HOT CHA CHA

MEDIA SHEET

 

On the surface, Hot Cha Cha! looks like a young picture book, about kids finding the lost key to a playground. But, its scope is much broader than that, and it can be efficaciously applied to the teaching of verse--either for writing verse, or for appreciation of it.

As a rule, the easier verse is to read, the harder it was to write. Hot Cha Cha took 23 rewrites over the course 8 months to write.

Some of its attributes:
-It's actually a model for writing poetic form.
-It presents the 5 W's and How elements of storytelling.
-Each time one of these elements is posed, it is answered in BOTH literal and figurative terms.
-It is written in both straight and slant rhyme.
-Its rhyme schemes vary line by line, but conform, element by element.

-The ending achieves an exciting denouement as its rhyme builds to a crescendo.
-The meter is impeccable, so that even read dead-pan, if the proper and naturally-occurring accents are assigned to each word, every word has the correct beat, every group of words the correct meter, and lines scan just as they must.
-It presents alliteration in its body, dealing with consonants.
-It presents assonance, dealing with vowels.

-It sometimes combines alliteration and assonance.

-Not one of its elements--rhyming, meter, or plotting--depends upon the creation of non-sense or invented words for the conceit of the form, making this narrative poem a modern tour de force.  

Don’t miss out on reading the underside of the jacket of this hardcover book, where a discussion with its author, about the text, will help you capitalize on the technical structure of this oeuvre, making the process of its creation  understandable and accessible for the aspiring poet.