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Beauty for All

ByCarolyn Clare Givens

I was standing in front of about 300 people the first time it struck me:

“Oh, this is going to be something special.”

I was sharing about our upcoming illustrated children’s poetry anthology at the Square Halo Conference in Lancaster, Pennsylvania. The idea of the project had been born at that conference several years earlier, and last spring, I got to share one of the poems and tell everyone about the Kickstarter campaign that was nearly funded.

I read from Laura Love’s poem “Fairy Flight,” which begins with the line, “Tell me the physics of fairy flight.” When I reached the turn of the poem, after it asks question after question about the mysteries of the enchanted world, and then says, 

And when your heart is thus prepared,

Explain to me another thing—

Where is the storehouse that holds the wind?
And how does life sprout from a barren seed?

And who made the weeds to dance for joy

In wispy gowns on downy breeze?

The entire room made the turn with my reading, from the fanciful to the wonderful, from the truth of wonderland to the true world that God made. 

And I knew in that moment that we had something special on our hands.

—

It was just 24 hours later that our supporters met our Kickstarter goal, and we moved onto the next phase of the project—Emily J. Person had to illustrate over 100 pages filled with 170 poems. We needed to sign contracts with 62 poets. We had to find a printer who could manage the project on our timeline. We needed to make the tchotchkes that go with Kickstarter rewards, like bookmarks and stickers. And we needed to make a plan for getting the books out the door to our backers in time for Christmas. 

By God’s grace, everything came together and the week leading up to Christmas was filled with poets and backers sharing their excitement as they received their copies in the mail. 

We set our official release date for January 6—Epiphany and the 12th day of Christmas—and it feels right to start off the new year with this project, made by humans in concert together.

—

children's poetry anthology I've Got a Bad Case of Poetry

2025 was a challenging year for many people. It was a year of divisions and grief, a year of fear and fearmongering. 

To begin 2026 with I’ve Got a Bad Case of Poetry reminds me that people can work together to make something beautiful. Sure, the creators of the work are all to be counted, but also the 440 or so families who said, “This is something worth believing in” and put their money on the line to make it happen. 

It’s a work full of delight in the world God made and the worlds we make in the imaginations he’s given us.

There are chuckles to be had:

If veggies were like ice cream,

I’d eat them every day.

When offered peas, I’d say, “Yes please,”

and beans, I’d say, “Hooray!”

-Hannah Spuler, “If Veggies were Like Ice Cream”

There are warnings:

Once there lived a pretty child whose head was crowned with curls

Her eyes shone bright, she laughed and spun—she was a charming girl.

But one day she refused to let her mother comb her hair

She shrieked “I am abused!” and then she hollered, “It’s not fair!”

Her ringlets gnarled up like roots, her tresses grew in tangles,

Until her precious head became a hairball with twig spangles.

–Sandra Rose Hughes, “The Girl Who Wouldn’t Let Her Mother Comb Her Hair”

There is wisdom:

A time for

pie. A time

for breakfast. A

time for

breakfast pie.

–Théa Rosenburg, “A Time for Everything”


And most of all, there is unabashed joy:

I just need to wiggle and jiggle and jump!

I just need to fidget my fingers and thump—

thump them on tables and books and the door.

I just need to roll a bit down on the floor.

My chair is a cage and I have to break free

to wiggle these wiggles out—wiggle—of me!

–Carolyn Leiloglou, “The Wiggles”

In some small way, perhaps this book can be a light shining when we feel the weary world.

—

Nearly every adult I’ve shown this book to since we got it in hand has said something to the effect of, “This reminds me of a book I had when I was little.”

I take that as the highest praise, and as a sign that what we’ve made is meeting the goal editor Rachel S. Donahue set out for: to make something that feels like a classic.

I felt that the moment I made the turn in “Fairy Flight” and my listeners came along with me, and I feel it whenever I pick up my copy and thumb through it again, landing on one of Emily J. Person’s detailed illustrations or on the turn of phrase in a particular poem.

Let’s delight in beautiful things this year.

Order I’ve Got a Bad Case of Poetry from Bandersnatch Books:

Click Here!

Carolyn Clare Givens
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