The Poetry Foundation puts "To Catch a Fish" from Eloise Greenfield’s UNDER THE SUNDAY TRE

The Poetry Foundation recently produced a short video -- a motionpoem, that is! -- of Eloise Greenfield’s poem, "To Catch a Fish" from the book, UNDER THE SUNDAY TREE (HarperCollins), and we thought you would enjoy seeing it.

Ms. Greenfield mentioned that this book came about in an interesting way, so we thought we’d share this with you as well. “Executives from Harper & Row Publishers (now HarperCollins) visited an exhibit of the paintings of Bahamian artist, Mr. Amos Ferguson, and fell in love with them,” said Ms. Greenfield. “Harper then contracted with Mr. Ferguson’s agent to publish the paintings in a children’s book of poetry and got in touch with me to ask if I’d be interested in writing the poems. I said yes, went from my home in DC to the Harper offices in New York, saw the large, colorful, framed paintings standing around the room and felt the excitement. I chose twenty of the paintings, and they were shipped to me. I stood them up, one at a time, and studied each one for several days. What were the stories Amos Ferguson had told? As I created verbal images of his characters, settings, activities, and moods, I was careful not to contradict anything he had said visually. I wanted to add my stories, but keep his stories alive.”

If you would like to book Eloise Greenfield for a speaking engagement and hear her recite some of her poetry herself, just contact Balkin Buddies and we’ll be happy to help arrange it.