Poetry Friday: Songwriting with Mary Amato

I met author Mary Amato through SCBWI. She was speaking at a local conference and the two of us discovered we have a common love of poetry.

Her Riot Brothers series -- a kinder, gentler read for kids who love the humor in Captain Underpants -- soon became one of my children's favorites.

 

We also love two of her other books that include poetry, Please Write in This Book and Edgar Allan's Official Crime Investigation Notebook. (Read my interview with Mary about Edgar Allan  here. With a main character named for Edgar Allan Poe, you won't be surprised to learn that Mary is a Marylander.)

 

In addition to being an author, Mary is a talented musician and singer-songwriter. She has melded all of these skills into a new YA novel, Guitar Notes.

Mary conducting a song-writing
workshop with young authors.

I am thrilled to welcome Mary Amato to Author Amok! Take it away, Mary...

 

Ever since my 8^th grade English teacher did a unit on lyrics as poetry, I’ve been writing songs. My newest book, Guitar Notes, is about the power of songwriting and includes eight original songs.

 

Because poems often live on the page, readers can go back and read the poem a second or a third time, slowly adding a deeper and deeper understanding of the poem. A song is meant to live in the aural world and so, I believe, the poetry of the lyrics has to be more immediately graspable. The first line is like the doorway into the song; you want it to open easily. If your listener gets stuck on the threshold, then he or she will miss what’s coming next.

 

Let me share an example of how I got this wrong…and then how I corrected it with one of the songs from Guitar Notes.

 

Getaway is a song that the characters Lyla and Tripp write after they have this amazing night together delivering a stolen surprise on someone’s doorstep. They’re delivering something that they have stolen, but they’re not bad kids; they’re actually doing a good deed, in a way, and it’s very funny. (You have to read the book!) In the scene, snow begins to fall, so I used that as my inspiration for the first line of the first stanza:

 

Steal the snow out of the sky.

I’ll be Bonnie you be Clyde.

Steal a joke and let it fly, let it fly.

 

After singing the song for a while, I realized that my doorway into the song was interesting but not very clear. The second line really was a stronger way to begin the song.

 

I’ll be Bonnie you be Clyde.

Steal the snow out of the sky.

Steal a joke and let it fly, let it fly.

 

The second line sets up the fact that the song is about these two people, a boy and a girl, who are playing at being thieves; but right away with the next line you understand that the focus is on the “play”…they’re not robbing a bank, they’re stealing the snow out of the sky. Works much better.  

 

Take a look at your first lines and ask yourself if they provide what the reader/listener needs to enter in to the experience of the poem/song.

 

I have posted a behind-the-scenes explanation of the song's full revision on the book's website. Read more about GUITAR NOTES and the power of music at http://thrumsociety.com/

 

Thank you for guest blogging today, Mary! Folks, you can find classroom and discussion materials for Guitar Notes here.

 

Today's Poetry Friday blog roll is at Ed's place, Think Kid, Think!
 

 

Poetry Friday: 5 Questions for Mary Amato

Happy Poetry Friday!

Please welcome my friend, poet, children's author and super fun person Mary Amato.

Mary's new MG novel -- Edgar Allan's Official Crime Investigation Notebook -- published last week. She is also the author of Please Write in this Book, the Riot Brothers series, The Word Eater and Invisible Lines.

I loved this book, but first I had to fight my 10-year-old daughter for it. She read Edgar Allan twice before she'd hand it over. As soon as I was done, it went to her 5th grade teacher.

As with Please Write in This Book (a Shovan family favorite), poetry is deeply embedded in the story. It’s part of the way the children interact, joke with one another, and apologize when their jokes have gone too far.

As you've probably guessed from the title, the crime that main character Edgar Allan solves is woven with poetry (just like his name). Here's a description of our Poe-like hero, "“His big brown eyes looked full of daring and his feathery eyebrows could do wonderful things on command.”

