Transcription of Rohan Henry for the show Words of Wisdom, #105
Lisa: It’s always said that Maine is really no bigger than a small town and that certainly has proven to be true when it comes to this radio show. One of my children’s favorite teachers and in fact one of my favorite people, Charlotte Agell, who has been on this show, said to us, “You really need to have this person, Rohan Henry, on your show.” No sooner had we decided to have him on the show that we realized that oh, his work is being seen over at the Museum of African History. Of course, we’ve already interviewed Oscar Mokeme. We have connections upon connections upon connections. Here we are today with Rohan Henry, who is an author, illustrator and also a teacher who happens to come from Jamaica but has made his home here in Maine with his two children and his wife. We’re really glad that you’re here.
Rohan: Thank you very much. I’m so honored to be on this show. I’ve listened to the show many times and had just been glued to it and intrigued by the guests and to think that I’m here is a great honor.
Lisa: Everybody’s always exactly where they’re supposed to be so you’re supposed to be here with us. We’re very glad that all came to be. In fact, it’s interesting because I went with my daughter Sophie, who’s 12. We walked to Longfellow Books and we picked up your book, The Perfect Gift. I opened it up and I read it. I said, “Wow, this really is a guy we need to have on the show,” and not just because Charlotte Agell said so, even though I trust Charlotte. Of course, any time she says you should do this, I will jump to do it. Tell me about your book, The Perfect Gift, which is a children’s book.
Rohan: It is a children’s book. That’s where it starts. It’s also a parable. When I was writing it, I had children in mind but I also had adults or big children like me in mind also. As I think you would agree, books are very powerful. Even though we’re moving on to like a more digital format, I think if I could see into the future, I’m almost sure, even though I might not recognize the book that I’m holding, I’m almost sure that books are going to be with us forever and ever. I believe that.
Lisa: I believe that too.
Rohan: The specific question, sometimes I …
Lisa: Tell me about your book. This is a book about Leo and Lisa and they are rabbit friends. It’s very simple line drawings with just a little bit of color and a very simple but profound message.
Rohan: It’s where to start. This book has changed my life profoundly. I started writing the book when my mom passed away. She passed away when I was 16, in high school. I’m the oldest of four. It wasn’t until about 10 years later that I seriously thought about writing the book. When I say that I started writing the book, I just write for fun. I love writing. It doesn’t matter what I’m writing. I’ll write a recipe down. I’ll write a poem. It doesn’t matter. I just write. It’s just a part of me. It’s an extension of me.
Lisa: Is it the tactile piece that you like, the active writing or is it …?
Rohan: I love the tactile piece. That’s it, that’s the word.
Lisa: Okay, or the words?
Rohan: I love the words.
Lisa: So all of the above?
Rohan: I love the words. You could see me lighting up as I’m just talking and just … I’m just imagining myself sitting in my dark studio with a light just on the paper itself. I need to do that. I’m a little bit ADD. I easily become distracted. The room is usually dark and there’s usually one light that’s just beaming straight down on the paper. Even if I look to the left or the right, I usually just see shadows and then my gaze goes quickly back to whatever I’m working on. But I do, I absolutely love it. I remember vividly and I’m not going to go into too much detail about my mom passing. It was an accident. We’re all shocked. I remember my dad coming home. I knew something was wrong because he didn’t come home a lot. He worked a lot.
It was the end of the school year. I think it was a shortened day and I was home at around 11 or something like that because we had exams. Then, my brother started coming home. My dad didn’t say anything and that he just want everyone to be together before he told us about the car accident. I didn’t know what to do. I just sort of kind of just looked at him and tuned out everything. People were saying all kinds of things. My aunts and uncles and everybody’s running around and, “What are we going to do?” I just tuned out everything. I went into my mom’s favorite place, which was the dining room. It was her favorite place because she had copper and crystal things, everything copper and crystal, elephants, cups, plates, figurines. I sat there. I pulled out a piece of paper. I always have a piece of paper. I have a piece of paper right now, proof, I always have something to write on, on me.
