The Sound Of A Word Is At

Poetry Seems To Sink Into Us The Way Prose Doesn't. I Can Still Quote Verses I Learned When I Was Very Young, But I Have Trouble Remembering One Line Of A Novel I Just Finished Reading.

I Invented Animals And Birds - I Had About Two Dozen. After Working On Them For Six Months, I Sat Down And Just For Fun Wrote Two Dozen Poems To Accompany The Drawings. It Was For No One To Every See, But A Friend Sent Me In To An Editor.

When I Began Writing, I Didn't Read Any Other Children's Poets... I Didn't Want To Be Influenced Until I'd Found My Own Voice. Now I Read Them All.

I'm Mostly Influenced By Life, What's Around Me, And My Own Childhood.

There's Not Too Much Difference Between Writing A Picture Book And Writing A Collection Of A Hundred Poems Or So, Except That The Bigger Books Take A Lot Longer To Do.