Introduction
Western Libraries is pleased to present Listen to Children: The Jack Prelutsky Antiquarian Children’s Poetry Collection. This exhibition and the accompanying catalog are intended to honor nationally acclaimed children’s poet Jack Prelutsky, who, in 2019, donated his personal collection of nearly 1,200 rare books containing poetry for young readers to Special Collections at Western Washington University. Author, translator, and anthologist of over seventy books, in 2006 Jack was named the first United States Children’s Poet Laureate by the Poetry Foundation. He has received many other awards as well, including the Lifetime Achievement Award of the Washington Poets Association. Jack and his wife Carolynn, a retired librarian, provided a further donation that deserves recognition as much as the books themselves: funding to catalog, process, and preserve them. In addition to celebrating these gifts, we hope that the exhibition will promote the Prelutsky Collection and encourage its use in teaching, learning, and research, both at Western and beyond.
Dating back to the late eighteenth century, the materials give a sense of what children’s poetry was like, at least in the English-speaking world, in times gone by. Some of it is familiar, some of it is not. Some of it is still a joy to read, some of it is off-putting and even offensive, either because of its style, content, or perspective. As Jack himself writes, “While many of the poems in these books do not speak to a modern audience, this collection contains cultural artifacts and provides historical value.” Visitors and researchers are invited to bring their own points of view to bear on the vast number of texts and topics that can now be easily explored in one place thanks to Jack’s generosity.
The topical essays in each section of this catalog are brief reflections designed to introduce a few highlights from the collection, pose questions, make connections, and stimulate further thought. The sections also give a sense of the breadth and depth of Jack’s collection. Perhaps the deepest area is Mother Goose. Hundreds of editions of this classic collection of nursery rhymes are available, along with numerous spin-offs, parodies, and attempts to explain what the rhymes mean. Another major area is didactic poetry, a term applied to works that try to instill serious moral values in young readers. Originating with Aesop, didactic poetry reached its height in the early 1800s. In stark contrast to this genre is the one that includes most of Jack’s own works: nonsense poetry. Its main purpose is to provide comic relief through intentionally wacky ideas and language. Though most nonsense poets would resist ascribing meaning to their work, in general, it can be seen as encouraging people to push the bounds of creativity and individual expression; occasionally it is also possible to interpret nonsense poems as a veiled form of social critique.
Other significant topics that the collection sheds light on include the role of imagination in childhood, humans’ relationship with nature, the development of illustrated books, and how to introduce history and current events to young readers. Of course, many themes other than the handful examined here intersect with the wide array of materials in the Prelutsky Collection. This catalog is simply a starting point for the countless journeys that readers and researchers might take through the collection.
Children’s poetry has gone in many new directions since the books in the Prelutsky Collection were published. In fact, one of the best things about them may be their value in helping us see just how much children’s poetry has evolved. The catalog contains contributions by contemporary children’s poets and illustrators that speak to this exciting forward trajectory, which Jack’s work has very much been a part of. We are grateful to our contributors for sharing their creative practices, teaching insights, and joyous reflections: Kwame Alexander, Margarita Engle, Kenn Nesbitt, Joyce Sidman, Peter Sís, Arianne True, Sylvia Vardell, and Janet Wong.
The books displayed in the exhibition—and the many more that are not on display—were owned and used by real people who lived, in some cases, more than two-hundred years ago. While it’s hard to say what the poems meant to them, we can hold the same books they held and, with a little imagination, listen to their voices. Grownups who listen to children (or to the child within) open their hearts and minds to new possibilities. In the same way, listening to children who lived outside our own time and culture can help fill in our understanding of possibilities that were open to them.