Unlocking the Poet/Picture Book Author
Stephen Fry in The Ode Less Travelled: Unlocking the Poet Within has this to say about writing poetry:
“It can take weeks to assemble and polish a single line of poetry… poems take time… they are to be lived with and endlessly revisited.”
Fry could easily be talking about picture books. They take ages to polish and they absolutely benefit from what can sometimes feels like endless revision.
“Poetry,” Fry asserts, “is an entirely different way of using words and I cannot emphasise enough how much more pleasure is to be derived from a slow, luxurious engagement with its language and rhythms.”
As both an aural and oral medium, picture books also presume this type of slow, careful engagement.
Fry proposes three Golden Rules if one is going to carry on reading The Ode Less Travelled. He likens his rules to the End User License Agreement that one encounters when installing computer software.
His rules:
1. Take your time
2. Don’t be afraid
3. Always have a notebook with you.
Great words for a picture book author to live by.
