Lara Saguisag is a founding member of KUTING, a Philippine-based group of writers for children. She is currently a Presidential Fellow at Rutgers University, where she is researching a PhD in Childhood Studies. She is the author of There's a Duwende in My Brother's Soup, Cat Eyes and Tonyo's Wishes. Her first book of poetry, Children of Two Seasons, received the 2006 New School Writing Program Chapbook Series Award, and was released in her home country, the Philippines, in 2007.

I write poetry for children. But I must confess: as a child I didn’t like poetry very much.

When I was in sixth grade, my class spent a good amount of time reading and reciting Sir Walter Scott’s “Young Lochinvar.”

                        O young Lochinvar is come out of the west
                        Through all the wide Border his steed was the best…

Those two lines are still imprinted in my mind, but that is as far as I can remember. I vaguely recall other details: a bride, a goblet, wine being quaffed, a simile involving love and tidal patterns. But under no circumstance do I consider that poem memorable. I didn’t care at all for “Young Lochinvar.” The poem struck me as convoluted, very much like a math problem.

I wondered then whether poetry was meant to be comprehended at all. Poems seemed to be filled with terms and turns of phrase that were impenetrable and alien, written mostly by men who lived oceans away and/or were long dead. Stanzas seemed to be nothing more than blocks of words I had to commit to memory. I learned poems such as “Like the Molave” by rote, in very much the same dull way I was expected to learn the Act of Contrition. My class spent sessions unlocking the meaning of metaphors or translating archaic words, but what seemed to matter most was that we managed to recite lines without faltering. Understanding and appreciating poems seemed secondary.

I went through elementary and high school being terribly suspicious of this bland and baffling world of poetry. I certainly didn’t want to waste my time with pompous verses. I wanted to pack my world with entertainment: I rented komiks from the corner sari-sari store, fervently watched cartoons on Saturday mornings, devised rowdy games with my friends under the hot sun. I kept poetry out of my life.

What I didn’t realize then was that some forms of poetry were already part of my life, and that I took immense pleasure in them. Sesame Street mesmerized me with limericks (their animated rendition of “There Was an Old Man With a Beard”) and spoofy rhymes (tormented pianist Don Music’s altered versions of “Row, Row, Row Your Boat” and “Mary Had a Little Lamb”). Growing up I had an immense catalog of street rhymes – a number of which extremely rude, therefore, absolutely precious. My friends and I memorized and revised these rhymes, sometimes arguing over which version was correct. We used some of them for our counting-out, hand-clapping and finger-play games, and sometimes just sang them for the sake of making noise. I couldn’t make sense out of some of the words that came tumbling out of our mouths, but it didn’t seem to matter. Hey diddle diddle! Sitsiritsit! Tong tong tong tong pakitong-kitong! It was about sound, about making music out of words. Cows jumping over the moon, kittens mewing over lost mittens, old women living in shoes. It was about celebrating a topsy-turvy sense of logic.

But I was taught to outgrow these nursery rhymes and street chants. It was clear there was no place for them in the classroom, where I was introduced to Serious Important Poetry. I became acquainted with Shakespeare, Shelley, Dickinson. My young self could sense, in some level, that there was music in their words, too – a beautiful blend of chaos and reason – but more often than not I looked at such poems as nothing more than schoolroom texts – promptly forgotten once the books were closed. I didn’t put the poems in my pocket, or inscribe them on my heart. I didn’t bring the poems home with me. But I did want to become a writer. Even though I learned to outgrow children’s rhymes, I was still an avid reader of children’s books; and after a series of starts and stops, I decided that I wanted to write picture books and novels for children.

Since I didn’t develop an appreciation for Serious Important Poetry, it didn’t cross my mind to try my hand at writing poetry (I admit: I did write the “requisite” angsty poems in high school and college nut only because I was glum and lovestruck and poetry seemed to be the trendy way of expressing my blues). Instead, I worked on several picture books and tried my hand at fantasy novels.

Trying to learn as much as I could about the craft of writing for children, in 2003 I went to London for a children’s literature conference. I avidly listened to authors speak about their work and their influences, eager to learn the rules, somehow believing that if I stood in the same room as a successful writer, some of their writing skills would rub off on me. During our free time, I played the part of children’s literature groupie, faithfully visiting the Peter Pan statue at Kensington Gardens, viewing the original “Alice in Wonderland” manuscripts at the British Library, taking a photograph of Platform 9 ¾ at King’s Cross Station. On the last day of the conference, the organizers brought in, a guest, the British-Caribbean poet Valerie Bloom. “For a special performance,” they said. I half-shrugged when she walked onto the stage: I had never heard of her before. She wore a bright yellow coat and a toothy smile. She greeted us warmly, then closed her eyes, clasped her hands and began her performance.

It was electrifying. For the next twenty minutes my hair stood on end. Her voice boomed across the large hall as she performed her poems with a hint of song and dance. Some of her poems were in Caribbean patois, others were mixed with rap and reggae. She moved from the whimsical to the political, talking about markets in Jamaica and child soldiers in Africa. For some of the poems she had the audience participate by stamping their feet, swaying their arms, raising their voices.

After her performance, there was thunderous applause: a standing ovation. I felt warm and cold and full of pure joy. My heart was bursting and shouting, although I was the only who could hear it through all the cheers and applause.

This is what my heart said: Oh-oh-oh! I didn’t know you could do that!

Up until that day I didn’t know that poetry could be performed with such pizzazz. I didn’t know I could write children’s poetry in a form of English other than standard British or American. I didn’t know that children’s poetry can be a very political medium, one that can challenge issues such as war and racism. Valerie Bloom’s poems and performance told me about the possibilities of poetry for children. Her work told me that writing was not about rules: it was about pushing limits – the genre’s limits, my limits.

I began to get my hands on as many books for children as I could. I took in the careful craftsmanship of Eve Merriam, the jazzy, bluesy inflections of Langston Hughes, the precious, slender lyrics of Valerie Worth, the sassy vernacular of Nikki Giovanni, the absurd humor of X.J. Kennedy, the street-smart sound of Michael Rosen, the calypso rhythms of Grace Nichols. Each time I finished a volume, there was that same discovery: Oh-oh-oh, I didn’t know you could do that! I found then, and continue to find now, range and variety: the lyrical, narrative, short, long, metrical, free-verse, concrete, humorous, serious, nonsensical, political, playful and ironic – all the possibilities of children’s poetry. I experimented, and continue to experiment, with different forms, tones, subject matter and themes. Most of the results end up in my computer’s recycling bin. But some, thankfully, turn out all right.

Unfortunately, exploring the possibilities of children’s poetry can be taxing since poets are not given much room to create and share their work. There are very few opportunities to publish poetry for children (one editor told me she couldn’t accept my poems because they “do not tell a story”). Fiction and nonfiction books vastly outnumber poetry books in bookstores and libraries. Many educators seem uncomfortable with the genre, limiting their use of it in the classroom, sometimes relying on familiar but potentially problematic pieces like “Young Lochinvar.” A lot of people look at children’s poetry as if it were a strange animal.

Well…children’s poetry is a strange animal. And that is exactly why I love it and why I continue to write it, in spite of all the challenges. I just hold on to the possibilities that Valerie Bloom and a number of other poets opened my mind to. Maybe one day my verses will encourage someone else to further explore and expand the genre. Maybe. The possibilities are endless.

Posted March 2008