Happy Poetry Friday! (Wondering what Poetry Friday is? Click here.)
Art by Diana Sudyka from The Wolf Hour
This week, I’m celebrating The Wolf Hour, by Sara Lewis Holmes! It’s a menacing and delightful fairy-tale mash-up that feels as much poetry as novel to me. Sara is the author of Letters from Rapunzel and Operation Yes as well as sophisticated, gorgeous poems each month with the Poetry Princesses. I am not a huge reader of middle grade novels, fantasy, or fairy tales. (So far, this isn’t sounding like a good match, is it?) But The Wolf Hour is dramatic and dark and poetic, and it reached out and clawed at my heart. One thing I loved is that this novel is steeped in poetry, although there aren’t any actual poems in it. So I asked Sara if we could celebrate the poetic elements of this beautiful novel for Poetry Friday. Luckily, she said yes:>) If you appreciate poetry, I think Sara’s answers will enchant you.
Sara Lewis Holmes in red
Laura: Did you make a conscious choice to use poetic elements in The Wolf Hour, or is the world of fairy tales and fantasy inherently poetic so that your writing just “came out” that way? (Don’t you like the way I make that sound so simple?)
Sara: I don’t know if fairy tales are inherently poetic for everyone, but they are for me. Fairy tales occupy a weird space in literature — you could call it the Land of “Couldn’t Be True But Sure FEELS True.” When I first read fairy tales, I found them shelved with nonfiction, which is weird. How could men turn into bears? Or boots cover seven leagues? Or red shoes burn a girl’s feet? And yet…metaphorically, these things express our fears, and our desires, and even our rages against fate.
Poetry, of course, expresses those things too, often at a slant, and it was that “slanted way in” that I was trying to access while writing a draft. I didn’t know if it would work because a previous attempt to marry my love of poetry with my novel writing broke my heart when the story failed to make sense at all. So…I’m thrilled that you recognize the “energy of poetry” in this book. Writing The Wolf Hour was a constant struggle between the wildness of poetry and the rules of narrative. I knew I needed both.
Laura: I love that battle metaphor and hope you have fully recovered from your broken heart! Was adding poetry to your storytelling done in different layers?
Awesome school visit decorations
Laura: In novels (unlike some other forms), I read more for Story than for Language, and when language obscures (or weighs down) the story, that’s when I stop reading. But you pruned skillfully, because you created a dangerous, violent, nerve-wracking story while still using phrases that made me pause to soak them up before racing forward. “In the darkness, [the spiders’] swift and silent bodies wove blankets for her family, while outside, the sun and birds, nature’s timekeepers, circled a world that never touched those she loved.” Delicious. If the story didn’t have such wonderful grotesqueness to it, would I have lost patience with the beautiful language? Any thoughts?
Wolf Hour art by Diana Sudyka
Sara: I think you might have lost patience, yes. Beautiful language can be vapid if the reader senses you’re trying to gloss over things or hide behind words. But…if language is paired with very real danger and the inevitable violence that is the hard truth of our world…then I think you get away with it. Same with a driving plot and slower description. They don’t so much balance each other out as vibrate off each other, enlarging what it’s possible for us to hear. The truth is that we live and die; we eat and are eaten; we are grotesque beasts AND beautiful souls. Fairy tales remind us of that.
Laura: Geez, you are such a poet. Even in an interview! Okay, a couple of quotations. “Once, he had been held. Once, he had been warm. Once, he had been loved.” This brought me to tears on Martin’s behalf. At what stage in your writing did this kind of poetic element came to be?
Sara’s snazzy new biz card
Sara: Oh. I love that it brought you to tears, because I cried on Martin’s behalf often. He was so alone and so hurt for much of the book, and I wanted better for him. I’d have to look back at my drafts to be sure, but I think this repeated phrase was there from the beginning. But once I’d written it, I knew it would come back. This phrase was the key to Martin’s need, his reason for continuing to engage with the world even as it was determined to hurt him.
Laura: Lovelovelove. How about when Martin hid “behind the ball-shaped form of a bitterbrush tree.”
Sara: There’s so much darkness in this book—as in all fairy tales—that maybe I felt I needed to give the reader a break by having lines like that. I also love making up words, and until now I thought I’d created “bitterbrush” for no reason other than it was fun…and yet…now looking at that word, I see that it foreshadows what bitter fate poor Martin faces next. So maybe the poetry side of my brain was leading me to that place, and preparing the reader, too. In any case—and I think you know this from writing poetry with me—writing The Wolf Hour forced me to confront my tendency to Bite Off Too Much and then have to Make It Work, haha.
Sara has the pig!
Laura: It’s your Tim Gunn moment! Next up: “Paperwhites, tightly budded, stretched like veins from the heart of the wood…” So gothic! What guided your use of simile and metaphor in this book?
Sara: You are picking out all my favorite phrases. (If you were my editor, I would’ve gotten away with far too much!) As it was, I had to make the Puszcza breathe with palpable danger, and yet make it feel like a place Magia would desire, as well. And whenever a writer has to do at least two things at once, she turns to poetry, right?