Lisa: I can attest to the fact that you have a piece of paper right on your person, yes, I love it.
Rohan: Yes, this is radio so I have to say that I reached into my pocket and pulled out a piece of paper. I just started writing. I wrote something about a gift. I couldn’t figure it out at the time. I was just overwhelmed with shock and grief. I couldn’t figure … It wasn’t a story like how it is in this form but I remember it being about a gift and wondering where the gift is and wondering if the gift was still with me. That was kind of like the genesis of it.
There are different levels to talk about the book. There’s the meeting of Charlotte, who’s my fairy godmother. She took that upon herself to be my fairy godmother and meeting Evie Krull, my publisher and my publisher sending me all over the country to see … to read and sign books. There’s that aspect of it but then there’s also, as I was talking about just the fact that the book came out of … I wouldn’t say tragic, a tragic situation. It just came out of a question like a lot of things do. A lot of things started with a question, kind of like why? what’s going on? what’s happening? It came out of that.
Years later, I found it, well at least found the piece of paper that I was writing on. I looked at it. I can’t explain why but it made me happy. It made me smile. I don’t know why. I just remember thinking, “Oh yeah, there’s this thing about a gift. What’s a gift? Where’s the gift? Do I have a gift? Will I have a gift? Have I ever had a gift?” It was just questions and questions and so it started with that. As I sat down, I started to think of it with the writer’s training. I’ve taken too many writers seminars and where they try to take the, I guess the raw passion and they want you to use craft to put it together with characters and a beginning and a middle and climax and conclusion, that kind of stuff. I just put the feelings that I had together with the craft that I learned through writing and just put them together and there they were.
I talked about the drawings. Again, one of the reasons why I wanted the drawings to be black and white and just a little bit of pink is because I think adults feel more comfortable with having something that doesn’t look like a children’s book. I had that in mind too. I thought, should I color the rabbits? I tried them in pink. I tried them black with pink noses. I said, you know what, I’m just going to make them lines and then as I started to draw the lines, it felt right like I did the ears. The ears aren’t really connected. They just started to flow.
It was just like a visual haiku almost, just smooth lines, just simple lines, lines that aren’t connected. You kind of have to look at it before you realize it. I think you could easily just look at them and think, oh it’s a rabbit. When you look really closer, the head isn’t connected to the body. The ears aren’t connected to the head. I think the book is like that too. The illustration of the books go together because when you look at the book, it’s like, this is a simple book but if you think about the book and think about what is the gift that he’s trying to give her, why is the gift so difficult for him to find.
In the book, he searches through the seasons. For example, in the wintertime, he brings her a snowflake. As he’s trying to hand her the snowflake, the snowflake melts. If you think about that, I think, like the illustrations, there’s a lot more than you initially would see.
Lisa: One of the pages, “Lisa and I have known each other for a long time but I wanted to let her know somehow that she was my best friend.” There’s that importance of really knowing that somebody is so valued that you want to do something beautiful and amazing for them. One of the things that he does is to find the most radiant butterfly of spring, which of course is beautiful and wonderful and he hands it to her. It’s ephemeral. It is the most beautiful thing he can find and yet that is fleeting. “’This butterfly is truly beautiful,’ said Lisa. My, how kind you are. But the glow of the sun attracted the butterfly and it flew away. The most radiant butterfly of spring was forever lost. ‘Wait Leo, I have something important to tell you,’ said Lisa. But I was too busy to listen.” Which again is so interesting that he’s so focused on her value and what he can do for her that he’s not really tuning in to the relationship.
Rohan: Yeah, the relationship and who she is and what she might need …
Lisa: What she might really, yeah.
Rohan: … or want.
Lisa: Or want. At the end, “Well, no I said. I searched through the seasons. I searched high, low, far and near and I still haven’t found the perfect gift for you. She puts her hand out and says, ‘Leo, I don’t want the perfect gift. All I want is to hold the hand of my best friend.’” As you’re telling me the story of your mother and your mother passing and sitting amongst all of the things, the possessions and not that those weren’t valued, the crystal and the copper. Isn’t that what you want when you’re a 16-year-old and your mother has died is you just want, you just want her hand. There’s nothing else that you would want.
