Escondido’s Debbie Hall has wild new book for kids
Before she introduces them to the laughing otter, the busy dung beetle and the stunning hummingbirds, poet and photographer Debbie Hall lets her readers hear from a wise human.
One of the quotes featured in the epigraph of Hall’s new book, “In the Jaguar’s House,” is from award-winning writer Jaqueline Woodson, and it tells you everything you need to know about the literary fun that lies ahead:
Poetry is a party everyone is invited to.
And so it goes with “In the Jaguar’s House,” a collection of poems and wildlife photos that invites nature lovers to celebrate some of the world’s most exotic feathered, furred and scaly creatures.
It is the local poet’s first book for children, but Hall wrote it to help readers of all ages see the forests, jungles and oceans through rebooted eyes.
“Poetry is something that allows people to express the inexpressible. Through the use of imagery and metaphor and musicality, you create something that expresses the meaning of life and the experiences we have in life in a way that is different from other types of writing,” the 71-year-old Hall said from her home in Escondido.
“Poets write about the everyday in a way that makes things new every time.”
Released in March, “In the Jaguar’s House” features photographs from Hall’s many globetrotting adventures paired with the poems they inspired.
There are funny poems, like “Rollin’, Rollin’, Rollin’,” a tribute to the dung beetle that is arranged in the shape of a dung beetle.
There are fan-letter poems, like “Haiku for a Hummingbird,” which captures the dazzling spirit of Hall’s jewellike tufted coquette and white-necked jacobin photographs with these three lines:
What colors you wear/ now that you have flirted/ with a passing rainbow!
And in honor of Hall’s portrait of a gleeful-looking giant river otter, the rambunctious “Laughing Otter” poem commands us to indulge in laughs of all sizes — guffaws, snickers, whoops, snorts — Until water shoots out of our noses.
“I wanted this book to convey and develop a concern for wildlife and animals and the environment,
but I didn’t want to come across as too heavy-handed or preachy. I wanted them to be pure fun,” Hall said. (She plans to donate her proceeds from the book to wildlife conservation organizations.)
Throughout the book, Hall tackles substantial topics with a warm, whimsical touch. Not just because she wanted to keep things light, but because she needed to keep things light. Just like the rest of us. “Like a lot of writers and poets, I was writing a lot of pandemic poems, which is great, but I needed to do something more upbeat,” said Hall, whose poetry has appeared in the San Diego Poetry Annual, A Year in Ink, Sixfold, Bird’s Thumb and other journals.
“I had been thinking for a long time about pairing photos with writing, so I made a file on my computer of photos that I thought might appeal to kids. Then I just started writing poems to go with the pictures. One of the things that makes writing poetry such a beautiful experience is the discovery. You don’t always know what you are going to find.”
What Hall ended up finding was a new collection that reflects a lifetime of experiences and passions.
Born in Encino and raised in Del Mar, Hall grew up in a family of readers. Inspired by the children’s
poetry collections given to her by a bookloving aunt, she wrote her first poem when she was 10.
Hall inherited the shutterbug gene from her mother, who worked in a
friend’s photo studio when she was younger, and then Hall pursued it as a hobby in the dark room her father built in the garage of their Del Mar home. When Hall began traveling internationally in the early 2000s, she started training her own photographic eye on the animals she encountered in Brazil, Africa, Canada and other spots, and she never looked back.
As for the children’s portion of the “Jaguar’s House” equation, that has its roots in Hall’s career. Before retiring in 2014, Hall worked as a psychologist, both in private practice and in the pediatrics department at the Naval Medical Center San Diego.
“I think I can see the world through children’s eyes because I spent so much time listening to children and learning about them. Like any life experience, that informs one’s writing, particularly poetry,” Hall said.
She got her Master of Fine Arts degree from Pacific University in Forest Grove, Ore., in 2017. Hall’s first book of poetry, “What
Light I Have,” came out in 2018. Her chapbook “Falling Into the River” followed in 2019. And now that “In the Jaguar’s House” has been unleashed upon readers, Hall is working on an eco-adventure book about lizards that use their superpowers to save endangered species.
As Hall knows, when your superpower starts in the heart, great things are possible.
“Each time I go on a wildlife trip, I fall in love with these animals. And if you begin to fall in love with something, you want to convey that to other people,” Hall said.
“I hope that ‘In the Jaguar’s House’ connects with readers young and old, and that it will be something that inspires that caring in others.”