Board Book Poetry

I have sometimes thought of children's books, especially the very simple board books of those pre-reading years, as sounding and sometimes looking like poems. This article on npr.org talks about that idea.

First, an apology. Okay, maybe apology is a bit strong. An admission of being wrong? Anyway, almost a year ago, I wrote to you all about kids’ book author Mac Barnett, who’d just been named the Library of Congress’s National Ambassador for Young People's Literature, and his argument that kids’ books should be seen as up there with the best that literature has to offer. I was, let’s say, open to the argument, but skeptical (in my defense, that oughta be the baseline for reporters!). But then I started reading more and more to my kid and was slowly, more and more convinced towards Barnett’s side. Then, I read Jon Klassen’s new book, Your Truck. It’s the first in a series of board books aimed at super young kids, about things. The titular truck in the book is red. It doesn’t do much. A dog gets in the cab at one point. The language in Your Truck is spare and concise, but it packs an emotional wallop. When you are ready to go, your truck will go and go and go. It will take you as far away from here as you want. But not right now. Not yet.   Reading it reminded the article's author, Andrew Limbong, of the modernist poet Ezra Pound, a poet who gave his poetic principles. One was the “direct treatment of the ‘thing," where all of the emotional impact is woven into something concrete. Klassen told me he didn’t go into this book thinking he’d be writing about a child eventually leaving home when writing a board book about a truck. Those metaphorical considerations are built into the thing itself. Instead, the only question he asked himself when writing was “what’s cool about a truck?”  There’s something about the time and space limitations on books for small kids that lend themselves well to poetic readings. Besides some clear classics like Margaret Wise Brown’s Goodnight Moon and Brown’s Seven Little Postmen Any children's book that reads like poetry for you?

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Defining Uncurated in Publishing

I came upon an article on Substack, "Uncurated: The Case for a New Term of Art" by Timothy Green. Tim has worked as editor of Rattle magazine since 2004. He's the author of American Fractal (Red Hen Press, 2008) and occasionally mints poems as NFTs.

I know what "curation" means, but if a publisher asks for "previously uncurated work," what do they mean? It's a new term that means that your work has not appeared in a literary magazine, journal, or anthology. 

Why do we need a new term? Green says that, "We haven’t thought of a word to replace 'publication,” now that publication is irrelevant...Imagine how literature would thrive if we could share our art with our friends in the medium of the era."

If you use Substack, you can read the entire post, but here are a few excerpts as summary.

...Your friend shares a poem they wrote last night on Twitter. You read and enjoy it; they feel the joy of your enjoyment. Months or years later, you see the poem in a literary magazine. What do you think? Are you disappointed that you already read it? Of course not! Quite the opposite, you’re thrilled that you remember having that early peek, thrilled you’re friends with a good writer. You might even buy a copy of the magazine just because you have a friend in that issue. And most readers will have no idea that an early version was posted last year on Twitter, and that they could have sifted through billions of tweets to find it. They wouldn’t care if they knew. The curator discovered its value—that was the job of the curator, and that’s what readers are thankful for...
There’s no reason left on earth for publishers to continue blocking this scenario. And as soon as we get out of the way by making this simple change, all of literature will be better for it.
For most of my time as Editor of Rattle, our guidelines have said that we do not accept previously published poems, but don’t consider posting work to blogs or social media as publication. That’s the rule I wanted to practice, but the twisting of language always bothered me. Posting work online is publication. A public tweet is public. But now we have the word to solve that problem."

Green concludes:

"If you’re a publisher reading this, I hope you’ll adopt uncurated as a new term of art along with me, and help it to grow. If you’re a writer, I hope you’ll encourage others to switch by using curated in your bios. “My poems and stories have been curated by X, Y, Z.” Focus on the curation that matters, rather than the publication that doesn’t. It will only take a simple find-and-replace to catch us up to the current era and make the literary world a better place."

Are you seeing this term in places where you submit? Is it a useful term?

