Lit fest- Get to know Julie Hare a bit more

Julie Hare’s “Where the forest once stood” is a collection of children’s poems that explores the beauty and importance of nature. Within the collection, Hare conveys a powerful environmental message that encourages the younger audience to value and protect nature. Although the intended audience is children, the themes resonate with readers of all ages- making the collection both accessible and impactful. On the 12th of October, I had the opportunity to interview Julie Hare and gain a deeper understanding of her story.

Julie’s journey towards writing this book has been shaped by several experiences that have influenced both her achievements future goals. As a primary school teacher, she developed a passion for educating young people and a particular love for teaching poetry in English. Also, while working in Australia as an environmental education officer she developed an admiration for nature and a strong desire to share this love with others. Writing poetry about nature for children perfectly combines of all these interests in a meaningful way.

Julie’s enthusiasm for poetry was evident throughout the interview , it was inspiring to hear her talk about her journey as a writer. She explained that the creative process that she follows features brainstorming, choosing a topic focus and then building upon this idea to finally develop a poem. Hare described as a “window or mirror”, suggesting that readers can either relate to or learn from the work. “The feeling of reading a poem and seeing that someone else has found the words that you’re looking for” is how she summarised her love for poetry.

To explore poetry, Julie recommends to choose form poem type and deduce all of the rules associated with this particular form, and to then write while breaking all of these rules. This freeing, experimental process helps you to grow creatively while introducing poetry as a less scary, strict form of literature, despite its biases. She believes that introducing such freedoms to young people helps prevent negitive assumptions about poetry, while also developing confidence.

Julie Hare’s works aim to inspire others to stand up for change and she plans to explore performing work next. So if you haven’t already, take a copy of “ Where the forest once stood” to read something new or maybe even find your “mirror’ poem.