the opportunity.<\/p>\n Jules<\/font><\/strong>: You talk at your site about how many of your books are humorous. Is it a major brain shift for you to switch from that kind of writing to this beautiful, spare poetry?<\/font><\/p>\n David<\/font><\/strong>: First off, thanks for the kind words, especially because until On the Farm<\/em>, reviewers almost invariably described my work as \u201cquirky,\u201d something that used to drive me crazy, but which I now embrace. Is it a major brain shift? No, I don\u2019t think it is. No matter what I\u2019m writing, I\u2019m trying to demonstrate for young readers the power and the beauty, the resilience and the play in their language. I hope that doesn\u2019t sound too high-falutin\u2019. Understand, too, I\u2019m not saying I always succeed, but it is something I try to be conscious of as I work. <\/p>\n I will say that I wish humor weren\u2019t so undervalued in our culture. I don\u2019t know where we got the idea that tragedy is somehow more . . . hmmm . . . what\u2019s the right word? Literary? Valuable? Meaningful? than comedy. To me this seems very provincial. I sometimes wonder if the children\u2019s book world isn\u2019t suffering from an inferiority complex. \u201cSee?\u201d we seem to be saying to our counterparts who are writing, editing, publishing for adults. \u201dChildren\u2019s books are Literature with a capital L, too. We write all the time about people dying, alcoholic and drug-addicted parents, anorexia, depression, etc.\u201d Is it possible that we\u2019re trying to foist off our own disappointments about life onto our children by giving them so many of what I now (snidely) think of as \u201cOh-dear! Mother-is-dying-of-leukemia!\u201d books? This seems not only wrong, but cruel. You know, I\u2019ve read reviews of my own work and others’ that say something like, \u201cthis book is good for children with a sense of humor,\u201d as if the ability and desire to laugh is a kind of disability, something perhaps to be tolerated but pitied. Children understand how contradictory, hypocritical, pompous, and just plain silly the adult world can be. I think it was Gail Sheehy<\/a><\/strong>, the author of Passages<\/a><\/strong><\/em>, who adopted an AmerAsian child, a girl who had lived through the horrors of the war in her country, Viet Nam. In trying to understand how the child survived, Sheehy suggested that it was the girl\u2019s ability to laugh at the absurdity of her situation. My own childhood was a difficult one. I know that the books that I loved most were those that made me laugh. I knew, as do many kids, all I needed to about suffering. <\/p>\n I know I\u2019m going to regret saying all this in public.<\/p>\n Jules<\/font><\/strong>: What was it like to see Holly’s<\/a><\/strong> art work for the first time for both titles?<\/font><\/p>\n David<\/font><\/strong>: I shouted. Both times. What else could I do? I couldn\u2019t be luckier than to have been paired up with Holly Meade. <\/p>\n Jules<\/font><\/strong>: Will there be a sequel to Jeremy Cabbage<\/a><\/strong><\/em>, by chance?<\/font><\/p>\n Jules<\/font><\/strong>: What was your road to publication?<\/font><\/p>\n David<\/font><\/strong>: I would describe my road to publication as unpaved and full of potholes. I\u2019m still traveling on that road, by the way. Where\u2019s the Motel 6? <\/p>\n Jules<\/font><\/strong>: Can you tell me a bit about your writing process\/\u201dcraft\u201d? Do you outline plot before you write or just let your muse lead you on and see where you end up? How different is it for a prose picture book, compared to poetry?<\/font><\/p>\n David<\/font><\/strong>: I think my process is best described in this famous quote from EL Doctorow<\/a><\/strong>: \u201cWriting is like driving a car at night. You only see as far as your headlights go, but you can make the whole trip that way.” Sometimes, when I am maybe half way through the first draft of a novel, I might try to scribble some notes so that I can give myself the illusion that I know how to proceed. Sometimes, too, when I\u2019m ready to quit for the day, I\u2019ll leave the last sentence unwritten, so that I\u2019ll have something definite to write on that blank screen the next morning. Silly, I guess, but it works. All in all, though I wish it were otherwise, my process is very desultory. To me, a lot of writing is the art of listening, listening to the story as it tells itself to you.