But the problem about active girls in children’s books exists. And like everything else in the world, redressing that one problem brings up another. Nothing is perfectly balanced. I began a poem that Asimov’s will be publishing, this way:
Balance
“Balance, as Miss Armstrong often reminded. .
.was a gift from the Lord to those who deserved it.”
--Gregory Maguire, After Alice
Balance, Balanchine proposed
belonged alone to primas.
The ownership of rich folks
the bankers all believe.
Balance is the center of the sane,The doctors tell us.
A state of equilibrium,
the sculptors’ hands deceive. . .
I believe that we may try to achieve as much parity in children’s literature, but will always fail. As in life, it’s the trying that’s important. And perhaps I--like many others--are extremely trying whilst doing so. <Winks>
RJ: Are you, then, quite aware of your audience (or their parents!) during the writing process? Maybe you can tell us a little about how your books tend to go from “Idea” to “Book” -
JY: I don’t actually think of audience directly when writing. At this point (almost 60 years into my writing career) I just write what interests me and then look at it and think about audience after.
One example: over the years I’ve written a bunch of poems about female characters from myth, legend, and folklore: characters such as Medusa, Baba Yaga, Penelope, resulka, sirens, selchies, Lilith. Some of the poems have being accepted and/or published in adult magazines such as Asimov’s, Mythic Delirium, Apex& Abyss, or in anthologies—both adult and Young Adult.
About a year ago I realized I had enough poems for a collection. But 1: Knowing how difficult selling an adult book of poetry is 2: How good YA can cross over into adult, and 3: That I am better known in the children’s/YA field, I began to shape this into a collection for YA readers.
RJ: I’d never really thought about YA poetry as a classification. Can you tell us about your interests in children and YA readers—what draws you towards them? Do you feel that myth, fantasy and sci-fi are particularly suited to those groups in particular?
JY: First of all, I think the majority of poetry has elements of fantasy in it. After all, aren’t metaphor and simile kinds of fantasy? Think of how many fantastical elements are here in this familiar poem by Robert Burns:
O my Luve is like a red, red rose
That’s newly sprung in June;
O my Luve is like the melody
That’s sweetly played in tune.
His love is not actually a rose, in June or any other month. Nor red. Nor is she an actual melody. Though any good fantasy writer could take it further into floral-filia or a musical muse love affair. The speaker is not going to be around till the rocks melt and the seas go dry. But it’s a good premise for a dystopian romance novel. And don’t get me started on the trek novel about a walk of ten thousand miles.
More seriously, I fell into children’s books and writing fiction and verse for young readers back in the early ‘60s (the date not my age!) and love being here. But before that (and after as well) I have written for adults. I think the borders blur for me. And sometimes for my readers as well. I am a classic crossover writer. And in some ways I am still that occasionally acerbic, moody, yet entirely optimistic (in a pessimistic kind of way) teenager I was years ago. And my poetry reflects all those facets. Old coal into diamonds (I hope).
RJ: Do you think such optimism is justified? One might call it naive (not I!). SF can rarely cope with utopias but there’s also a propensity to slip too far into dystopia. More than ever (recent political events in particular), I wonder if pragmatic optimism is required, or whether we need to bear witness to the darkness, which may not always have a happy end.
JY: Well, I am not entirely optimistic. Just that my natural (Jewish) pessimism is well tempered by my New York inborn snark, my New England bedrock work ethic, and the educated woman’s reluctant hope. Oh and softened by my adopted Scottish phrase, “Aye, we’ll pay for it!” whenever anything truly wonderful happens.
LOL
RJ: A lot happened during the course of this interview. Brexit, Trump - to name but two behemoths. Does your optimism remain strong for the future? To close our chat: what’s in store for your readers in 2017 and beyond?
JY: First--you can get my new book of adult political poems Before/The Vote/After from Levellers Press.
Support the arts, an arts collective, and get to hear hearty liberal poems, with an intro by our own ACLU Western Mass. head, attorney Bill Newman. Yes, sometimes anger (and fear) drive my poems. But surprisingly some of them are humorous, too!
Then I am speaking all across the USA: Florida, South Carolina, Boston, New York for starters, and teaching my Picture Book Boot Camp as well.
I have five or six new books out besides the political poetry book, depending upon publishers schedules, and any number of poems scheduled in magazines and journals.
And I’m trying to date. As I am 77, this is amusing, frustrating, and exciting in equal measure. Having a hard time finding a man of appropriate age able to keep up with me!
Multiverse
Russell Jones
This issue’s MultiVerse is a little different. It’s a Jane Yolen special, offering more of her verse to sink your fangs into, partly as an accompaniment to her author interview. But let’s concentrate on the poems in this issue, each of which takes something real and twists it to discuss the nature of reality and perception—which may be particularly important in the current and approaching alt-fact and post-truth world.
“Milk from a Cockroach” takes its leap from a real-life scientific discovery and imagines the retirement of cows, coconuts, goats and mares as the milk industry is revolutionised by the mass production of cockroach milk. Tasty. Kafka fans will notice the nod to “Metamorphosis” in Yolen’s playful suggestion that the milk may transform the drinker. This takes “you are what you eat” to another level!
“The Metric of Space” discusses the outwards or inwards approach we take to examining life. One might ask, “What’s the point of space travel?” and in this poem Yolen explores the limits of an insular life and what becomes of us when we give up on our dreams. The voyage not taken might contort us more than we might expect.
“Spider Rain” makes a real (but uncanny) event seem science fictional, with an added sprinkle of horror to anyone suffering from arachnophobia. It blends myth and reality, unsettling the notion of truth and our human desire for myth-making.
