My new novel is tentatively called Josiah and the Bridge of Fire, and it is a very different book for me. This is a contemporary late middle grade novel, but it has a parallel story told in poems in the book Josiah finds. These poems echo some of what is going on in his life with perhaps a touch of magical realism in how appropriate they can be.
I have little idea how one pitches/sells/categorizes a book which is partly prose and partly poems, but I've wanted to give it a try for a while. I'll worry about details like that when I have something to show people.
Since Josiah is African-American, and living somewhat on the edge of poverty, I wanted the poems to resonate better with that life. With that in mind, some of them will be written in a form of hip hop poetry if I can manage. I have actually written the first of the ones for the novel, but don't want to share it yet, so instead, here is my first hip hop poem, which is a rewriting of The Road Not Taken by Robert Frost. Click on it to see a larger version if you have trouble reading it.
