Author Rajani LaRocca discusses the craft of writing verse novels

Interview by Suma Subramaniam

I’m thrilled to welcome Newbery Honor winner, Rajani LaRocca to Diverse Verse.  You can also read Padma Venkatraman’s celebration post of Red, White, and Whole (Quill Tree Books, 2021) when it was first published here.

Red, White, and Whole with the Newbery Honor sticker

Suma: Welcome, Rajani! Congratulations on the Newbery Honor for Red, White, and Whole!

Rajani: Thanks, Suma! I’m excited to be talking to you about Red, White, and Whole! I’m so incredibly thrilled and humbled to see this book of my heart recognized in this way. I’ve shared some photos from “the call” when the Newbery Committee told me about the award, as well as some from the day of the Youth Media Awards, when the awards were announced publicly. It’s been an utterly wonderful whirlwind of a month!

The ALA Award Announcement

Suma: Red, White, and Whole has poems written in chronological fashion that cover the span of Reha’s childhood and young adult life. Did you intend to write it sequentially?

Rajani: I didn’t write the poems in sequential order! In fact, I often wrote “paired poems”—where an idea or theme or phrase was mentioned in one poem and then repeated later. I made a running list of topics I wanted to include and I would often wake in the middle of the night with new ideas. Then I would write the poems in whatever order I felt inspired to do. It was only later, in revision, that I decided on the order of the poems. Early in the book, when Reha recounts episodes from early in her life, I tried to alternate those poems with the ones taking place in “real time” —her present day life in 8th grade—to make sure the story was grounded.

The moment Rajani heard from the Newbery Committee

Suma: What techniques did you use to let the poems advance the story? 

Rajani: Some poems focus on developing character: for example, “Girls Just Want to Have Fun,” “Sunny,” and “Amma’s Orbit.” Others move the plot along: “The Dance,” “The Diagnosis,” “Waiting.” Others do both, including “Courtly Love” and “The Discovery.” Still others riff on themes in the book: “First Memory,” “Mustard Seeds,” “Everywhere,” “The River,” “Red and White,” and “Red, White, and Whole.” The story of Savitri is interwoven in the book, and the revelation of Savitri’s story follows Reha’s journey as she realizes what is happening to her mother and what the consequences are for her family. 

  Flowers that Rajani received after the award

Suma: Could you elaborate on poetic devices that helped build tension?

Rajani: One effective tension-building device is to add a couplet at the end of a poem that is a twist that changes the poem’s meaning. For example, in “Everywhere,” we are introduced to how Reha sees God, how her mother especially has taught her that God is everywhere, in all living creatures, in paper and learning, in the life she enjoys with her loving family. The couplet at the end is: “Our parents are God/their words are law.” This changes the meaning of the poem and increases tension, because Reha feels like she wants different things than her mom does at this point in the story. 

The other technique I use is that of repetition — of words and phrases, such as mustard seeds, a fleck floating in a beam, a little piece of home flying across the world. I also repeat imagery — streams/rivers/oceans, the night sky, and floating/flying. And I repeat and play with the themes of belonging to different worlds, the notion of virtue, life and death, and blood and what it means in terms of biology, family, and community. The first poem I wrote for Red, White, and Whole was “The River,” which I ended up placing at the midpoint of the story: 

Blood

metallic and earthy,

essential,

cleansing,

the river of life

in our veins.

Blood binds us to each other,

as humans,

as kin,

parent to child.

Thicker than water, 

it tells all.

The stories of our ancestors are written there.

But what happens

when your own blood

betrays you?

Those last few lines have two meanings: one is that Amma has leukemia, a type of blood cancer, so her blood has “betrayed” her. But the other meaning has to do with Reha’s guilt — Reha feels she should have been paying attention to her mom rather than boys and dances, so she feels like she herself, who shares her mother’s blood, has betrayed her mom.

Suma: Could you give us one or two examples of how white space and line breaks work to the benefit of your poems?

Rajani: In the poem “Only,” I use line breaks to single out the word “only” and orphan words to make the reader slow down and reflect on how Reha sometimes feels alone as an only child:

Voices aren’t raised,

and the house is so 

very

quiet

the way it can

only

be

with an 

only

child. 

Similarly, I use plenty of white space and short stanzas in only of the most emotional poems near the end of the book: “The River.” The name of the poem is repeated, but the meaning has changed:

A mother is life’s blood

Nourishing you

Protecting you

Helping you stop hurting

Until

she

is 

gone.

I am still here, 

but she cannot stay.

A bouquet of flowers Rajani received after winning the award

Suma: Are there more verse novels coming from Rajani’s creative space?

Rajani: Yes! My next novel, Switch, is coming in 2023 from Quill Tree Books. It’s a dual POV novel in verse about musically talented identical twin sisters. One sister is hiding a secret, and to help her, her twin changes her appearance and the kind of music she plays, inadvertently pushing them further apart. Then the twins make a bet to switch places at their summer music camp, pretending to be each other and playing the other’s music — and the one who lasts the longest without being discovered will get to decide what they’ll do for high school. It’s a story about sisters, friendship, music, and learning how to leap, even when you’re scared. I can’t wait for folks to read it!

Suma: Sounds fun! We at Diverse Verse look forward to reading it!

Rajani LaRocca was born in India, raised in Kentucky, and now lives in the Boston area with her wonderful family and impossibly cute dog. A graduate of Harvard College and Harvard Medical School, she spends her time practicing medicine and writing novels and picture books for young readers. She is also the cohost of the STEM Women in KidLit Podcast. Her middle grade novel in verse, Red, White, and Whole (Quill Tree Books/HarperCollins, 2021) is the winner of a 2022 John Newbery Honor, the 2022 Walter Dean Myers Award, and the 2021 New England Book Award, as well as other honors. Her other award-winning books include Midsummer’s Mayhem (Yellow Jacket/Little Bee Books, 2019), Much Ado About Baseball (Yellow Jacket/Little Bee Books, 2021), Seven Golden Rings: A Tale of Music and Math (Lee & Low, 2020), Bracelets For Bina’s Brothers (Charlesbridge, 2021), Where Three Oceans Meet (Abrams, 2021), My Little Golden Book About Kamala Harris (Golden Books, 2021), The Secret Code Inside You (Little Bee Books, 2021), I’ll Go and Come Back (Candlewick, 2022), Masala Chai, Fast and Slow (Candlewick, 2023), Your One and Only Heart (Dial, 2023), Summer Is For Cousins (Abrams, 2023), and more.

Suma Subramaniam is a contributing author of The Hero Next Door (Penguin Random House, July 2019), and the author of Centaurs (Capstone, August 2021), Fairies (Capstone, August 2021), She Sang For India: How MS Subbulakshmi Used Her Voice For Change (Macmillan FSG, Spring 2022), and Namaste Is A Greeting (Candlewick, Fall 2022). She has an MFA in Writing from Vermont College of Fine Arts, a Certificate in Popular Fiction from the University of Washington, and advanced degrees in computer science and management.