Rohan: Yeah, no, I’m trying to keep it together. Just trying to keep it together for my first interview with the Dr. Lisa show.
Lisa: It’s very interesting too. One of the things that you and I talked about yesterday when we spoke on the phone was your daughter Ruby and she’s seven?
Rohan: Yup, she’s going to be seven on the 11th, which she reminded me this morning as I was leaving. She said, “Two more days dad.”
Lisa: Yeah? She’s going to be seven. You were talking about her found objects and how she has now her own first show which is also at … Is that also at the Museum of …
Rohan: Yeah, of African Culture.
Lisa: … African Culture and that she actually kind of is … She’s like Leo, the rabbit, running around, picking up stones and sticks and Robin’s eggs and the tactile things. What really struck me is that the gift that she gives you is more than the gift of found objects. It’s sort of the gift of insight back into yourself. This artistic sense that you said is so interesting. She’s six, going to be seven and she already has her own show. As an artist, you didn’t have your own show until …
Rohan: The first show that I did was a show called the Pet Project. It was a show of children’s book illustrators and it was at the Zero Gallery right here in Portland. It was 2006. I was just … You know how you think you would react if you’re at the Oscar’s or something like that and some of your favorite stars or whatever movie stars walked by you, I just remembered seeing Catherine Folwell, who’s become a friend of mine and of course Charlotte Agell and many others, just thinking, what am I doing here? Why are my illustrations here with all these great artists? At the time, I had just the one book. I have three that are published right now, a fourth one which was bought but I’m just not comfortable with it. It hasn’t been released. That was a long time ago and things have developed from that point from where I had my first book and now four that have been purchased by publishers, major publishers.
Back to my daughter, there are not really words to describe what I feel when I see her, when I’m around her, when I hold her. I’m not going to try to use adjectives. I know that I’m alive. I know that I’m here. I know that I’m always continually working to be a better dad and a better person. When I see her, she challenges me in that way. She’s much more headstrong than I am. I never really enjoyed classes but I think she’s going to have a harder time than that with me because she knows how she wants something to look. When I look at her illustrations or her found art, she makes sculpture out of found art, I can tell that she knows exactly what it is that she wants to do.
If you went over to the museum and looked at her piece, you could tell that there’s a narrative there. She chose an egg. It’s a blue egg. She put little pebbles inside the egg. From far away, it looks like there’s something going on in the egg. Then, when you get up really close and you notice that it’s pebbles and some of them, the light hits off it in a certain way. I could just tell that it wasn’t something that she just decided to put there because they asked her to do it, that she put a lot of thought into it. She’s a lot more driven, direct than I am at this point, even at seven. She really is. She will draw every single day. If she doesn’t draw, she gets upset. She gets cranky.
I want her to do more than just draw. I don’t want her to just draw and paint but I don’t have much say in that. She’s her own person and that’s what she loves doing. Sometimes I’ll see her draw for two, three hours straight. My wife and I will say, what can we do get her away from her easel or where she’s working and get her to go outside and kick a soccer ball or do something like that.
Lisa: I think it’s interesting that people don’t always realize the gifts that they have to offer other people and even at age seven, she’s giving you a gift by sort of reflecting back this artistic nature that she has. You’ve enabled this to happen because you’ve put her in a place where there is art and you’ve also given her the room and the space to create this art herself. You’ve been respectful of that. It can be as simple as holding a hand or it can be as simple as … or not even simple but it can be as complicated as trying to be the best parent that you can for whatever your child needs at any given time. I think that that for me is why when we talk about The Perfect Gift, it really is ever shifting.
