Saturday, April 06, 2002

By Karen MacPherson, Post-Gazette Staff Writer

Dave Crawley has always liked to write poetry. He published his first poem at age 13 and has carved out a special niche as a reporter at KDKA-TV by presenting some of his feature stories in rhyme.

	Audio Clips From the book "I Invited a Dragon to Dinner." Poems written and read by KDKA reporter Dave Crawley. Click to download an MP3 sound file, edited and optimized for the Web: "I Invited a Dragon to Dinner". (File size 600-800K) Click to download an MP3 sound file, edited and optimized for the Web: "The Attic". (File size 600-800K) Click to download an MP3 sound file, edited and optimized for the Web: "Thoughts I Was Thinking While Drinking My Juice". (File size 600-800K) Visit the following sites to download players for Windows or Mac machines to listen to the files: Real Player Microsoft Windows Media Player WinAMP

Now Crawley's poetry has found a new audience -- the readers of a just-published collection of humorous poetry for children titled "I Invited a Dragon to Dinner" (Philomel, $16.99).

The result of a nationwide contest to discover new children's poets, this picture book collection of 29 poems features three poems by Crawley, including the title poem. Two other Pittsburgh poets, Andrea Perry and Fred Bortz (writing as B.H. Fields), are among the 23 whose work is showcased in the book, which features amusing watercolor illustrations by Chris Demarest.

Published in time for National Poetry Month, the book has garnered an enthusiastic review from School Library Journal, while Publishers Weekly found it lacking originality. But Publishers Weekly singled out the work of both Crawley and Perry for praise, calling Perry's poem "Bedtime Prayer" "cheekily sacrilegious," and quoting the first lines of Crawley's "The Attic": "There's a rumble in the attic./ A grumble in the attic. I fear I hear (it's very clear)/ A stumble in the attic."

Crawley has written three books' worth of children's rhymes over the years, and he's hoping that the inclusion of his poems in "I Invited a Dragon to Dinner" may persuade a publisher to bring out an entire book of his poetry.

Although Crawley, 54, doesn't plan on giving up his KDKA job, he greatly enjoys the challenge of writing children's poetry.

"My main goal is to entertain, but it's also great if kids learn something as well," said Crawley, who doesn't have any children of his own. "I find that I can use big words, if I use them in context. As long as I think kids can understand what a word means, I'll use it. But I don't want to go overboard or they'll just give up."

Crawley, who is known for his "KD Country" feature reports, says those four-times-a-week presentations take all his creative energy during the week. As a result, he writes most of his children's poetry during a four-hour block on Saturday mornings.

It helps that Crawley (like Perry) is a member of a children's writing group that meets regularly at the Squirrel Hill home of author Sally Alexander.

"It forces me to come up with something new every couple of weeks," Crawley said, adding that the writing group also has helped him polish his writing. "They tell me if I get carried away, or I'm too wordy."

The group helped Crawley decide which three poems -- of the 200 children's poems he's written in the past six years -- to enter in the contest. (Poets were allowed to enter up to three poems.) Crawley was certain about sending two of his poems, "The Attic" and "Thoughts I Was Thinking While Drinking My Juice."

"I wasn't sure whether to send 'I Invited A Dragon To Dinner,' " he said. "I'm glad I did, especially since the publishers decided to make it the title poem."

Like Crawley, Perry has to carve out time to write. The married mother of two children, Perry works full-time as a computer lab assistant at Boyce Middle School in Upper St. Clair.

"I like to write in the morning before the kids get up. I also write a lot in the summertime," Perry said. She keeps a notebook with her at all times for jotting down ideas "even in church. Ideas come to you at the most inopportune times sometimes."

Perry says she "fell backwards" into writing children's poetry. A longtime fan of rhyme, she would create poems as gifts for her friends and family. Perry's mother was convinced that her daughter had a talent that should be nurtured and persuaded her to take a community college class in writing poetry.

But it wasn't easy breaking into the children's poetry market.

"I sent out 53 poems and got 53 rejections before I sold my first one," Perry said. "It's painful, and you have to have a thick skin."

Over the years, Perry has sold a number of poems to children's magazines. Now she's finally about to publish a book of her children's poems. Due out in December or January from Simon & Schuster, Perry's poetry collection focuses on "wacky inventions" and is titled "Here's What To Do If You Can't Find Your Shoe."

Perry has a contract for another collection of poetry, titled "Villains," and is now working on a third collection. She said she got the idea for "Bedtime Prayer," the poem published in "I Invited a Dragon to Dinner," from her son, whose bedtime prayers are often "quite specific."

Bortz also has been writing for children for a number of years. Unlike Perry and Crawley, however, Bortz already has eight published books to his credit.

All are focused on scientific topics, something about which Bortz is an expert. He was a physicist for 25 years, much of it with Carnegie Mellon University, before deciding to "retire" and write full time for children.

Bortz enjoys writing science books for kids -- his latest book is "Techno-Matter: The Materials Behind the Marvels" -- but he also loves to create rhymes. Bortz actually sold his first children's poem more than 20 years ago to the Christian Science Monitor. But he was still working full time as a scientist and raising a family, and he wasn't able to focus much attention on his children's writing at that point.

Six years ago he "took a flying leap," and became a full-time children's book writer. Bortz also writes regular book reviews (of adult science books) for the Dallas Morning News, teaches children's writing at Chatham College and visits schools in his bow-tie-wearing persona of "Dr. Fred."

With the publication of his poem, "The Man in the Green Hat That No One Can See" in the Philomel volume, Bortz -- like Crawley -- now hopes to persuade a publisher to bring out an entire volume of his children's poems. Whatever happens, he knows he'll keep writing.

"I guess I'm compulsive about writing," Bortz said. "It's just hardwired in my brain."

There will be two book-signing events for "I Invited a Dragon to Dinner" today. The first one will be at 10 a.m. at the Barnes & Noble in Homestead, the second at 1 p.m. at the Borders in Bethel Park.

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