Poetry from Daily Life: Pulling ideas from dance classes, plates of pasta and cats

This week’s guest on Poetry from Daily Life is Marilyn Singer, who divides her time between Brooklyn, New York and Washington, Connecticut. This is Marilyn’s second column in the series. Her first appeared on Nov. 26, 2023. She has been a writer for fifty years and enjoys many subjects, especially animals, both wild and domestic. Two books that she loved writing are "Who Named Their Pony Macaroni?: Poems About White House Pets," (“because it was fun to research this aspect of American history”) and "Feel the Beat!: Dance Poems That Zing from Salsa to Swing," (“because it was a challenge to write poems in the rhythms of social dances”). ~ David L. Harrison

Where do I get my ideas?

The dance class where I learned I’d been doing cha-cha wrong since junior high.

The delicious pasta I had while dining with my husband at a restaurant.

My cat sitting on the living room chair.

What do these things have in common? They all provided inspiration for some of my books.       

My husband and I have been taking all kinds of dance classes for 20 years, and we’re still dancing away every chance we get. Early on, in a Latin dance class, our wonderful teacher asked who knew how to do the cha-cha. I proudly raised my hand. After all, I’d once gotten a bit of acclaim for cha-cha-ing to “Venus” by Frankie Avalon at those junior high dances (yes, I’m that old). So, there I was, years later, showing off to my teacher — who promptly (though nicely) told me I was putting the cha on the wrong beat. Flash forward. I was thinking about the rhythm of the dance compared to the rhythm of a poem, and BOOM, it hit me: What if I wrote poems about dances in the rhythms of the dances? What a challenge — and what a blast! For my book "Feel the Beat: Dance Poems That Zing from Salsa to Swing" (Dial, 2017, illustrated by Kristi Valiant), I even got to record a CD with original music so folks could ... feel the beat. Oh — I now put the cha where it belongs.

Then there was the pasta feast. While enjoying the meal, my brain started ... uh ... noodling. To make a good pasta dish, you need a good recipe. I wondered out loud, is there a recipe for writing a good poem? My husband suggested I write a book of recipes for writing poems. But again, I wanted to challenge myself. I came up with "Follow the Recipe: Poems about Imagination, Celebration, and Cake" (Dial, 2020, illustrated by Marjorie Priceman), recipes for all sorts of things, including poems, peace, understanding, science, fairy tales, etc. That’s where noodles and noodling got me.

As for that chair-loving cat, she had the honor of inspiring a poetry form, the reverso. A reverso is one poem with two halves. You read the first half down as you would most poems, and the second half with the lines reversed, with changes only in punctuation and capitalization. That second half has to say something completely different from the first.  When I saw my cat on her favorite chair, a little poem came into my head:

It got me so excited that I wanted to see if I could write more. My poems were on a variety of topics, but a number were based on fairy tales. A wise editor suggested that I base the entire collection on fairy tales. That collection became "Mirror Mirror" (Dial, 2010). Subsequently, I’ve written two more books of reversos, "Follow Follow," based on more fairy tales, and "Echo Echo," featuring Greek myths, all illustrated by Josée Masse.

What else has inspired me? Animals and plants; games and puzzles; American history; global celebrations; daydreams, night dreams, and other fantasies ... I could go on and on — but I won’t. The point is when folks ask, “Where do you get your ideas?” I can honestly answer, “Everywhere!”

Salsa

Our teacher says, “First ...

Feel the beat

   in your feet,

in your heart.

   Then you start.

Take a turn.

   Soon you’ll learn

what is hot,

   what is not.

Don’t be shy.

   Come on, try.

In this class,

   show some sass.”

So I do.

   Take my cue,

take my chance.

   Salsa dance!

(From "Feel the Beat: Dance Poems That Zing from Salsa to Swing")

Marilyn Singer is the author of more than 120 books, including many poetry collections. She won the National Council of Teachers of English award for Excellence in Poetry in 2015. You can find her on her web site:  https://marilynsinger.net/