Rohan: Yeah, it is. The title, The Perfect Gift, when I … At one point, it was The Gift of All Seasons or From All Seasons. There were all these different titles. I was just skirting around the issue. When you try to put a title to a work, you want to take the essence of what it is and use that as the title. The Perfect Gift came my mind. I pushed it out and I tried to think of other things, The Rabbit Who Loves Giving. I’m just like, “What should I call this thing?” The Perfect Gift came back in my mind. I’m like this dialog, in a dialog with myself, why are you calling this The Perfect Gift when there is no prefect gift? Why would that be a title? Then I said, that’s it. That is the title.
Lisa: Because there is always a perfect gift. It just isn’t always the same perfect gift.
Rohan: And it’s always changing.
Lisa: Exactly.
Rohan: It’s always changing. If you try to hold it and say, okay I’ve got it. Then, you’re going to have a hard time. If you say, like for example, today my gift to my wife is going to be to be patient. I’m not always going to be patient but in that particular conversation or in that day, when we’re talking, I can do it. I can be patient. I can listen. I can handle that. If the gift was Rohan is going to be patient for the rest of our marriage or even the rest of the week or for more than four or five hours, that’s where it all falls apart. It’s like, I don’t think.
Lisa: You’ve got the drawing that you do. You’ve got the writing that you do and your drama and the teaching. Just it’s very interesting that you are able to kind of be present, hold someone’s hand, wherever they’re coming from, whatever that looks like, whether your Ruby’s father or whether you’re a student’s teacher. It’s interesting because in our current society, we like to be very linear. I am this. I am that. I am a whatever it is I am. You’re not really trying to put yourself in any one role. You’re saying I just am.
Rohan: Wow. As you were talking, I’m thinking, “Yeah, that’s what I’m doing.” I do. I guess as soon as I just settle on one definition of myself or role to play, for me personally, can’t speak for anyone else, I feel empty in that sort of just trying to be, this is what I am. If I can be in existent in more of a non-linear way and just try to draw when I can and hold someone’s hand when I can and be a teacher, be present when I can, be patient when I can, I feel more alive. I feel more alive that way. I feel like I’m part of the universe, that I’m here.
Lisa: Rohan, I’m glad you are here, part of the universe, part of our conversation. I encourage people who have not read your book The Perfect Gift, to either go right up to Longfellow Books in Portland, if they live here or somehow otherwise find at a local bookstore. If you have to go to Amazon, that’s fine but we like our local booksellers. Also look into your other three books.
Rohan: Yeah, two of them that have already been published, the Goodnight Baby Ruby, which is, that’s a kid’s book. It’s a kid’s book because it’s about my daughter, Ruby and her bedtime or lack thereof routine. It’s a kind of funny book in the sense that the parents want a routine but there’s no routine. It’s if they can catch her, then they can get part of her pajamas on. If they can catch her, they can brush her teeth with her but they have to catch her to do that. That is a very kid’s book.
Lisa: You have two others or two other books. You have this one, Goodnight Ruby and then the third …
Rohan: And The Gift Box. The Gift Box is about an elephant who is kind of like either … I’m not sure if he’s 2 or 14 but he thinks about himself. He thinks he’s the cat’s meow and … he just thinks that he is it, the center of the universe and so he dresses up like a gift, kind of like how you see those people outside sometimes, outside of a store and they’ll dress up like whatever it is they’re selling inside the store. He get up in a box. He tells everyone that he is the gift and he is the most important thing. That’s The Gift Box.
Lisa: How can people find …?
Rohan: Egotistical elephant.
Lisa: I like it. I’m sure we all know someone like that. How can people find out more about the work that you’re doing?
Rohan: You can go to rohanhenry.com, that’s my website. Also, you can go to the Museum of Afro-American Culture. They have a website. Where else can you find me…
Lisa: Maybe they’ll just see you walking down the street?
Rohan: Yeah.
Lisa: Or hanging out at the Aucocisco School, being a teacher. I appreciate your coming in and talking to us today. We’ve been talking with Rohan Henry, a Jamaican-born author, illustrator, teacher …
Rohan: Yeah, man.
Lisa: … father and husband who now lives here in Maine. We’re really glad that you’re here with us.
Rohan: Thank you.