Avi’s 2024 Summer Blog Series
Rebecca Kai Dotlich
From Avi: As I did in the summer of 2023 and the summer of 2022, I’ve invited 13 admired middle grade authors to write for my blog for the next three months. I hope you’ll tune in each Tuesday to see who has answered these two questions we’re frequently asked by readers. You should have a list of terrific books to read and share by the end of the summer … along with new authors to follow!
Some poems come from the heart, but they also come from the backyard, the sky, or the walk to school. A poem can be made of the thing that makes you double over laughing, or of the emptiness you feel when sadness settles in. When words are cobbled together to tell about rain clattering on the roof, wind whooshing through trees, a thunderstorm or the wonder of stars, that thing we call a poem has been written.
Where did you get your idea for a specific book of yours?
You might, or might not, love words. And you might, or might not, know it. Words that are delicious alone. Words that fit together like a puzzle. Words that say something to soothe your heart or make you think or make you laugh out loud. And, you might get a kick out of, or feel a bit of happiness when you hear a certain rhythm, or something repeated over and over, words strung together that you come to know by heart. You might be shrugging your shoulders. Probably you’ve never thought about it. As a young girl, I didn’t know that’s what I was feeling. I didn’t name it, I just knew I loved hearing, saying, (and still do,) things like … Fee Fi Fo Fum, I smell the blood of an Englishman. Be he alive or be he dead, I’ll grind his bones to make my bread. Shiver. Loved it. Or I can never forget Take me out to the ballgame, take me out to the crowd, buy me some peanuts and Cracker Jack, I don’t care if I never get back …my older brother listened to that song so often that it is stamped onto my brain. Songs, images, poems; they are all a type of singing, full of memory and mystery, noticing, reading, writing, and repeating. I was never able to memorize poems, and still can’t. Unless they are short. Unless they rhyme. Unless they have rhythm. Then, maybe. Almost. Sometimes. And another truth is, poems don’t have to rhyme. What about this: I hear bells ringing from far, far away, even while the horns honk and the dogs bark and the puddles splash. Those few images create a small poem about a noisy moment in time. There is a hint of rhythm, but there is no rhyme.
I have written poetry since I was about eleven. I still have a few of those poems. One was about being in class, watching the clock and wanting to go home, another was about my best friend as I watched her walking outside my window, one was about a boy, one about my little sister, one about death, and one was full of silly nonsense. None of these were good poems. And it didn’t matter. Writing them made me happy. It became a hobby. I wrote on tablets, on notebook paper, in diaries, and on the backs of used business papers my dad brought home from the office. At one point my grandfather gave me his old typewriter and I fell even deeper into the world of words along with the sound of click clacking while I typed. (I hadn’t learned to type yet, I just punched one key at a time.) I had things I wanted to say, and so I said them. Word after word, and line after line. Some poems rhymed and some did not. I don’t remember worrying about ideas, or how to get an idea, I just wrote what I was feeling, seeing, and thinking.
Now that I am a grown-up writer, I’m asked quite a bit where I get my ideas for poems. The truth is, not much has changed, except I enjoy studying the craft of poetry, comparing one thing to another, taking time to notice, to observe all the details that I can, choosing words, making word lists, finding the just-right word. And I usually begin by praising something. But before I can praise it, I fall in love with it for just a moment. And even before that, I question it, feel amazed by it, marvel at it. This might be windshield wipers sloshing back and forth, holding a cold, glassy marble in my hand, watching the whirling spokes of a bicycle, looking at a starfish, a shadow, the heart shaped rock, a penny on the sidewalk, a kite caught in a tree, a tiny frog or a cluster of clouds.
Poems don’t have to be about big, complicated things. But they can be. I’ve written about a friend moving away, missing my grandfather, and being lonely.
What’s your best writing advice for young writers?
When you think you might want to write a poem, have your curiosity, your heart and your notebook ready to explore, imagine and notice. And have your Thesaurus and Rhyming Dictionary close by, too. Dream, wonder, be open to possibilities, then don’t second guess or doubt yourself, just put it on the page.
Particulars
Rebecca Kai Dotlich
Rebecca is a word collector, poet and picture book author who has written and published dozens of children’s books, including Lemonade Sun, One Day The End, The Knowing Book, What Is Science? Grumbles From the Forest (co-authored with Jane Yolen) and most recently Welcome To The Wonder House, (co-authored with Georgia Heard.) Rebecca’s poems have been included in children’s poetry anthologies by Lee Bennett Hopkins and Paul B. Janeczko, as well as J. Patrick Lewis, Jane Yolen, Georgia Heard, Jack Prelutsky, Kenn Nesbit, Charles Waters and Irene Latham. Her books have been awarded a Boston Globe Horn Book Honor, The 2024 Lee Bennett Hopkins Poetry Award, a Golden Kite picture book Honor, a Bank Street Best and a Subaru SB&F Prize finalist. Her poems also appear in dozens of textbooks and magazines. She grew up in Indiana where she spent her days reading comic books and mysteries, ice skating on nearby ponds, building snow forts, and riding her bike on dirt trails by the creek. She spends most of her time in her writing room filled with vintage typewriters and small toys like cars and trolls, marbles and jacks. She can never have enough school supplies: colorful notecards, notepads, and folders. And books! Piles of books! She’s a doodler, a scribbler, and a notebook keeper. Her favorite foods are spaghetti and pot pies.
2 thoughts on “Summer Blog Series: Rebecca Kai Dotlich”
This is a new author to me. Thank you, Avi. I love poetry, especially poetry for children. I will certainly check out her books!
I am such fun of yours, Avi! And Rebecca has always inspired me with her lyrical sound and evocative imagery! I have read every one of her books and been fortunate to have had a few of my poems included in many of the same anthologies!