Poetry can transport a child to other places. I had wrote a book called Monumental Verses for National Geographic about famous places around the world, and a third grader said to me, “Pat have you been to all of those places?” And I said “No.”, well how can you write poems about them?
I said, “Well that’s easy, I’m a reader. You don’t have to travel to be a writer, all you need is a stack of books and a chair and a pen. I said, I have nothing against traveling, I like to travel, and I do it but if I didn’t want to I could still be a writer, I can still write about the Great Wall of China without ever having gone to it.
And poetry, I think poetry does that, when I read poetry, I read it for the a-ha moment. I want to hear what the poet says in a way that no one else has ever said it before. I sit back and think, a-ha. Isn’t that amazing? Isn’t that amazing what this guy did with three words, this not this guy, woman, this person did with three words.
And I can’t help but think that children must feel some part of that as well. If they’re lovers of language, and they might well become that completely some day but if they’re budding lovers of language that kind of thing is, it’s just indescribable.
