Poetry Friday February 21, 2020: Introducing Avis Harley

Hello everyone, and welcome to Poetry Friday. I'm excited to be hosting today for my second time! Leave your links below and enjoy a special day celebrating poetry.

This is my second time highlighting and bragging about Vancouver children's poets. We have a wealth of talent here north of the 49th parallel! Today I'm introducing you to Avis Harley. She has been an important influence in the teaching of poetry to children here in Vancouver, across Canada, in the United States, and around the world.

I met Avis (long A sound here) Harley at her home near the edge of where the forest meets the city. Her home is as elegant as she is herself. Avis was warm and welcoming on a very cold and rainy Vancouver morning. Because I was nervous, I wore my comfortable green plaid jumper. Avis was also attired in green. It's both of our favourite colours! While Avis prepared coffee for me, I admired the photograph of the baby on her kitchen counter and learned that she is a great-grandmother! 

She had asked for a list of questions ahead of time so I sent them off. Shortly thereafter I received a written response - it seemed like my blog was already written for me! (Much of it in poetry!) However, as I read it over, I came up with even more questions for her. So while munching on fresh fruit, her favourite food, we sat snug and warm inside, and talked about life and poetry.

I asked her what she was passionate about, (aside from poetry). I hope by the end of reading this, you might be able to figure out what it is.

Early Years and Poetic Influences

 Avis was born in Vancouver, BC in 1941. She and her three siblings were raised in West Vancouver in a house overlooking acres of forest in the foreground (there was no Lions Gate Bridge, or Park Royal, or houses around them when her parents built their home). They had a splendid view of the harbour and Vancouver beyond that.

As a child she listened to her animated grandmother recite nursery rhymes and poetry. Her mother read the A.A. Milne series and Robert Louis Stevenson to them.

"I still have those time-worn copies on my book shelf. Perhaps the rhythm and rhyme patterns of these poets were early influences.

I always enjoyed playing with words, and kept diaries (with a lock and key!) and wrote poems at a young age. During my final year in high school, I had a wonderful English Literature teacher who introduced me to Tennyson, A.E. Housman, Robert Frost, and so many others. I also took a Creative Writing course in Grade 12, and was exposed to many different kinds of poetic forms, and discovered how poets could turn the ordinary into the extraordinary. I wrote and experimented with a lot of poetry in that class, and realized how important it was to me."

Reading has been a part of my daily life. Lucy Maud Montgomery and Louisa May Alcott were favourites in my early days. 

Books she recently enjoyed include The Invention of Nature: Alexander Von Humboldt’s New World by Andrea Wulf and A Gentleman in Moscow by Amor Towles. Her favourite poetry collection is COMMITTED TO MEMORY—100 Best Poems to Memorize (edited by John Hollander) It’s full of poems I love, and as I age, I try and challenge my brain to memorize some of them.

These days Avis enjoys the work of Billy Collins, A.E. Housman, Anne Michaels, Robert Frost, (and others). A favourite poem is one she learned years ago: "The Road Not Taken" by Robert Frost. You can read the poem here.

Until our meeting I did not know of Anne Michaels, a Canadian poet. Avis introduced me to "Memorium", a poem I have come to adore. 

Memoriam 

In lawn chairs under stars.  On the dock
At midnight, anchored by winter clothes,
We lean back to read the sky.  Your face white
In the womb light, the lake’s electric skin.

I encourage you to read the rest here. 

After completing her B.Ed Avis taught in schools in Canada and then travelled around the world with a few friends. She ended up teaching in England where she was introduced to the British Primary System.  She then returned to teach in Canada where she implemented much of what she had learned there.

"My love of children’s poetry grew out of my love of working with children.
I have always wanted to be a teacher, and joined the Future Teachers Club when I was in Grade 9 in high school. I taught Grade 1 to Grade 5, and have been listening to the language of children ever since."

Eventually she returned to University to complete her MA in Poetry in Children's Literature. At that time no poetry courses were offered. After graduating she was asked to put together a program for teachers. For twelve years she taught a poetry course at UBC in the Language and Literacy Department, "exploring with teachers and librarians ways to bring children and poetry together." Throughout her career Avis has been a writer-in-residence, mentor, workshop leader, and has given poetry presentations in Canada, U.S., Hong Kong, and Japan.

On Writing 

As a writer, the best advice she received is to keep trying. Resilience is key. Her advice to new poets is, Read lots and lots of poetry. Find your own voice and write what you want to write about.

Avis  has no specific writing routine except when she is on a roll. For her the easiest thing about writing is choosing a topic. The hardest is to get that poem so it feels complete. Over time she has become experimental and uses a myriad of different forms. She also edits much more.

Sometimes I stare at a blank white page stuck in the tabula rasa stage.
Before me lies an intriguing task where my chosen subject seems to ask:

What to say? Where to begin?
How to get out what is within?
Should it be free verse? Limerick? Haiku?
A couplet? Acrostic? A Clerihew?

