1. What is your earliest memory of poetry?
My mother was a pianist. She was always at the piano, and I could sing 80 nursery rhymes when I was two (so my baby book says). Then there were the Zoe McHenry songs as well. All of these are rhymes, of course, so my first introduction to poetry was via song. The piano was a player piano, and we had rolls of most of the Gilbert and Sullivan operas as well. As soon as I could read, I could sing these too – and loved them.
I think we also had to AA Milne When We were Very Young and Now We are Six, as I vaguely remember ‘Jonathan Jo had a mouth like an O’, ‘Christopher Robin is saying his prayers’ (oh no, it’s called ‘Vespers’ isn’t it?) and ‘Buckingham Palace’ – but I read them so often to my own children later, that it’s hard to think back through that to my own childhood experiences.
We learned quite a lot at school, for which I am very grateful – they stay with you for ever. I remember some of Walter de la Mare’s, Wordsworth’s ‘Daffodils’, and Shelley’s ‘The Cloud’ from elocution in secondary school).
2. When and why did you begin to write poetry for children?
I have written poetry for as long as I can remember (at least since adolescence) and I am interested in children’s literature. I have been a children’s and school librarian and lectured on children’s literature at uni, the book from my thesis is Stories, Pictures and Reality: Two Children Tell, and for the last twenty years I have run a manuscript assessment agency Create a Kids’ Book. Some of my poetry naturally turns out to be for children.
3. Do you think writing for children is the same or different as writing for adults (explain)
Pretty much the same – it’s all about playing with words, and settling on just the right words in just the right order, whether it’s for adults or children. I do think children like rhyming poetry better. At least the poems I remember from school – the ones of Walter de la Mare for instance, all rhyme. And the favourites of my own children – by Ogden Nash, Lewis Carroll and Doug McLeod for instance – also rhyme.
4. If you could be any poet in history who would you choose to be and why?
Emily Dickinson. I wouldn’t really want her isolated life, but in her few pithy words she can sum up a situation and an idea – it leaves me breathless sometimes! Such a philosopher.
5. Give five words to describe your poetry?
Narrative, socially aware. Take a simple idea and elevate it by cleverly twisting it and putting it in a poem. (Just needed some extra words for this one!)
6. Share a few lines from one of the poems you have written that you are most proud of?
From ‘Baby Walking’
a baby, much too small
stands stolidly erect
then deliberately
loses balance
to step forwards
into his future
as a biped
7. What is your favourite form of poetry?
The really short pithy ones telling a philosophical or social truth – but I can rarely manage it myself.
8. Tell me about how you like to perform your poems?
Other people’s poems: I used to take a poetry basket into schools, with about 30 little objects in, and everyone in the class would have a chance to feel in and take something out and hold it while I recited/read ‘its’ poem.
I just read mine, when I have a chance.
9. Where is your best spot for writing poetry and why?
In my study, at my computer. I rarely know what I think till I see what I say (as EM Foster had it…)
Sometimes I also think of a few lines, or solutions to lyrical problems, while I am swimming laps in the pool – there is pen and paper in the car for me to write them down as soon as I get out.
10. What advice do you have for other poets wanting to write for children?
Keep writing poems. Some of them will turn out to be suitable for children, some not. And read, read, read. Get a name for yourself by publishing to the weekly prompts on Australian Children’s Poetry https://australianchildrenspoetry.com.au/
To find out more about Virginia
https://silverbirchpress.wordpress.com/?s=virginia+lowe.
https://australianchildrenspoetry.com.au/?s=virginia+lowe.
(Interview by June Perkins, This blog is part of a series on Poets for Children, Ten Things About Poetry and Me.)
Ripple Poetry 
Reblogged this on Pearlz Dreaming and commented:
Another in the Ten Things About Poetry and Me Series 😉
Lovely interview June. I’m doing James Patterson’s Masterclass and I’m stuck on week 5 because I haven’t done my interview yet. You’ve given me a bit of inspiration to get to week 6.
Goodluck with the masterclass, and thanks for sharing that New York Haiku link with me recently. Some great work there.
Thanks I just finished my interview now and ready to move forward.
I used to play Zoe McHenry songs on the piano when I was 16 and worked in a kindergarten. I really like the video about Shelley’s poem, ‘The Cloud’.
I’m so glad you gave Zoe’s songs to the kindergarten kids! They’ve always struck me as being so simple and so within children’s grasp – they should be more widely known. Are you in Australia Lynette?
As a Kindergarten Aide in NSW, I’d play the piano to the 3 and 4 year olds in the private kindergarten. When working in a Childcare Centre in Vic, I’d play my guitar to 4 year olds in the kindergarten section and in NT, I’d play for my Indigenous students in several remote schools. When teaching Pre-Kindergarten in the USA, I’d also play guitar. Children everywhere respond to the rhythm of the words and this makes language development enjoyable.