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To see our past prompts and more than 300 issues,
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Prompt: Advice, He Said

The first time I heard Hal Sirowitz reading his poetry was a revelation. His deadpan delivery, and self-deprecating humor, and domestic neurosis had the audience laughing like they were at a comedy club. (He reminded me of the comedian Steven Wright.)

Hal rose to prominence as a regular at the Nuyorican Poets Cafe during the 1990s slam poetry boom. Although seeing Hal read in person was definitely the way to go, he was not what you think of as a "performance poet."

Born in Manhattan and raised in Queens, Sirowitz’s work is rooted in the Jewish-American experience and the specific rhythms of NYC. He was best known for three collections of poems written in the voice of authority figures, including his mother, father, and therapist. All three offered unsolicited, guilt-ridden, and often absurd advice.

Put a Little Enjoyment in Your Life
All work and no play
makes Jack a dull boy,”
Father said, “which is why
we didn’t name you Jack.
We chose Harold. It means
‘Life’ in Hebrew, “Chaim.”
Please show more signs of it.
It’s too late to change names.

That poem and the others used as models on the website this month are available on Hal's website. Sirowitz is the author of five books of poetry: Mother Said, My Therapist Said, Father Said, Before, During & After and Stray Cat Blues.

Hal retired from a three-decade career as a New York City public school special education teacher. He then moved with his wife, the writer Minter Krotzer, to Philadelphia.

Hal Sirowitz passed away on February 24, 2024, in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, at the age of 75. His death was the result of complications from Parkinson’s disease, a condition he lived with for over two decades. Despite the physical toll of the illness, Hal continued to engage with the literary community and write, often with the support of his wife, the writer Minter Krotzer.   

For the March 2026 issue, we are asking that you use Hal's style of short poems (14 lines or less) in the voice of someone (of some authority) giving advice. You should include his stylistic "said" that identifies the speaker. Is the advice unsolicited, guilt-ridden, or absurd? Perhaps. But it could also be valid, but unwanted, or only known to be useful at a later date. 

 The deadline, as always, is the last day of the month, February 28. 

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To see our past prompts and more than 300 issues,
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Dogs and Billy Collins

In a PBS interview for a new collection of Billy Collins' poems about dogs, it is said that nobody can fully understand the meaning of love unless they have had a dog. Collins agrees. 

The former U.S. poet laureate is a literary lion of the New York Public Library and a member of the American Academy of Arts and Letters. He recently released his 12th collection of poetry titled Dog Show.

Billy Collins, a dog lover and owner who's been writing about them for decades, he's now pulled together a selection of those poems in a volume he's dedicated to 85 dogs, those of friends as well as his own. The book is illustrated with Pamela Sztybel’s watercolors,

Watercolor illustrations by Pamela Sztybel help show what's beguiled Collins ever since he got his first dog as an only child. 

When we got a dog from the pound, my father said: "We're going to get a dog, but, remember, we're buying a heartache," which was, the dog's going to die before we will, which is a fact of dog and human life. Somebody said, the only -- dogs are flawless, except they die too soon. 

That's what we're trying to avoid, is the -- bring up the violins and -- but I do have that poem of -- you know, I think, "A Dog on His Master."

A Dog on His Master.
As young as I look, I'm growing older faster than he. 
Seven to one is the ratio they tend to say. 
Whatever the number, I will pass them one day 
and take the lead, the way I do on our walks in the woods. 
And if this ever manages to cross his mind, 
it would be the sweetest shadow I have ever cast on snow or grass.

On the craft of writing poetry:

I think the craft part comes from having taught English literature for many, many decades and having this kind of Rolodex of poetic stuff revolving and teaching semester after semester, Wordsworth, Emily Dickinson, Hardy.

On the voice of his poems: 

So the voice in my poems is very straightforward. It's without guile and even kind of chummy with the reader. Someone said no line must sleep. Every line needs to be aware of the lines around it, as opposed to prose, where the sentences just drive forward. Poetry is a language that means more and sounds better than other written expressions.

Billy reads two poems about what dogs think (probably)

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Follow this blog for all things poetry.
To see our past prompts and more than 300 issues,
visit our website at poetsonline.org