Charles Ghigna (pronounced “Geen-ya,” with a hard g), better known as the poet “Father Goose,” happily climbs the stairs to his wood-paneled office, which he refers to as his “treehouse,” every morning. Surrounded by a gaggle of geese – a collection of figurines and goose-themed gifts he’s received over the years as a tribute to the moniker he feels privileged to have earned – he turns on his computer, looks out over the treetops and follows his own advice at nearly 73 years old: “Write from the inner child in you.”
When he writes, he sits at his desk and lets his imagination run wild, he says, “sometimes capturing those wild thoughts in poems and stories and picture books to share with children.”
The treehouse is located in his 1927 red brick Tudor house in Homewood, where he and his wife, Debra, who is also a writer, have lived for 44 years.
“When we first moved in, we discovered a tiny closet in the hall,” he says. “One day I decided to knock out the little ceiling of that closet to see where it might lead. What a nice surprise to find an amazing attic waiting up there, perfect for a new set of stairs to take us up into a newfound wonderland. And there it was – wood-lined ceiling and walls – just like a treehouse!”
A full-time writer for the past 25 years, Charles has published more than 100 books and estimates that he’s written more than 5,000 poems that have appeared in magazines and anthologies. He has traveled the world – in addition to writing, traveling is another of his passions – “sharing the wonder, excitement and joy of poetry with children” and earning his name, Father Goose.
And while he could live and write anywhere, he loves “everything” about Alabama, he says: “The people. The trees. The rivers, lakes, mountains, beaches. The warm, friendly, slow Southern pace of life. And the barbecue.” He celebrates the state’s 200-year history with “Alabama, My Home Sweet Home,” which was chosen by the Alabama Chapter of the American Academy of Pediatrics as its 2019 Reach Out and Read Book.
Charles believes “we’re all born poets,” but as a child he had an experience that made him feel ashamed of his natural writing ability. When he was in third grade, he wrote “a silly story” about a talking freckle on a boy’s face. His teacher loved it, and his parents would make him read it to their friends. Eventually, a TV station invited him to read it on the air. But when he got back to school, the other students made fun of him. He turned to baseball instead.
A New York native who grew up in Fort Myers, Fla., he played baseball all the way through high school, went to spring training camp and tried out for the Pittsburgh Pirates. “I’m still waiting to hear from them,” he jokes.
He did return to writing, studying English at Florida Atlantic University and becoming a high school English and creative writing teacher. In 1974, 28-year-old Charles was doing post-graduate work at Florida State University when he received a two-year grant from the National Endowment of the Arts to start the first poet-in-the-schools program for the state of Alabama.
He became the poet-in-residence and chairman of the creative writing department at Alabama School of Fine Arts in Birmingham, where he worked from 1974 until 1993. After signing a four-book contract with Walt Disney in 1992, starting with “Tickle Day: Poems from Father Goose,” Charles quit teaching the next year and has been writing full-time ever since.
“It's an honor to write for children,” he says. “It's one of the most challenging and rewarding things a writer can do. I'm grateful every day for the honor to write books and poems for children. My book publishers and magazine editors continue to support me in this honor. Don't tell them, but even if they didn't pay me, I'd still be writing for them.”
‘The heart of the poet’
Though he’s perhaps best known for his whimsical, often humorous children’s books, Charles also writes poetry for adults. His recently released “Stones: The Collected Short Poems of Charles Ghigna” features cover art by his son, Chip, who majored in art at Auburn University.
Charles and Debra noticed their son’s interest in drawing at an early age. “We already had writing pads and pens scattered throughout the house for me,” he says. “When Chip came along and started drawing on everything, we included markers and other art supplies around the house for him. Like many families, our refrigerator quickly became “The Art Gallery.”
Chip, meanwhile, didn’t realize there was anything unusual about his dad’s vocation. “I just thought everyone’s parents liked to read and write,” he says. But when Charles spoke at his elementary school one day, Chip discovered that "other people thought it was cool that my dad was an author.”
Charles and his son nurture each other’s creativity. “I often write poems inspired by his art, and he sometimes creates paintings based on my poems," he says. "He was doing a series of one-line ink drawings when the publisher was finishing up the ‘Stones’ collection. I showed one of Chip’s images to the editor, and they picked it for the cover.”
The illustration on the cover of “Stones” suggests “someone reaching out from the cover to hand the reader a ‘stone,’” Charles says. The book’s title alludes to the quote on the back of the book by X.J. Kennedy referring to the poems as “short, hard chisel jabs into a sheet of granite.”
He hopes the book will reach a wide range of readers, especially those who might not read much poetry. “The word ‘short’ in the subtitle might entice some potential readers to at least open the book and take a look,” he jokes. He dedicated “Stones” to Chip, “the heart of the poet, the eye of the artist, the daring of the dreamer.”
His next book, “Dear Poet: Notes to a Young Writer,” is intended to inspire teenage poets as well as “budding writers, artists and dreamers of all ages,” he says. “I began as I always do, by closing my eyes and listening to that soft voice that has spoken without fail for more than a half-century,” he writes in the introduction. “The voice spoke. I took notes. Here they are.”
Charles and Chip are collaborating on a new book for teens called “Illusions.” Chip is creating an ink drawing for each of the poems in the collection, as well as the cover.
His most recent picture book for children, the 2019 Green Earth Book Award-nominated “The Night the Forest Came to Town,” is about the human need to experience nature and “to spend more time looking up than looking down” – as in looking down at a cell phone. He jokes that he’s the only person over age 12 who doesn’t own one.
“I’m at my computer all day,” he says. “When I leave it to go downstairs, I like to be totally unplugged. I love visiting with my family and friends without any distractions. I like taking hikes up and down the hills of Homewood without looking down into my hand at a screen. I like looking up at the trees and clouds and sky. Nature provides us all with such positive energy and renewal. Why would anyone want to miss out on that just to make or take another text or tweet or call that would take you away from all the goodness and glory around us?”
In fact, his next picture book, titled “Once Upon Another Time,” has the same theme. It will be released in 2020.
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