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Re: Versify: Novels in Verse
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From: maggie_bo_at_comcast.net
Date: Wed, 04 Apr 2012 22:59:10 +0000 (UTC)
I have come to love novels in verse as a form, although of course I read some I love, some I enjoy, and some I don't like at all. At first, I was one who felt that, if you wrote a novel in verse--that is, if you used a lot of white space on the page, and arranged the words in a poem-y looking way--than those words better read like something worthy of being called "poetry," whatever that is. But I've gotten away from that. If I like the story, and it works, then I don't try to figure out if it's "really poetry" or not. Who cares? When Virginia Euwer Wolff wrote Make Lemonade , it did not occur to her that she was writing a novel in verse, even though it looks like one, and many critics find it strikingly poetic. She was trying to mimic dialogue, and compose something that was both accessible and realistic to an audience that she hoped would include teen girls like her protogonists.
Some novels in verse are, of course, extraordinarily poetic, and even draw attention to themselves as poetry. An example is Ron Koertge's Shakespeare Bats Cleanup and its sequel Shakespeare Makes the Playoffs, both fabulously fun. A more well-known one in this vein is Sharon Creech's Love That Dog, and its sequel Hate That Cat.
A less "poetic" novel in verse that I still very much enjoyed is Jen Bryant's Kaleidoscope Eyes. I don't find here the close attention to word choice, images, and rhythm that I do in some novels in verse, but as a story, it worked. I think the novel in verse form for books like these still serves a purpose, however: if nothing else, the form allows the author to move the story along more quickly, with fewer transitions, and to jump from scene to scene without awkwardness. (Sounds like something that might be appealing to "digital natives," doesn't it?) There is a telescoping that occurs in a novel in verse, a sense of urgency and purposefulness, a let's-get-to-the-heart-of-things mentality.
----- Original Message -----
From: "Megan Schliesman" To: "Subscribers of ccbc-net" Sent: Wednesday, April 4, 2012 5:44:19 PM Subject:
Versify: Novels in Verse
It's time to start out discussion for the first part of April: Versify: Novels in Verse.
Do you have any preconceived notions about novels in verse? Do you come to them with anticipation, trepidation, or with expectations no different than you would a prose novel.
I confess that I used to find myself groaning when I open a book and discover it's a novel in verse. But I started doing that less and less thanks to so many outstanding offerings in recnet years. Some of my favorite novels of 2011 were comprised of poems, including Allan Wolf's "The Watch That Ends the Night," Guadalupe Garcia McCall's "Under the Mesquite," and Thannha Lai's "Inside Out & Back Again."
Oh, and then there's Helen Frost. She just knocks me out with every offering, not the least of which is last year's "Hidden."
Reading a novel in poems can be an amazing experience, but one that's challenging to break down. I don't think I initially approach the reading any differently (once I finally stopped groaning): I'm still looking for a good story. But every word matters in a way I'm much more aware of.
What are some of your favorite novels written in verse/poems? And do you approach your analysis of them differently than straightforward prose?
Megan
-- Megan Schliesman, Librarian Cooperative Children's Book Center School of Education, University of Wisconsin-Madison 600 N. Park Street, Room 4290 Madison, WI 53706
608/262-9503 schliesman_at_education.wisc.edu
www.education.wisc.edu/ccbc/
Date: Wed, 04 Apr 2012 22:59:10 +0000 (UTC)
I have come to love novels in verse as a form, although of course I read some I love, some I enjoy, and some I don't like at all. At first, I was one who felt that, if you wrote a novel in verse--that is, if you used a lot of white space on the page, and arranged the words in a poem-y looking way--than those words better read like something worthy of being called "poetry," whatever that is. But I've gotten away from that. If I like the story, and it works, then I don't try to figure out if it's "really poetry" or not. Who cares? When Virginia Euwer Wolff wrote Make Lemonade , it did not occur to her that she was writing a novel in verse, even though it looks like one, and many critics find it strikingly poetic. She was trying to mimic dialogue, and compose something that was both accessible and realistic to an audience that she hoped would include teen girls like her protogonists.
Some novels in verse are, of course, extraordinarily poetic, and even draw attention to themselves as poetry. An example is Ron Koertge's Shakespeare Bats Cleanup and its sequel Shakespeare Makes the Playoffs, both fabulously fun. A more well-known one in this vein is Sharon Creech's Love That Dog, and its sequel Hate That Cat.
A less "poetic" novel in verse that I still very much enjoyed is Jen Bryant's Kaleidoscope Eyes. I don't find here the close attention to word choice, images, and rhythm that I do in some novels in verse, but as a story, it worked. I think the novel in verse form for books like these still serves a purpose, however: if nothing else, the form allows the author to move the story along more quickly, with fewer transitions, and to jump from scene to scene without awkwardness. (Sounds like something that might be appealing to "digital natives," doesn't it?) There is a telescoping that occurs in a novel in verse, a sense of urgency and purposefulness, a let's-get-to-the-heart-of-things mentality.
----- Original Message -----
From: "Megan Schliesman" To: "Subscribers of ccbc-net" Sent: Wednesday, April 4, 2012 5:44:19 PM Subject:
Versify: Novels in Verse
It's time to start out discussion for the first part of April: Versify: Novels in Verse.
Do you have any preconceived notions about novels in verse? Do you come to them with anticipation, trepidation, or with expectations no different than you would a prose novel.
I confess that I used to find myself groaning when I open a book and discover it's a novel in verse. But I started doing that less and less thanks to so many outstanding offerings in recnet years. Some of my favorite novels of 2011 were comprised of poems, including Allan Wolf's "The Watch That Ends the Night," Guadalupe Garcia McCall's "Under the Mesquite," and Thannha Lai's "Inside Out & Back Again."
Oh, and then there's Helen Frost. She just knocks me out with every offering, not the least of which is last year's "Hidden."
Reading a novel in poems can be an amazing experience, but one that's challenging to break down. I don't think I initially approach the reading any differently (once I finally stopped groaning): I'm still looking for a good story. But every word matters in a way I'm much more aware of.
What are some of your favorite novels written in verse/poems? And do you approach your analysis of them differently than straightforward prose?
Megan
-- Megan Schliesman, Librarian Cooperative Children's Book Center School of Education, University of Wisconsin-Madison 600 N. Park Street, Room 4290 Madison, WI 53706
608/262-9503 schliesman_at_education.wisc.edu
www.education.wisc.edu/ccbc/
---Received on Wed 04 Apr 2012 10:59:10 PM CDT
