Reading Across the Lowcountry

As every teacher and librarian in the world knows, March signifies READING: Dr. Seuss’s birthday on March 2nd kicks off World Storytelling Day and Read Across America Week.

In my book (pun intended), storytelling and reading both deserve to be honored for at least a month, as does their sine qua non: writing!

With apologies to my northern friends shoveling out from another two-to-three-foot snowfall, Spring has begun to show its face here in the southeast. March is about to dawn––less of a Lion, more of a Lamb, where I sit––and something about that fact makes me want to run out to the driveway, draw a certain grid, and jump some hopscotch. But…mostly to write poetry.  Children’s poetry to be specific, with its light heart, playful language and simple rhyme schemes.

The Backstory and the Poem

    Here in South Carolina’s Lowcountry, there’s a story told and retold about a female albino dolphin who swam off our shores and fed in our estuaries. She’s both legendary and historical, documented by fishing boat captains and local maritime experts, even included in The Prince of Tides by Pat Conroy. Carolinians came to to call her Snowball and her grey pup, Sonny. She became so famous that a Florida Seaquarium sent a team to our waters to capture her. They did so in 1962 and brought her to Miami, where she was a feature attraction for millions of tourists. Sadly, she died there after just three years in captivity. The Seaquarium made a full-sized fiberglass model of Snowball using parts of her actual skull. It was on display there for a while, but was eventually consigned to storage. A Florida man acquired and restored her, enjoyed her likeness for some years, but eventually saw to it that the replica was returned to Beaufort County when the Port Royal Maritime Museum opened. She hangs there today, a model of Sonny at her side, looking out on the waters where they once swam and played.

I wrote a series of children’s poems about many of the marine creatures and birds populating this coastal paradise, in a manuscript entitled Tales of the Port Royal Sound. I have imagined Snowball as if she had never been captured and taken away from these waters, and given her the honor of delivering the Foreword in poem form:

The sleek white dolphin was special

and so was her calf, Sonny Boy.

She raced with him out to the mouth of the Sound

and back again, leaping with joy.

“Sonny,” she said, “it’s time that you knew

all about this place where we play.

I came in here to give birth to you

then never could take you away.

“Humans call it the Port Royal Sound

…it’s a magical, special place

I can’t wait to see how some of its stories

bring that dolphin smile to your face.

“There are so many tales,” Snowball added,

“I could tell you a new one each day.

When we finish them all–if we ever do–

I just know you’ll feel the same way.

“I plan to relate every story I’ve learned

––in case we ever get parted––

so you understand how lucky you are.

Cuddle up, my son…let’s get started.

“Our first is a story ‘bout Oysters.

They’re neighbors of ours in the Sound,

And good neighbors, at that, I want you to know,

even though they are stuck in the ground!”

She opened wide her pectoral fin

And pulled in her Sonny Boy.

Then, touching him sweetly on his chin,

said, “Now, listen y’all…and enjoy!”

©copyright 2016 by Jayne M. Adams

With that, Snowball introduces poems populated by oysters, sand dollars, horseshoe crabs, starfish, crows, raccoons, spoonbills, pelicans, turtles, redwing blackbirds, wood storks, skimmers, herons, sanderlings, ospreys, blue crabs and more, all of whom contribute in amazing (and amusing!) ways to the health of the uniquely pure ecosystem we try to preserve here. The poems were kid-tested at Children’s Story Days at the Port Royal Sound Maritime Museum…where the children sat on goose-down pillows and fleece blankets decorated with fish, shellfish, and whales…a truly immersive storytelling experience!