<\/p>\n The poetry books completely possess me. Once I start, I\u2019m no good for anything until I\u2019ve finished. No matter what I\u2019m doing—driving, feeding the dog, responding to an interview—part of me is thinking of the poems, trying to get all the elements, the rhythm and music, the diction, the line breaks to fall into place until the sum is greater than the whole (or whatever that expression is.) This drives my wife crazy, but it\u2019s the only way I know how to do it. It\u2019s miserable, really. Currently, I\u2019m finishing up the edits and writing some new poems for On the Wing<\/em>, the book I mentioned earlier. I might be typing right now, answering these questions, but what I\u2019m thinking is, what rhymes with albatross<\/em>?<\/p>\n Jules<\/font><\/strong>: How do your school visits inform your writing, if at all?<\/font><\/p>\n Jules<\/font><\/strong>: I know this question is probably considered clich\u00e9, but as a book lover, it interests me: What books and\/or authors had an especially significant impact upon you as an early reader?<\/font><\/p>\n David<\/font><\/strong>: Alice in Wonderland<\/a><\/strong><\/em>, hands down. I still love Dickens<\/a><\/strong>, too, especially Bleak House<\/a><\/strong><\/em>, Oliver Twist<\/a><\/strong><\/em>, and Great Expectations<\/a><\/strong><\/em>. And I love Robert Louis Stevenson<\/a><\/strong>. Just last night, I pulled Kidnapped<\/a><\/strong><\/em> and Treasure Island<\/a><\/strong><\/em> off the shelves and put them on my bed stand. How many times have I read them? <\/p>\n I can still remember the thrill of reading some of those books that I ordered through elementary school from whatever the equivalent of Scholastic was in the Ice Age (when I was in school. Or maybe it was Scholastic? Can Scholastic be that old?): No Children, No Pets<\/a><\/strong><\/em>; Wild Geese Flying<\/em>; Danny Dunn and the AntiGravity Paint<\/a><\/strong><\/em>; Island Boy<\/a><\/strong><\/em>. <\/p>\n As an adult, I think Tuck Everlasting<\/a><\/strong><\/em> is possibly the best middle grade book ever written. That and Sideways Stories from the Wayside School<\/a><\/strong><\/em>. <\/p>\n Jules<\/font><\/strong>: Okay, so this sounds clich\u00e9, too, but I still think it\u2019s a good question: What advice would you give to aspiring children\u2019s poets and\/or picture book authors?<\/font><\/p>\n David<\/font><\/strong>: Well, I wouldn\u2019t presume to give advice to anyone, since I myself feel like I have to reinvent not just the wheel but the idea of revolution every time I start a book. But I know from my own experience that in writing verse you can\u2019t get away with anything, so don\u2019t try to sneak anything by, an off-meter or a forced rhyme. Everything—and by everything, I mean every<\/em>thing—has to serve the poem. Not the poet. It\u2019s a hard lesson to learn. <\/p>\n The prose picture books I admire most are those that are really spare. Currently, I teach in the low residency MFA Program at Lesley University<\/a><\/strong>. I often find myself saying to my students. \u201cGood! But can you tell the story with half the words?\u201d I also say this to myself, by the way, so it\u2019s not just an exercise in torture for my students. Oh, one more thing. Don\u2019t forget about the architecture of the narrative. This is especially important in the picture book.<\/p>\n In general, I might add this: Readers don\u2019t care how much we may love to write, or that our spouses or teachers or grandchildren tell us we are good at it. They don\u2019t care that writing is therapeutic for us, or that we feel we have to write. Readers don\u2019t care about our feelings. And why should they? The only thing readers care about is what\u2019s on the page. That\u2019s it. To me, this is very liberating.<\/p>\n Jules<\/font><\/strong>: Are you working on any new projects that you can tell me about?<\/font><\/p>\n David<\/font><\/strong>: Well, I hope within the next week to have finished On the Wing<\/em>. (Albatross . . . Betsy Ross? Auchinsloss? Dental floss? Aaaargh!) Before that, there will be another Meade\/Elliott publication from Candlewick. Under the Sea<\/em>. Next year, I think.<\/p>\n I\u2019m still trying to find the right voice and structure for a middle grade novel that I\u2019m committed to, but can\u2019t get right. I\u2019ve been working on it for over a year. It\u2019s very discouraging. And I have a YA novel started that I hope to get to within the year. A couple of picture books. I have many ideas backed up. I hope I can find the time to get to them.<\/p>\n Jules<\/font><\/strong>: If you could have three (living) authors (or even illustrators)—whom you have not yet met—over for coffee or a glass of rich, red wine, whom would you choose?