Fantasy, and its Importance in Children's Poetry
With particular reference to the poems of Jack Prelutsky.

Fantasy is an internal realm of infinite possibilites with no limitations according to the 'workings' of an external reality. Children are the masters of this inner realm as it is their 'home away from home' for the greater portion of their mental development. The work of Jack Prelutsky in this realm, children's poetry in particular, is something I've never before recognised and now have nothing but the utmost respect for. His ability to write pieces that appeal so completely to the child's tastes, likes and imagination is almost visionary. Am I exaggerating? Hardly. Upon beginning this essay, and asking myself the question of why children need fantasy, I came to admire Jack's seemingly natural talent to capture the essential elements of the child's imagination. Children need a realm, an imagined landscape, in which they can explore situations, feelings, actions, thoughts etc. without the confines of reality intruding. Their is no "filtering" of possibilities or probabilities in such a world. Things are, and thats it. The concept of passing 'through the looking glass' is an excellent manner in which to explain this metaphorically speaking. Its a realm of infinite possibility in which we are reflected and can therefore delve into our own nature, the very essence of ourselves, a fantastic exploration. And I mean exploration. Fantasy is the raw material that is to be shaped by the mould of the external reality. The inner 'landscape' is fashioned according to the outer worlds expectations but does not have to generally follow such imposed limitations. We must acknowledge the fact that the world is a relatively new place for the child, and so the child may not be completely aware of these limitations anyway. There is no extensive experiential base on which the child can formulate it's investigations. So the child's vision must encompass all things; an infinite range of imaginative and real possibilities.

The rhyme and rythym of childrens poetry is an element that is particularly prevalent through not only Jack's poetry but the works of all children's writers. I find the possibility that a child develops a natural tendency towards rythym from listening to its mothers heartbeat in the womb intriguing. Jim Trelease presents such a notion in his introduction to the poems selected by Jack Prelutsky in The Walker Book of Read-Aloud Rhymes for the Very Young. I'm going to take that tentative step further and present another idea. It seems to me that the child would be deprived of external stimuli at such a stage and therefore could be predisposed to the creation of an imaginary internal enviroment. Experiments with sensory deprivation in adults has revealed that patients suspended in tanks of water with no sensory input of any kind begin to 'create' an internal reality. This mainly takes the form of hallucinations but demonstrates that the mind is constantly creating. Similarly, the creation of a fantastic reality in the womb, when lacking a real one, could then become the first method of cataloguing and thinking, and may form the blueprint for cognition within the child's early, formative years. Of course, we may never have any way of proving such a thing. Indeed, speculation concerning whether the unborn or even newborn are 'thinking' at all is often under debate. Therefore, such a notion may seem a fantasy in itself, but that only goes to demonstrate the application of abstract thought within reality doesn't it!?! What sort of fantastic thoughts could a child be bouncing around in their skull if a young adult like me is coming up with that!!

Jack prelutsky seems to be a man with a fantastic imagination and therefore an understanding of a child's need for fantasy and imagery. His poems are often of a creative and entertaining nature:

There were rumbles of strange jubilation
in a dark, subterranean lair,
for the dragon was having a birthday,
and his colleagues were gathering there.
"HOORAH!" groaned the trolls and the ogres
as they pelted each other with stones.
"HOORAH!" shrieked the sphinx and a griffin,
and the skeletons rattled their bones.

We note several things that are not only common to Jack's poetry but children's poetry as a whole. The element of fantasy especially, objects of fear (emotion), fun, rhyme, rythym, repitition and personification. One familiar aspect of children's fantasy is the personification of things, particularly animals (Anthropomorphism and Animism). Other things may also be personified in imaginative ways, allowing the child to relate to them far more easily than if they were presented in a more realistic and, lets face it, depressing situation:

Meet the lazy Nothing-Doings,
all they do is stand around,
when it's time for doing nothing,
Nothing-Doings can be found,
When it's time for doing something,
you won't find a single one,
for the Nothing-Doings vanish
when there's work to be done.

Children like to play with words in the same fashion as rythym. Words that sound funny or the use of onomatopoeia (which is a fun word in itself), even something as simple as two words that rhyme are fascinating to children who's vocabulary and understanding of the mechanics of language may be rudimentary or in developmental stages. They're exploring what they can do and what their limitations are. For example:

Clankity Clankity Clankity Clank!
Ankylosaurus was built like a tank,
its hide was a fortress as sturdy as steel,
it tended to be an inedible meal.

Note the language used. Now imagine the imagery, fun, enjoyment, rythym and rhyme that the child would derive from such a work. This brings in another important facet of Prelutsky's work. Children are like adults in that they tend to remember things that they had a particular interest and fascination in. Dinosaurs, as demonstrated above, are an exceptional example of something that captures a young childs imagination and provide an excellent model of how fantasy 'works'. Fantasy allows these ancient creatures to live again, and injects the supposition into the childs imagination. The child begins to imagine exactly what the dinosaur might do, how it would have moved, sounded, smelt, behaved. This fantastic idea is then applied to reality and may lead the child to ask, 'Well, why don't they exist anymore?' This is the crux of fantasy, mentioned in the introduction. The realm of the fantastic and nonsensical provides a blueprint for the childs exploration of the everyday. In applying infinite possibilities to reality the child is left to ask, 'Why not?' Therefore the child is building an understanding of reality where fantasy serves as a catalyst for this exploration of the real and factual 'external' world. Fantasy is the starting block in a race for truth.

A child enters a stage in which it starts to realise that not everything is possible, and the reasons for certain things occuring that may not have been understood are actually explained within realities 'realm'. A stage in which the child is endlessly asking the most inane and/or fantastic questions is as real as your left arm (my apologies if I have just offended any amputees).

The subject of the child's explorations may change endlessly, but emotions seem to be a common source of interest for the child, especially fear (delicious fear):

You are lost in the forest
where the stars give a pitiful light,
but the faraway glow of the will o' the wisp
offers hope in the menacing night...

...It will lead you astray in the forest
over ways never traveled before.
If you ever follow the will o' the wisp
you'll never be seen anymore.

Poems such as this instill a sense of fear in a child but helps them to eventually recognise the fact that fear is the manifestation of their grim rapture rather than the object of that fear. 'There is nothing to fear but fear itself.' It takes a child some time to recognise this, and until then, their imagination will call for checks under the bed and a light on at night.

Above all, it seems the child's desire for something exciting and especially fun never dies. Jack Prelutsky recognises the essential elements for childrens poetry, which themselves are demonstrative of the child's method of exploration. There is no scope, no limitation to the imagination, unless you create your own, an incredible freedom in itself. You have the power to decide whether the 'Laws of Time' exist and/or in what context. You can say whether gravity goes up or down. You can determine if a monster would roar upon it's appearance or enthusiastically pose the question, "Anyone for tennis?"

Children are the ultimate explorers on a journey of discovering life, discovering reality. Their tools are fantasy and imagination and their map has no borders and no limits. Fantasy is an integral part of Jack Prelutsky's work, but only a smalll part of his talent for appealing to children as they develop and understand reality as it applies to them.

For everyone is an individual.

"Upon the wizard's bookshelf sat a leather bound copy of The Musings of Dan"
or
"A mighty red dragon sits curled upon its treasure within The Lair of Dan"