Poet

push he needed to make the leap to fulltime authorship in 1998, after his retirement from Otterbein.

“I quit teaching. I quit economics. I’d fallen in love with poetry,” says Lewis. “So that’s what I do. I write and I make school visits and I go to conferences. I’ve visited about 475 elementary schools all over the world.”

This year alone, he’s scheduled to travel to eight states and Russia – on top of visits to seven Ohio elementary schools and the Ohio Council Teachers of English Language Arts conference in Columbus.

“Honestly, if you make school visits, you just can’t believe how kids treat you like a rock star,” he says. “They treat you so wonderfully. The teachers are great. I’ve never had a bad school visit.”

Most of the school visits are day-long ventures, so Lewis can fit in four presentations of about 45 minutes each.

“It’s mostly poetry appreciation,” he says. “I talk about writing and rewriting and editing and publishing and I answer questions, and by the time that’s all done, the 45 minutes is just about up.”

In addition, in his role as poet laureate, he is serving as an advisor to the Poetry Foundation on children’s literature. It’s a busy schedule, but between travels, he lives a relatively quiet life at home with his wife, Susan, and their dog. He spends some time video chatting with his three children and five grandchildren. Otherwise, he doesn’t do much but sit in his study working for up to nine hours a day, every day.

“I hate to say it like that, because it makes it sound like drudgery, but it isn’t. If I couldn’t do it, I’d just feel bereft. I’d be at sea,” Lewis says. “It’s really a hedonistic activity. I don’t do it so much to give pleasure, although it’s fun when people read my work and enjoy it, but you get pleasure from writing. That’s why I do it.”

Unlike his first story, the ideas for most of Lewis’ books don’t just appear in the night sky – and even after all the success he’s experienced, not all his ideas are accepted for publication.

“It’s not inspiration. It’s all perspiration. It’s all dedicated work. Personally, I don’t really believe in inspiration,” Lewis says. “You just have to sit for long hours and think and think and write and write and rewrite. I don’t mean to say that in a negative sense, because if you told me I couldn’t do it, it would be like saying, ‘Stop breathing.’”

Lewis has 13 more books in the works. His first book of adult poetry, Gulls Hold Up the Sky, was published in 2010 by Laughing Fire Press.

For more information on Lewis and his books, visit www.jpatricklewis.com.

By Duane St. Clair

by Wes Kroninger