Because he is paying attention to possible suspects after the class goldfish is stolen, Edgar begins to notice things about his classmates. Destiny is sad that her best friend has a new buddy. Taz may be the class clown, but he’s also an animal lover. Noticing how others are feeling, introverted Edgar becomes a compassionate friend. I think that makes Edgar Allan a must for Grade 3-5 classrooms.

I wanted to know more about Mary's use of poetry in the novel. Here are five questions for Mary Amato

1.  Edgar Allan’s Official Crime Investigation Notebook is a mystery enmeshed with poetry. The thief leaves tantalizing clues in the form of poems. How did you come up with the idea to combine the two genres?

Poems are often like little mysteries, so they are a perfect way for a mysterious thief to communicate. The more carefully you read a poem, the more you understand what the poem is saying. But if you must know, I didn't begin the novel with the poems in mind. When I first started writing, I didn't know who the thief would be! Choosing which character would be the thief was the key to helping me realize that poetry would be the perfect way for the thief to communicate. If I say any more I'll give away the ending...

2.  Edgar Allan’s namesake is poet Edgar Allan Poe, but Poe and his poetry aren’t part of the novel. Why did you make that choice?

Poe’s work isn’t that accessible for elementary school students, so I didn’t include any of it in this book. Poe had this intense way of looking at the world as well as a tendency toward such dramatic language; and as soon as my character began to speak, he reminded me of a little Edgar Allan Poe. I knew that adult readers would enjoy the literary allusion to Edgar Allan Poe, even if children didn't make the connection.

 

3.  My daughter loved the fact that there was a poetic cipher in the book that could help young detectives figure out whodunit. Edgar Allan Poe wrote cipher poems, often with the name of a lady-love hidden in the lines. Was that your inspiration?

I have always been intrigued by codes and thought it would be satisfying for the reader to discover that the first letter of each item stolen would spell a significant clue. I didn’t know that Edgar Allan Poe hid the names of lady loves in his poems! How cool is that? [Here is a link to one of Poe's cryptological poems, "An Enigma."]

4.  After reading your book, my fifth grader wanted to know more about Elizabeth Barrett and Robert Browning, who have namesakes in the novel. She’s fascinated with their love story. How do you think a book like yours can inspire kids to learn about, read and write their own poetry?

Often, poetry is taught in school by focusing on the poem’s type or form. I wanted to emphasize that poetry isn’t just about form, it’s about meaning. It can express emotion. Edgar expresses profound emotions in his poetry and learns important things about his classmates by reading their poems.

I am hoping that this will help kids to understand the power of the poetry. Poetry also lends itself to humor--rhyme and rhythm are playful and pleasing--so I had fun with a number of poems in the book, which I hope will reel in kids and inspire kids to write their own funny poems. Everybody loves to laugh.     

5.  Speaking of humor, one of my favorite scenes in the book is when Edgar Allan and his new friends stage a Hamlet-like play, acting out one of the thefts (in verse) to see if the guilty party will react. It’s a hysterical scene, with one of the kids playing the stolen goldfish. How do you make poetry fun for young readers?

I love theater and thought it would be fun to spoof Hamlet (and make the point that plays were once written in verse). I do a fun workshop on dialogue poetry (poems in which at least two characters talk to each other), which is always successful. Kids love to perform, when given the chance, and poetry is perfect for the stage.

Bonus Question: Mary, I know you are a singer and musician. In your Riot Brothers series, Orville and Wilbur are always making up silly songs. They are a kind of poetry. Would you talk how poetry and music are connected for you?

Fantastic bonus question! Songs are poems set to music. I love writing songs, and I can thank my eighth grade English teacher -- Mr. McCauley“I Am a Rock” on his record player so that we could experience the lyrics. I’ll never forget sitting in my desk, listening to that song and feeling a chill ascend the scale of my spine. This is poetry, I thought. I love it!

Congrats on a wonderful novel, Mary. I know teachers will love all the poetry-lessons they'll be able to build from this book. Thanks again for sharing Poetry Friday with us.

Find links to more Poetry Friday poetry, reviews, lessons and recipes at Jennie's Biblio File site.