<\/font><\/p>\n Jules<\/font><\/strong>: What’s one thing that most people don’t know about you?<\/font><\/p>\n David<\/font><\/strong>: Yikes! Sometimes, I\u2019m so indiscrete that I sometimes feel that everybody knows everything about me. Let\u2019s see . . . Okay. How about this? Even though I am an adult and fulfill (most of the time) all the attendant responsibilities of the adult world, in my heart I still find life as terrifying and as wonder-filled as I did as a kid. As beautiful and as ugly. As ridiculous and as filled with meaning. I envy those people who seem to have so much confidence, to have it all figured out. To me, it\u2019s still a mystery. All of it. <\/p>\nDavid<\/font><\/strong>: Several years ago, I was invited to participate in an event honoring the fabulous children\u2019s book maven, Kirsten Cappy of Curious City<\/a><\/strong> in Portland, Maine. Writers were asked to contribute a short piece; illustrators provided art to accompany it. I chose the robin as my topic—who knows why? perhaps because Kirsten is a famous redhead—and challenged myself to say as much as I could about the bird in the fewest number of words. On the Farm<\/em> grew out of that experience. (The original poem about the robin didn\u2019t make it into the book, by the way, but is being recycled in another companion book also with the incredible Holly Meade, On the Wing<\/em>.) In the Wild<\/em> seemed like a natural companion to the homey, domesticity of the farm book.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n<\/p>\n<\/a>
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“As lovely as the antelope, \/ as lovely and as fast, \/ but Antelope \/ is always first \/ and Zebra<\/strong> always last. \/ They say that’s just the ordered way, \/ unchangeable, and yet \/
I wish we had, \/ for Zebra’s sake, \/ a different alphabet.”
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“Sleeps \/ with \/ one \/ eye \/ open \/ in the shady \/ farmhouse yard. \/ You might think \/ he’s keeping cool. \/ Beware! \/ He’s keeping guard!”<\/em>
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(Candlewick, 2009)
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\nDavid<\/font><\/strong>: I hope so. I have it roughly sketched in my head, and by “roughly,” I mean I have a relatively good idea of who will people the book and the setting. Also, the beginning scene. As you might know, the book is currently in development at Fox 2000. The executive producer and the producer are the same two smart women who made The Devil Wears Prada<\/em> and are cooking up some very exciting ideas for the movie. It\u2019s not 100% yet, but we\u2019re getting closer. If the movie is made, I hope I\u2019ll get someone interested in a sequel. As my Islamic friends say, \u201cIn-Sha’-Allah.\u201d <\/p>\nI sometimes think of prose picture books, at least the ones I like, as eggs. Really nutritious. Really simple. And really strong. You know that thing about trying to break an egg by placing each end in either palm and squeezing? You can\u2019t do it. But if there\u2019s a crack in the shell, you\u2019d better have your dry cleaner\u2019s number handy. That\u2019s what I aim for. No cracks. I love the challenge of writing a picture book for the very young. It\u2019s terribly difficult, at least for me, but satisfying if I can get it right.<\/p>\n<\/p>\nI\u2019m still impacted by everything I read. Right now, I\u2019m in the middle of The Famished Road<\/a><\/strong><\/em>, a novel by the Nigerian writer, Ben Okri<\/a><\/strong>. Amazing! And I just finished a non-fiction book, Salvation on Sand Mountain<\/a><\/strong><\/em> about American religious sects who handle snakes. I couldn\u2019t put it down. All of these, in one way or another, will find their way into my work.<\/p>\n
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“I have affection \/ for the Sloth<\/strong>, \/ though she’s small \/ and rather hairy. \/
Brown, the color \/ of a moth, \/ she only moves \/ when necessary.”<\/em><\/center><\/p>\nDavid<\/font><\/strong>: Only three? Okay. Natalie Babbitt<\/a><\/strong>, because even though I\u2019ve read Tuck<\/em> many times, I still tear up when I read that Prologue. My god! That prologue! Sue Townsend<\/a><\/strong>, because even though I\u2019ve read The Secret Diary of Adrian Mole, Age 13\u00be<\/a><\/strong><\/em> many times, I still laugh out loud when I pick up the book. And Michael Rosen<\/a><\/strong>, another Brit, because as Children\u2019s Laureate of England, he founded the Roald Dahl Funny Prize. I\u2019d like to thank him.<\/p>\n