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When Jack Prelutsky, the popular children's poet, met then-U.S. poet laureate Robert Pinsky six years ago, Prelutsky couldn't resist telling him, "I'm something you're not."
"What's that?" Pinsky asked.
Prelutsky described his visits to hundreds of schools and libraries where his poems are posted on the walls, "sandwiched" in plastic, making him "the poet laminate."
At 66, Prelutsky has a new title: He has been crowned the nation's first children's poet laureate by the Poetry Foundation.
The foundation began in 2003 with a $175 million bequest from Ruth Lilly, a pharmaceutical heiress and unpublished poet. The children's laureate post was created to raise awareness that kids have a natural receptivity to poetry, especially when it's written for them.
The foundation consulted experts on children's literature and came up with 10 reasons to love Prelutsky, including, "He knows what kids like."... "He's funny, just plain everyday funny."... "He writes real poetry. He's got rhythm. He's got rhyme."
Prelutsky, who lives in Seattle, says he writes the "kind of poems I would have liked as a kid: about food fights, dinosaurs, imaginary animals and outer space."
In a working-class neighborhood in the Bronx, N.Y., Prelutsky's third-grade teacher recited boring poems about daffodils and treated poetry like "literary liver. Said it was good for me. I didn't believe her."
Prelutsky, who has been a folk singer, cabdriver, farm worker, piano mover and janitor, wanted to be an illustrator.
In his early 20s, he spent six months drawing a series of "imaginary things, 11 heads, that kind of stuff. One night for some reason I decided they needed poems to go along with them. In two hours, I wrote two dozen little poems."
A friend knew a children's book editor who took one look at the drawings and declared "You're no artist" but saw promise in his whimsical verse and wordplay.
After many rewrites and rejected poems, editor Susan Hirschman gave Prelutsky a $500 advance ("more money than I had ever seen") just in time to stave off eviction for failing to pay his rent.
Hirschman remained Prelutsky's editor for 37 years until she retired. He has published more than 40 books, including Behold the Bold Umbrellaphant and Other Poems, and has more than 1 million copies in print. The folk singer turned poet recites and sings on the audio version of his latest books.
As children's poet laureate for two years, Prelutsky will give speeches, recommend other poets online (poetryfoundation.org) and plans a contest at jackprelutsky.com to give away part of the laureate's $25,000 award.
In the contest, children will be asked to write why their school libraries need more books.
Prelutsky says the only burden of being a popular children's poet is that when he visits schools, especially in winter, some of his fans tend to sneeze on him.
That's something Donald Hall, the grown-up poet laureate, need not worry about.
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