It’s April 1st and National Poetry Month starts today! YAY! And I’m excited to once again start off this year’s posts off with another stellar poetry picture book interview.

I met Matt Forrest Esenwine oh-so-many years ago in person at Highlights and he has visited my blog before. He was just starting his writing journey and it’s been wonderful to watch his career unfold as he has published numerous picture books. He is a children’s author and poet whose books include The Thing to Remember about Stargazing (Tilbury House), Once Upon Another Time (Beaming), and A Beginner’s Guide to Being Human (Beaming). His work has been nominated for a Pushcart Prize and featured in numerous anthologies. Also a voiceover actor and commercial copywriter, Matt lives in Warner, New Hampshire, with his family. You can learn more about him at his website or follow him on Twitter, Instagram, or BlueSky.

A UNIVERSE OF RAINBOWS is a poetry picture book anthology with poems from multiple poets, but for the first time, Matt has turned editor for this project. Yes he’s written several of the poems included here too, but it’s exciting to see Matt wearing this new hat (and I hope we can see many more projects like this one from him). This collection of poems is about rainbows found in nature via light, water, animals, & rock. Many of these I’d heard of before and loved seeing the poetic interpretations from familiar kidlit poets. Yet there were still surprises in store for me too, things I’d never heard of and of course lovely turns of poetic phrase. What a fantastic combination!

Please note: I received a copy of this book from the publisher to review, but the opinions, as always, are my own.

Welcome back Matt!

Me: Although you’ve written poetry for many different poetry picture book anthologies, this is the first one that you have put one together yourself, is that correct?  What made you want to create a poetry picture book about rainbows?  Where did that idea come from?

Matt: I got into the children’s lit industry through my poetry, so I’m always trying to think of ideas for poetry collection themes. During the latter part of Tara Lazar’s Storystorm in Jan. 2019, the concept of rainbows came to me –not just normal rainbows, per se, but things like sun dogs and rainbow hibiscus and the Rainbow Nebula in Orion. After a whole lot of research, I finally had enough subjects to start reaching out to some friends to see if they’d be interested in contributing!

Me: I’m sure you have many fantastic poet friends; how did you decide who to approach and who to include in this anthology?  How did it feel to edit their work this time?

Matt: Well, the first person I knew I wanted to include was the late Lee Bennett Hopkins, who had supported, encouraged, and mentored many of the contributors by including them in the various children’s poetry anthologies he published over the years. I had spoken with him a few weeks after I’d initially come up with the idea, asking his advice on putting an anthology such as this together; he thought it was a viable concept, and agreed to write a poem for it! Unfortunately, he passed away 6 months later, so his poem’s subject, the rainbow hibiscus, was handed to our mutual friend, Rebecca Kai Dotlich, who did a wonderful job.

As for the other contributors, I simply reached out to as many of Lee’s and my friends as possible and asked if they’d be interested in being a part of an anthology I was going to dedicate to him – and pretty much everyone said, sure! And while many of the poems were perfect right out of the gate, there were a couple that needed a few tweaks; I told my wife it was a surreal experience for me to be offering advice to some of these folks!

Me: I can only imagine! You included many of my favorite rainbow things in this collection (like Rainbow Eucalyptus Trees).  Were there favorite things you found in your research that you couldn’t include?  Can you talk about your research process a little bit?

Matt: Well, the research process simply required me to find as many rainbow-type things throughout the world (and universe!), but then I had to whittle down to just the subjects I felt were most important. Having already written a poem about rainbow eucalyptus trees for J. Patrick Lewis’ 2015 anthology “The National Geographic Book of Nature Poetry” (National Geographic Kids), I knew I’d assign that to someone else.

Truth is, I had to dispense with several possible subjects. There were several I could have included that pertained to the sky – northern lights, cloud iridescence, etc. – but I really didn’t want to appear to be repeating topics. Let’s face it: rainbows, moonbows, pilot glories, etc. all occur due to light refraction, so after a while the concept might get boring.

I also needed to be judicious with other subjects. I included the rainbowfish but not the rainbow trout because I felt one fish would be enough; likewise, I almost didn’t include two birds, the Gouldian finch and rainbow lorikeet. But their stories were so different – one was nearly captured out of existence and the other despised among farmers – I felt it was important to show that dichotomy.

Me: How fascinating! Did you assign topics to poets, or did they get to pick their own rainbow topics themselves? 

Matt: By and large, I assigned the topics to the individual poets; there were a handful that I gave a couple options and asked them if they had a preference, but most were chosen by me.

Me: The illustrations by Jamey Christoph are gorgeous.  Did you have any influence as an editor of this anthology in picking him for the project?  Did you have any research you shared with him or art notes? 

Matt: As with most children’s books, the author (or in this case, anthologist) has little to no say in choosing the illustrator – and this was no different. My editor at Eerdmans, Kathleen Merz, kept me posted as to who they were looking into and when he was signed, but I didn’t see any of his progress until he was probably about halfway through. And I have to say, it was beautiful! 

Me: What was your favorite illustration?  Were there any illustration surprises for you?

Matt: I don’t know that I had any ‘surprises,’ really. I knew Jamey was a fantastic illustrator so I knew he’d knock it out of the park – and he sure did! I think my two favorite spreads are Georgia Heard’s “Garden of Stars,” where she uses the conceit of a flower nursery to describe the Rainbow Nebula in the constellation Orion, and my “Sun Dogs” poem about the phenomenon known as parhelia.

The Rainbow Nebula is a birthplace for stars, so comparing it a nursery with all those colorful flower names (rose, blue aster) was brilliant. I’ve always loved astronomy, and his rendering of the light and gases of this enormous cloud is startling. As for my poem, his depiction of these bright bursts of light on either side of the sun was both striking yet stark, really capturing the breathtaking beauty of light bouncing off atmospheric ice crystals. This spread is especially meaningful for both of us; it was the first poem I wrote for the collection, way back about 12-13 years ago (long before I knew what to do with it!), and it also represents a very special memory for Jamey, as he and his mother used to marvel at parhelia when he was a child. He even dedicated the book to his mom, remembering that time.

Me: What surprised you in editing a collection like this that you hadn’t encountered in your writing before?

Matt: I don’t know if I was surprised so much as delighted to see the poems arriving! Usually I’m the one writing everything, but in this case I got to share my thoughts and ideas with my friends, and let them spin their magic! I love anthologies because the responses to different subjects is always so wide and unexpected; everyone is different, and the poems all reflect those diverse voices, styles, and experiences.

I may have contributed to numerous anthologies in the past, but actually anthologizing one myself is definitely a new experience – and one I can’t wait to tackle again! (soon!)

As a reader, I too love anthologies for the same reasons! Thank you for stopping by my blog again Matt.

Dear readers, this book is published today! Happy book birthday! It’s a beautiful book full of so many poems I wanted to share by favorite poets on favorite subjects and the illustrations are the glorious icing on the cake. Trust me when I say, you won’t want to miss this one!

And if you’re looking for more poetry fun this month, be sure to check out the Kidlitosphere Event Roundup!  Thank you for stopping by!