An Intro to Poetry Comics

National Poetry Month, Week 1

Poems are words arranged in lines that create pictures in the reader’s mind. Comics are words and pictures arranged in panels that tell a story and suggest the passage of time.

What happens when you combine the poem and the comic? This is a question I’ve explored for the last year. I’m putting the finishing touches on a new book of poetry comics, to be published in 2024 by Chronicle Kids Books.

Though I can’t show you comics from the book yet (sorry!), I decided to continue the joy of working in this new form throughout April, which is National Poetry Month here in the United States.

The beginning of spring is wonderful time here in Kansas. The days warm, the flowers bloom, and the trees blossom. Redbuds, daffodils, dogwoods, and crabapples bring vivid colors, a relief from the gray winter months. I was inspired to invent some new words to describe the experience.

Making poetry comics activates the observational part of my art-making brain. Instead of looking inward, I look outward. I carry my sketchbook in my backyard, around the block, to the park. If I’m lucky, these outward observations ignite inner feelings. That’s the beauty of poetry, for me: taking the ordinary and infusing it with a sense of meaning and wonder.

Of course, joy and wonder are not the only valid emotions for a poem. Frustration is another universal human feeling. It’s one that I felt frequently as a young athlete. Now that I’m a not-so-young artist, I experience it regularly at the drawing table. But the satisfaction of finally connecting with a ball or an idea makes the frustration worth it.

Trying a new form of expression can be scary. I attempted to learn piano a few years ago. It was difficult. I found myself fearing the very sight of the instrument, lurking in the living room, expressing its dismay at my inability to play it. Eventually, I gave up.

Making poetry comics has been an exciting new challenge, and a less frustrating one than trying to decipher scales, keys, and chords. Still, it’s scary to abandon old routines to make new work. I’m eager to see where the rest of National Poetry Month will take me. Will it be four weeks of frustration or wonder? Like April’s shifts between pleasant sunshine and furious winds, probably a bit of both.