A myriad of forms to find and explore that inner voice not heard before!
My poems go through many revisions. Over and over I edit decisions.
Rework! Rewrite! Revise! Refine! Polishing a poem, line by line.

Always, when writing, I read aloud. Does the rhythm flow? Do syllables crowd?
Does the subject dictate how form should be? Do lines resonate inside of me?
And when a poem won’t cooperate I file it away for a later date.

Like the metamorphosis of a butterfly, poems evolve and modify:

EDITING THE CHRYSALIS

“At last,” cried Butterfly,

 Poised
 Over its
 Empty chrysalis,
“My final draft!”

Publishing and Published Works

After sending her work off to numerous Canadian publishers and getting rejection after rejection, she was recommended to send her work off to an American publisher in the education market. The rest as they say, is history. Avis has had her work published in numerous collections including those curated by J. Patrick Lewis and Lee Bennet Hopkins.

Her meticulous poetry is tailored for work in classrooms. All writing teachers should have her work in their collection. It is brilliant mentor text. If you are looking for poetry with nonfiction content, Avis presents brilliant examples in multiple poetic formats. All of her work contains additional information in the back matter about either the form itself, or the content of the poem. A few of her poems, were even put to music by Scholastic. Alas I can find no record of them online.

She is most proud of Fly with Poetry: An ABC of Poetry, (2000) "because there is something special about your first published book. 

This self illustrated, alphabetically listed collection of different poetic forms begins with an abecedarian poem. Each poem is presented with a description of the format at the bottom of the page. An illustration references the content of the verse. This collection contains the doublet, turned into a poetic form by Avis, where a word is changed, one letter at a time, into another word.

She also created the "Intravista” which was introduced on Sylvia Vardell's blog, Poetry for Children. Avis defines an Intravista as "words within words, arranged vertically, to make a poem within a poem. (The word Intravista has a word tucked inside it!)

How fine a thing am I to be all wing and eye!

A companion book, Leap Into Poetry: More ABCs of Poetry (2001) continues with another twenty six poetic forms, each of them highlighting a different tiny creature.

In Sea Stars: Saltwater Poems, Margaret Butschler's gorgeous photographs of ocean life are accompanied by Avis' delightful poetry. The back matter contains additional information about the species in the images.

I was never an acrostics fan until I read African Acrostics: A Word in Edgeways by Avis Harley and photographer, Deborah Noyes. The book pairs photographs of African animals with delightful acrostic poems. This is not acrostic poetry with one almost unrelated word for each letter! In these examples of different kinds of acrostic poems you will forget you are reading acrostic poetry. I had no idea there were so many variations!  You can read how I used it with a group of students here. I've highlighted the letters to read vertically so you can see that there is a poem inside this poem. 

Eyes read what ears hear.

Another self illustrated book, The Monarch's Progress: Poems with Wings, contains different forms of poetry that inform readers about these magnificent creatures.

Harley's work has received many awards and accolades. She is most pleased with African Acrostics being named one of the best books of the year by the New York Public Library. It is in its 8th printing!

These days Avis has a work in progress about having fun with collective nouns. She showed me a gorgeous self illustrated book about bees that needs to find a publisher.

Avis is a role model for how to age with grace and dignity. When not writing, she keeps herself very busy. For the past 40 years, I have been very involved in two lively book groups, reading a wide variety of fiction and nonfiction and thoroughly enjoying the animated discussions at meetings. Avis is also involved with the Women's Probus Club of Vancouver, and volunteered with the after school music program at St. James Music Academy. Once an avid hiker, she's now part of a walking group that meets daily from 8:15 to 9:15. Birds fascinate her and she keeps track of all the different species who visit her spacious back yard. I suspect she makes the most of birding when she visits Salt Spring Island, her favourite vacation spot. Every Christmas Eve, Avis and her family sit down together to watch her favourite movie, Alastair Sim in Dicken’s “A Christmas Carol.”
She regularly attends opera and live theatre. Her favourite music is Chopin’s piano compositions and Saturday Met Broadcasts. "Music has been a major influence in my life. I have fun with the ukulele, and I take piano lessons, took voice lessons in my youth, and sang for many years in the Vancouver Opera Chorus. The combination of words and music and how everything comes together to create such harmony has always thrilled me." 
(Please note that I put those words in bold to help you figure out what she is passionate about. She still practices her piano every day.)

If you could change one thing about the world, what would it be?

From the start, every child would receive quality education. This would mean that education in the arts and music would be as important as learning about math, literature, history, and science.

if you haven't figured out what Avis Harley is passionate about, aside from poetry that is, here is your last clue in a poem I scrabbled together using her work as mentor text. 


Mastery of the keyboard
Underpins
Success at the piano, but
Integrated voices are a holy
Commune wherein the sacred rings

I leave you with Avis' favourite quote about poetry:
"Poetry begins in delight and ends in wisdom" Robert Frost

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