Erin Dealey

Today we’re kicking off National Poetry Month and Earth Month with the Book Birthday of picture book anthology, A UNIVERSE OF RAINBOWS, from Eerdmans BFYR, illustrated by Jamey Christoph and

celebrating work by 20 fantastic poets!

A UNIVERSE OF RAINBOWS was curated by Matt Forrest Esenwine.

About the Book:

“A kaleidoscopic collection celebrating rainbows in nature, perfect for Poetry Month and Earth Month.

What do Yellowstone’s Grand Prismatic Spring, Peru’s Vinicunca mountain, the star Betelgeuse, and a drop of water have in common? Rainbows! In this iridescent collection, Joyce Sidman, Nikki Grimes, Janet Wong, and seventeen other poets explore bursts of color across nature. Each selection explores a new rainbow—and not just the ones in the sky.”

—Eerdmans Books for Young Readers

Reviews

“The breadth and range of the content and styles is amazing…
I cannot recommend this book highly enough.
It sets a high bar for authors and artists
aspiring to link science and the arts without sacrificing
aesthetic and linguistic distinction.”

–Emily Schneider, Imaginary Elevators

We’re excited to chat with curator, Matt Forrest Esenwine, a Pushcart Prize nominee poet & recipient of the MacGregor Poetry Prize, who is also a contributor to this mutlicolored picture book.

Welcome to the blog, Matt!

Let’s get started:

Q 1.  I love that A UNIVERSE OF RAINBOWS is filled with poems about different concepts of a rainbow and features so many of nature’s wonders. What inspired you to compile them into a book?

MFE: As someone who writes a lot of children’s poetry I’m always thinking about new ideas or themes for a collection. Back in Jan. 2019, I was participating in Tara Lazar’s Storystorm when the concept of rainbows popped into my head – and not just normal rainbows, but plants like rainbow eucalyptus trees (about which I wrote a poem for J. Patrick Lewis’ 2015 anthology “The National Geographic Book of Nature Poetry”) and celestial wonders like sun dogs and the Rainbow Nebula in Orion. 

I began researching and discovered places like Vinicunca, aka the Rainbow Mountain of Peru, and the beautiful-but-deadly peacock mantis shrimp. The more I learned, the more I realized I’d have no trouble pulling together subjects for a collection!

But it occurred to me that since rainbows are symbols of inclusion and pride rather than a collection of my own poems, I should try to be as inclusive as possible and try to develop my very first poetry anthology. I’d contributed to numerous anthologies over the years, but never created one! 

ED Note: I’m a big fan of the sidebars on each spread, (see above left) where readers can find scientific facts & more nonfiction information on the rainbows on that page.

Proposing the Project

(Unagented authors & poets — inspiration ahead!)

Q 2. As you were creating your proposal, how did you choose the poets included in the book?

MFE: I was concerned that this project might be difficult for me to sell to a publisher since I’m unagented and had never created an anthology before. (I have 12 books out, yet can’t find an agent – go figure!) Because of that, I needed to “front-load” the book, so to speak, with folks I knew would do a fantastic job writing poems. I reached out to friends like Charles Ghigna, Jane Yolen, Nikki Grimes, Rebecca Kai Dotlich, and others to see if they’d be interested in participating, should it get picked up.

Fortunately, they all said yes – and some even wrote their poems in advance! 

Consequently, when I submitted the proposal, I was able to include all these established, highly-esteemed poets’ names as contributors. And since the book is dedicated to the late poetry anthologist Lee Bennett Hopkins, it was very important — and fitting — that all of us were friends of Lee’s. This book truly is, in so many ways, a tribute to Lee.

Surprises

Q 3. I am surprised and impressed that this picture book is 56 pages. Wow! Tell us more, please.

MFE: Yes! I had proposed a 40-page book, but editor Kathleen Merz decided 40 pages were not enough! While most children’s books are 32 or 40 pages long, A UNIVERSE OF RAINBOWS is a solid 56 PAGES – It’s a significant book for the money.

It contains poetry, sidebars, illustrations, a glossary, and a section for learning additional information, so I hope it appeals to a broad spectrum of readers. (Yes, rainbow pun intended – I intend all of my puns!)

Q 4. What surprises did Jamey Christoph, the illustrator, bring to the project?

MFE: Jamey is an amazing illustrator, so I can’t say I was “surprised” at how beautiful his artwork was – but that doesn’t mean I wasn’t still in awe! He just really dove in and brought to life all these myriad rainbows, from Gouldian finches and rainbow scarabs to Chile’s Marble Caves and the Morning Glory Pool at Yellowstone. I couldn’t be happier. And Jamey’s such a nice fellow, I’m really glad we’ve been able to create this book together.

On Writing

Q 5. Teachers will love the variety of formats, from haiku to free verse, and many patterns and rhyme. Where did you hone your lyrical writing skills? How old were you when you wrote your first poem?

MFE: The diversity of voice and poetic style was important to me, and is why I chose to create this project as an anthology in the first place – so thank you! My parents had given me a copy of Dorothy Aldis’ “The Secret Place and Other Poems” when I was very young, and I loved that book; I had no idea at the time how much it would influence my writing style in the future.

I’ve been writing poems, short stories, and skits since I was about 9 or 10, and really fell in love with metrical verse when we studied British Lit in high school. Writing Elizabethan sonnets was like solving a word problem, and I loved it.

Rainbows and Beyond

Q 6. What’s next for you? Any new projects you can talk about?

MFE: I do have two more anthologies on the way, but we will likely not see either until 2028 at the earliest, alas. I’ll have a couple of poems in others’ anthologies and a short essay in a how-to book on children’s publishing, but that’s it for right now; until then, I’ll keep submitting manuscripts and proposals, hoping for the best!

Q 7. What do you hope readers will take away from reading this book?

MFE: I hope they come away amazed, intrigued, surprised, and delighted – not only by learning about the beauty of some of these fantastic rainbows, but by appreciating the beauty of the words.

A rainbow of THANKS to Matt Forrest Esenwine for joining us on the blog today.

To learn more about Matt and his work, check out his website and follow him on social media:

 www.MattForrest.com       Facebook       X      My blog            Instagram         BlueSky

Up next, we chat with Patricia Newman about her newest picture book —

SHARKS UNHOOKED: The Adventures of Cristina Zenato, Underwater Ranger,

illus. Becca Hall (Millbrook).