I write a lot of children's verse and I think it delights in the language. It pleases people. It's very musical. It's very lyrical and that's certainly a very important aspect of poetry. But I think that a lot of it is verse. I write well-wrought verse.

Mary Ann Hoberman

Categorized in : Thinking Children Writing

I am a Leo. I was born in August and I love the sunshine. I'm like a cat. We live in a very contemporary house with windows all around it. Wherever a sunspot is, I go to it with my yellow pad and my fountain pen and I write there.

Mary Ann Hoberman

sunshine cat writing

I don't think anything is as magical as a fairy tale experience b... by Mary Ann Hoberman

I don't think anything is as magical as a fairy tale experience by a child.

Mary Ann Hoberman

fairy-tale children thinking

When things aren't going well, I complain a lot and get depressed. I whine and I eat and I go to sleep. I do all kinds of things. And if I'm smart, I'll go and clean out a drawer or a closet or go and pay my bills. I do get myself into situations where I'm not happy with what's going on. But you just have to wait it out and have faith that that dry well will fill up again.

Mary Ann Hoberman

smart waiting sleep

To me, poetry is a recreation, a renewal of language... The subtlety of what words mean and the fact that you write something and all of a sudden you'll realize that "yes, it reaches out. It meant that, too." Then all of a sudden you'll get a rhyme and the rhyme will throw up a whole new way of looking at things. It's this relationship that you never dreamed of.

Mary Ann Hoberman

writing mean way

A poem really does recreate the language, and that's what it has to do. A true poem, I think, has to give you that shiver. That, "yes, it's never been said quite that way before."

Mary Ann Hoberman

doe giving thinking

One thing about being a children's poet or a versifier, is that there is a large market for your wares. These things really made the rounds. I would meet people and they'd quote my poems to me. It's great.

Mary Ann Hoberman

poet children people

I love to be read to, I love to read aloud and I love to read to... by Mary Ann Hoberman

I love to be read to, I love to read aloud and I love to read to children.

Mary Ann Hoberman

love-to-read children

I've always been a morning person, and what I don't get done in the morning I really don't get done at all.

Mary Ann Hoberman

morning-person done morning

I always hesitate to call myself a children's poet, and I always hesitate to call what I write for children poetry. Though a few of the verses that I've written, yes, I think they are truly poems.

Mary Ann Hoberman

writing children thinking

I don't really sit at the computer from scratch. I prefer to get my ideas in my fingers and I write longhand first.

Mary Ann Hoberman

scratches writing ideas

I have my faithful rhyming dictionary that sits up there on my desk, but I have to tell you, there are very few new rhymes that I didn't think of. I often just go right through the alphabet in my head when I'm looking for a rhyme.

Mary Ann Hoberman

rhyming faithful thinking