The State of Things: A Question of Substance

Abstract

The State of Things:A Question of Substance Alethea Helbig (bio) Poetry for children has fallen on hard days. In spite of a resurgence of interest in this literary form generally, the question of substance, or perhaps better put, the lack of it, characterizes the state of poetry for the young these days, a matter of substance that all those who have anything to do with books for children and young people should take note of and be more than a little concerned about. I'm not talking about substance in terms of numbers of books. This last decade has seen more books of poetry published for the young than ever before. Mere numbers are not the problem. While there still may be not as many books of poems as we poetry aficionados would like, of course, there are enough of them to provide some choices, some alternatives to allow for varied inclination and differing tastes. No, numbers are not the primary concern. It is rather what the books contain, or what they do not contain, that is so troublesome and disturbing these days. It is this question of substance that we ought to take a good hard look at and maybe try to do something about. It appears there are plenty of poetry books available, but few of them have the imagination-expanding material that we [End Page 38] would hope to find in books of poetry for the young. "Pickins" are slim these days. I have by my desk two stacks of poetry books intended for children and young people that have been published in the last three years, that is, from 1977 to the present, altogether some sixty books. Most of them are highly illustrated, a trend which is embarrassing because it implies on the one hand that poems no matter how good need fetching pictures to bolster them, that they can't stand on their poetic feet for their appeal, and on the other that, if they're bad, some pretty illustrations will compensate for their poetic inadequacy or at least draw the reader's attention away from that aspect. It appears packaging is the name of the game in poetry books these days, too. A little over half of the recent books, the larger stack, are anthologies, containing the works of several or many poets each, some tightly thematic, some more eclectic in their offerings, some thick with choices, most thin, and most on themes if not exactly worn and jaded at least tested and not unexpected. In the other stack are the individual poets, most of whom are versifiers, and, while it is good that nonsense continues to be recognized as a valuable and exciting part of a child's literary diet, enough is enough. It appears there is plenty of room for poets who are moved by a less raucous and obvious muse, for those who produce work more varied in rhyming patterns and rhythmic schemes and more subtle in imagery and meaning like that Joan Aiken, Charles Causley, James Reeves, and Ian Serraillier have often written. Generally speaking, the recent books of individual poets' work are notable for their lack of substance, their inconsistency in quality, and their baldness of expression. It makes one wonder whether those responsible for putting them out have a sense of the difference between good and bad poems, or whether they feel that almost anything is good enough for the young as long as it jingles, is easily assimilated, and, especially, is short and funny. For excitement, anthologies have most of the books by individual poets well beat, though some of these, too, can be passed over without feeling guilty about it. Most of what has come out lately by individuals is uninspired and unimaginative in concept and/or trite and prosy in language. Poetry for children, like good poetry for any audience, should be imaginative and technically well-constructed. The words that the poets choose, whether the audience be young or old, should be the exact ones to work with the ideas they wish to convey so that the two elements together form a unified whole in order to present fresh, new insights into the world...