1. What draws you to poetry as a form for sharing your ideas and experiences?
I love poetry because it is a refuge for intense emotions, and because it is musical language.
I love poetry because beautiful rhythms, metaphors, similes, etc. can make me feel peaceful, hopeful, or even happy, no matter how challenging the subject. I love poetry because it allows me to distill complex historical or emotional situations into their essence.
2. The verse novel has grown in popularity in the past decade. What do you see as the hook for readers in verse novels?
I think verse novels appeal to readers because they focus on the emotions of the characters. There is an immediacy to poems written in first person and present tense. In addition, the open spaces between lines and stanzas, and between poems, are interactive. In a well-written verse novel there should be a resonance of the sort you find in haiku and tanka, like the resonance heard for a long time after ringing a bell. In other words, the poet's and reader's minds meet in midair during the pauses provided by open spaces, so that feelings and thoughts continue instead of immediately being replaced by more densely packed words, as in prose. Those open spaces look inviting and welcoming on the page.
3.What is your message for teachers who want to engage students in literacy and/or what is your message for young poets?
"Reluctant" readers won't be intimidated by poetry and verse novels unless adults tell them that poetry is "hard to understand," triggering a fear of failure. That's why I hope teachers will ask students how a poem makes them feel, instead of asking what it means. A poem will mean different things to different readers, and it will mean different things to the same reader on different days. A poem can even bring different meanings to the poet on different days! Poetry flows like a river or like air. It is not rigid and fixed. It is alive.
Margarita Engle is the Cuban-American author of many verse novels, memoirs, and picture books, including The Surrender Tree, Enchanted Air, Drum Dream Girl, and Dancing Hands. Awards include a Newbery Honor, Pura Belpré, Golden Kite, Walter, Jane Addams, PEN U.S.A., and NSK Neustadt, among others. Margarita served as the national 2017-2019 Young People’s Poet Laureate. Her most recent books are Your Heart, My Sky, A Song of Frutas, Light for All, Rima’s Rebellion, and Singing With Elephants.
Margarita was born in Los Angeles, but developed a deep attachment to her mother’s homeland during childhood summers with relatives on the island. She studied agronomy and botany along with creative writing, and now lives in central California with her husband.
Facebook: Margarita Engle
Twitter: @margaritapoet
Instagram: @engle.margarita
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