Does your Children's Poetry Collection have an engine?

Do you dream of writing poetry for kids? Have you dabbled with different poetry forms, mastered your meter, perfected your use of poetry devices? Sold a poem or two to a children's magazine or anthology? Accrued a stack of poems along the way?

​Hey, you might think, maybe it's time to gather my poems into a collection. 

Pause. 
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Picture book poetry collections are more than a mash-up of "greatest hits." The best collections have an arc, or clear structure that hold the poems together and creates a trajectory from start to finish. Think of it as a collection's engine.  Sometimes this engine takes the form of a traditional narrative. Sometimes the engine is more subtle.

Let's look at some recent picture book poetry collections with strong engines. 

The 1619 Project: Born on the Water, by Nikole Hannah-Jones and Renée Watson, illustrated by Nikkolas Smith, is a poetry collection with a traditional narrative arc. It tells the story of a young student who receives a family tree assignment in school. The problem: she can only trace back a few generations. Through her grandmother, the child learns that 400 years ago, in 1619, their ancestors were stolen and brought to America by white slave traders. 

In a series of free-verse poems, the grandmother journeys back centuries to the Kingdom of Ndongo in West Central Africa to tell their ancestors' story. The engine that drives this poetry collection is the rich, sometimes tragic, always proud and hopeful journey of a resilient people. ​

In Stop that Poem by Eric Ode, illustrated by Jieting Chen, the art drives the collection's engine. The structure of this engine is cumulative. ​

Each page contains a descriptive poem created from words written on slips of paper. The  illustrations show slips of paper tumbling on the breeze, chased by different members of the community.  When they catch the words, they arrange them into poems. Each art spread shows a new person joining the word hunt, until the entire town is brought together over the joy of creating poetry.

Ice Cycle, by Maria Gianferrari, also illustrated by Jieting Chen, is driven by a categorical, scientific engine. ​

 In Ice Cycle, readers discover the many types of ice on land and at sea. Each poem focuses on a different characteristic of ice. Poem titles like "Ice is Born", "Ice Grows", "Ice Flows", and "Ice Plays" reinforce the various stages and places that ice can grow. 

As you ponder poems for your own picture book, ask yourself, What will hold these poems together? A traditional narrative with a character and a problem? A trajectory revealed in the illustrations? Scientific exploration? Before you gather your poems into a collection, determine the engine that will drive your reader all the way from start to finish.