I'm so happy to welcome poet and now anthologist Matt Forrest Esenwine to my blog this week. His newest book, the collaborative A Universe of Rainbows is out soon (April 1) and he shares a bit of the back story here.
“Organization, Research, and Luck: Crafting a First Anthology”
It’s one thing to come up with an idea for a poetry collection. It’s another thing to try to figure out what types of poems (rhyming, free-verse, formal, etc.) will be written for which subjects. And then there are…
Anthologies.
These require a whole other level of organization – especially when they include a nonfiction element. With an anthology, one needs to determine not only how to balance the poetry with the facts, but which poet might be best suited for which subject, according to their style, ability, and interest.
That’s where I found myself when developing my very first poetry anthology, A Universe of Rainbows (Eerdmans Books for Young Readers 2025), which arrives in the world April 1.
I’d been a contributor to numerous anthologies already, but had never been the one to steer them to completion! Fortunately, my experience with these anthologies – coupled with a conversation with my friend Lee Bennett Hopkins and some good old-fashioned intuition – helped me immensely when it came to trying to create something cohesive and not just a smattering of random poems and science.
Excuse me while I back up a moment. Many anthologies, you see, are crafted using open submissions, whereby the anthologist announces the premise for the book and invites multiple writers to submit their best potential contributions, then chooses the entries they feel are the best.
Other anthologies, such as A Universe of Rainbows, were created with a closed submission process; after extensive research, I decided upon a list of subjects I knew I wanted to include, then I went out and asked specific poets if they would be interested in contributing poems about those specific subjects. (Fortunately, they said YES!)
I did this for two reasons. One, because I wanted the book to be as good as I could possibly make it! I knew that by inviting the best of the best (Betsy Bird at SLJ even called this book a “veritable Who’s Who of poets” – and she’s right!) I would have the highest-quality poems possible.
And two, as an unagented author, I needed to show prospective editors that I not only knew what I was doing (ha!), but that I could pull off a project as ambitious as a debut anthology comprised of some of the most highly-esteemed names in children’s poetry, dedicated to the late, great Lee Bennett Hopkins. So I “front-loaded” my proposal by including 4 or 5 completed poems I had written along with the complete list of contributors and the subjects of their yet-to-be-written poems.
After a couple of rejections, editor Kathleen Merz at Eerdmans Books for Young Readers – who had worked with Lee on his anthologies Night Wishes, Manger, and the posthumously-published Bless our Pets, loved the premise of my book and seemed just as thrilled to offer me a contract as I was to accept it!
So I set about reaching out to everyone who had agreed to contribute, letting them know we were moving forward and to begin working on their poems. And it was at that point that the balancing act of poetry and science really began.
I knew sidebars would accompany the poems so that readers unfamiliar with some of the subjects could gain information that might elucidate the poems a little better. I had notes about each subject, but I didn’t write any of the sidebars until I after I had worked with some of the poets on revisions and received finalized poems.
I wanted to be able to connect the sidebars with the poems either through a reference to the poem or its subject. And above all, I wanted poems written not for the sake of science, but for the sake of poetry. In other words, I wanted poems that weren’t didactic, explanatory, or fact-laden; I wanted poems that sang, that flowed, that resonated with imagery and emotion and wordplay!
I wanted poetry, first and foremost.
This is where that balancing act was crucial. If the poems were beautiful, but the sidebars were too verbose or technical, it would feel like two different texts competing for attention. If the poems were too heavy with details and facts, they would lose their poetic souls.
But by allowing the poets to simply write about the subjects in whatever way they chose, without worrying about needing to “explain” their subjects – then writing the sidebars as complements to the poems – the beauty of the poetry and the science meld as one cohesive text! The poems have a little bit of science, the sidebars have a little bit of poetry, and Jamey Christoph’s beautiful illustrations pull everything together.
Kathleen was a joy to work with, and the revision process we went through was extremely collaborative – she’d suggest revisions, I’d suggest revisions – and eventually we had a finalized manuscript with final art, ready to head off to the printer!
Of course I don’t know exactly what Lee would think, but I have a suspicion he’d be pretty proud to see such an incredible book, written and edited by his friends, dedicated to him. I’m sure he’d be over the moon(bow)!
>>>> Matt shares more about this beautiful book at his own blog here.
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Me: Thank you, Matt, for sharing this glimpse into your process. I can attest that the book is really lovely and does a great job of melding lyrical poems and fascinating facts. Contributing poets include Nikki Grimes, Renée M. LaTulippe, Joyce Sidman, Irene Latham, David L. Harrison, Heidi E. Y. Stemple & Jane Yolen, Amy Ludwig VanDerwater, Alma Flor Ada & F. Isabel Campoy, Rebecca Kai Dotlich, Marilyn Singer, Charles Waters, Laura Purdie Salas, Charles Ghigna, Lee Wardlaw, Janet Wong, Allan Wolf and Georgia Heard. Don't miss it! Now join the Poetry Friday crew where Carol is hosting all the poetry goodness here.
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