Laura: I think that says it all.
Thank you, Sara, for taking the time to answer my questions so thoughtfully! And readers, I asked Sara one last question about advice for novelists wanting to use poetic elements, and you can read that answer over at my blog for writers. And of course it would be lovely if you enjoyed Sara’s thoughts and would like to share this post or an excerpt from it–I bolded a few bits I thought were especially shareable! I want The Wolf Hour to reach as many
people as possible–even non-fantasy readers like me:>)
Sara visits Belvedere Elem.
people as possible–even non-fantasy readers like me:>)
You can learn more about the book at the previous stops on the Wolf Hour blog tour:
- Sara and fellow Poetry Princess Tanita Davis chat at Finding Wonderland
- Charlotte at Charlotte’s Library selects quotations from the book for Sara to respond to
- Maureen at By Singing Light reviews the book
And for lots of wonderful poetry, don’t miss the Poetry Friday Roundup with Brenda at Friendly Fairy Tales! Honestly, how’s that for a fitting roundup host when we’re talking poetry and fairy tales?
Oh, wow, Laura, what a wonder of an interview! The conversation shows that you and Sara are friends and know each other’s writing well. I love fairy tale stories, and this book has certainly intrigued me. You gave the taste and now I want another. Who is Martin and why did he need to hide “behind the ball-shaped form of a bitterbrush tree.” It is a lovely phrase, and I do want more! Thanks and best wishes, Sara!
Read it, Linda, and let me know what you think!
What a wonderful interview, a meeting of two creative, poetry-infused minds.
I am happy to be grouped with Sara anytime. thanks, Jane. (Love your profile photo!)
That was such an enjoyable interview to read. I cannot wait to read The Wolf Hour now!
Thanks, Jean–I hope you enjoy the book!
I love these interviews so much — as each of us pulls from the text something else beautiful (and grotesque) which feeds us in a particular way. We don’t always think of MG books as having depth and pathos and beauty, but here they all are in this book.
This was an excellent interview — and Sara raises the bar scary high for the rest of us, does she not? I hope this book really crosses over for older readers as well, and I feel sure it will (and does).
I agree, Tanita, on all counts. And I think teens and adults would love it! It has to be categorized as something, and because Magia is young and there’s no sex, I guess it’s mg. But it totally works for much older readers. It fact, it might be too intense for a segment of middle grade readers. I sure hope it finds its audience!
“The truth is that we live and die; we eat and are eaten; we are grotesque beasts AND beautiful souls.” Oh, this this this!!! Thank you for this beautiful interview!!
That is my favorite bit of the whole interview. It pretty much exposes the core of everything…
Thank you Laura, for such a wonderful interview. This book has been on my radar and I cannot wait to get my hands on it. I have a plane trip coming up…..I think that might just be the perfect time. A question: This book sounds ripe for a audio version. Is there one in the works, by any chance? I’d love to listen to these poetic phrases.
Sara, I wish you the best, best, best with this book. I’m already charmed and I haven’t even cracked the cover yet! I have so enjoyed your poetry posts with the princesses. Thanks for being such an inspiration.
Laura! I’m copy catting you with a book review of The Incredible Magic of Being by Kathryn Erskine and some paired poetry over at: https://awordedgewiselindamitchell.blogspot.com/.
Thanks for the idea. I learn something new from you every time I stop by. Thanks again!
Linda, thanks for your enthusiasm! I’m at a conference so I don’t have time for a longer reply but yes, there’s an audio version, just released. I haven’t listened to the whole thing but I got to hear snippets of the narrators as they auditioned and they were outstanding.
So glad to see Sara’s reply that there is an audiobook (http://amzn.to/2gSpBNQ). This is the kind of novel/tale that begs to be read aloud, as fairy tales deserve:>)
What a fascinating post, Laura – I shall have to look for this book!
Excellent–enjoy, Tara!
What a rich, beautiful, mesmerizing interview! I felt privy to something special when I read it–like I was overhearing an intimate conversation. There is so much to ponder about the book, poetry, writing friends, fairy tales, etc! I will be adding The Wolf Hour to my TBP (To Be Purchased) pile. Thanks!
Thanks, Molly! It was fun to ask Sara questions and get a peek into her process. It’s SO different from mine, so it was like magically conversing with someone who speaks German or some other language I don’t know but can catch glimpses of…places where our languages do connect…
Oohh…what a delicious interview. I love fantasy and fairy tales, so I want to get my hands on this book. Getting a peek of some of the gorgeous language makes me want to read it even more!
Oh, you will love it, Kay!
This book is high on my TBR. I gave the ARC to my student who just finished Gidwitz’s Grimm trio and he’s loving it!
Yay, Mary Lee! Maybe you’ll get the book back to read before it gets passed on to another excited student!
I love this post, Laura. I’ll have to read your book, Sara. I love your poetry, and I’m sure I’ll love your book, too. The reader-me is very excited to plunge in. You’ve given the writer-me a lot of think about.
Enjoy, Brenda!