Young reads

I remind myself that we live in a society in which people still think of themselves as 'young' when they are 50. When do we stop being young adults? Is there any reason a 60-year-old wouldn’t be able to find some pleasure, and perhaps some edification, in a good Y/A [young adult] book?

— Marilyn Nelson, author of 21 poetry books, for adult and young adult readers

This summer, some of the best books I read weren’t meant for me.

Written for young readers, this season's favorites delivered fresh language and perspective:
• Speak, by Laurie Halse Anderson
• Absolutely Normal Chaos, by Sharon Creech
• From the Bellybutton of the Moon and other summer poems, by Francisco X. Alarcón

After a long run of adult fiction that works the predictable paths of mother-daughter strain or husband-wife ennui, I’m relieved to read young adult dilemmas of friendship, trust and identity. None of it trite and all of it memorable.

As I prepare for a new school year (I’ll be leading creative reading and writing activities for grade school, middle school and high school students), I’m seeking new material.

So, here's a call to all ages: What are you reading?

Young (and not so young) minds are eager and waiting. I'll absorb, savor, and post your suggestions here.


On tour

I’m fresh from the Forecast tour.


I use the word ‘tour’ lightly, though I did travel 1,300 miles, got stuck in Seattle overnight, and was detoured by a road closure on the drive home. A few days and states later, I feel very toured.

But the journey was worth the travel: Last week, Forecast — the Tracy Weil-Drew Myron art-poetry exhibition — opened at the National Center for Atmospheric Research in Boulder, Colorado. Designed in the 1960s by I.M. Pei, the Mesa Laboratory is a collection of abstract, geometric concrete forms perched atop the highlands and in the shadow of dramatic red sandstone formations known as the Flat Irons.

It's a stunning setting for our abstract, horoscope-inspired art. And, as a glutton for press, I am delighted with the attention from Westword and the Colorado Daily. Read all about it here and here.

From the beach church


Kindness

Before you know what kindness really is
you must lose things,
feel the future dissolve in a moment
like salt in a weakened broth.
What you held in your hand,
what you counted and carefully saved,
all this must go so you know
how desolate the landscape can be
between the regions of kindness.
How you ride and ride
thinking the bus will never stop,
the passengers eating maize and chicken
will stare out the window forever.
Before you learn the tender gravity of kindness,
you must travel where the Indian in a white poncho
lies dead by the side of the road.
You must see how this could be you,
how he too was someone
who journeyed through the night with plans
and the simple breath that kept him alive.
Before you know kindness as the deepest thing inside,
you must know sorrow as the other deepest thing.
You must wake up with sorrow.
You must speak to it till your voice
catches the thread of all sorrows
and you see the size of the cloth.
Then it is only kindness that makes sense anymore,
only kindness that ties your shoes
and sends you out into the day to mail letters and purchase bread,
only kindness that raises its head
from the crowd of the world to say
it is I you have been looking for,
and then goes with you everywhere
like a shadow or a friend.

— Naomi Shihab Nye
from The Words Under the Words: Selected Poems

What is poetry?

A poem
makes us see
everything for
the first time

Francisco X. Alarcón
from Laughing Tomatoes and Other Spring Poems

Gathered in the Writing Studio recently, a colleague told a group of youngsters that “poetry is not music.”

Stunned, I quietly reeled through a catalog of my favorite musician/poets: Jackson Browne, Michael Franti, Tracy Chapman, Roger Waters . . .

Over the next few days I grew indignant. Of course poetry is music! Of course music is poetry! Both share a musical language, a crafting of words and sound. I came to poetry through music — for pete’s sake! As early as second grade I was reciting Harry Chapin’s Cat's in the Cradle to my peers.

In the cooling off period since the songwriting session, I have tuned down emotion and turned up intellect. If music is not poetry, What is poetry? Through research I gathered numerous esoteric — and beautifully written — responses but a tangible answer eludes me. And if I can’t answer the question, how can I explain to others why poetry is in everything, including music?

I’m looking for answers, and I’d love to hear from you.

Venice in (unintended) verse

I haven't been to Venice. After reading the National Geographic story (Vanishing Venice, August 2009) on the Italian city wrought with tourists, I have lost desire.

But I am enamored with the writing of Cathy Newman, whose prose is poetry without the linebreaks. Every paragraph sings. Like the Found Poetry Project, I find myself breaking up blocks of text to fashion poems. For example:

Here, where everything anyone
needs to live and die must
be floated in, wrestled
over bridges, and muscled
up stairs, time is measured
by the breath of tides,
and space bracketed
by water.

The story concludes just as poetic:

Kisses end. Dreams vanish, and sometimes cities too. We long for the perfect ending, but the curtain falls along with our hearts.

Beauty is so difficult.

Skip the trip to Venice. Read Cathy Newman’s work instead.


Photograph by Jodi Cobb, for National Geographic.

first fruit


apricot in july

the first bite
is deep, past
the soft nap

of summer
inside, orange
is more than color

turns mealy, less
than expected
like this season

that grows
warm in
short bursts

turns cloudy
and quiet
this fruit with its

inviting orange
says savor
but slowly

enjoy this
palm-size treat
traveling from soil

to tree
to market
to me

There were a lot of firsts with the Seashore Summer Camp Writers last week: clam digging, poetry poker in the park, book bingo. The group of youngsters, ages 9 to 13, tried many new things, including tasting apricots for the first time, and then writing about the experience. I ate my first apricot and wrote my first fruit poem, too.

Say Yes

In addressing college graduates, University of Connecticut President Michael J. Hogan offered wise counsel. "Say yes," he urged.

His suggestion echoed that of Judyth Hill, my first poetry teacher, and applies not just to students but to all who seek to live life fully.

“My first word of advice is this: Say yes,” said Hogan. “In fact, say yes as often as you can. Saying yes begins things. Saying yes is how things grow. Saying yes leads to new experiences, and new experiences will lead you to knowledge and wisdom. . . an attitude of yes is how you will be able to go forward in these uncertain times.”

Crawl into quiet

Poetry is everywhere, I tell my young students. On cereal boxes, billboards, advertisements. Look to road signs, announcements, sidewalks. Search your lives, I say, in the quiet space life expands.


I spent last week in a summer camp that combined outdoor adventures with writing activities. Every day offered field trips with opportunities to reflect and write. We explored spaces and places, by turns busy and giddy, quiet and thoughtful.

We walked the span of a historic bridge, hiked from forest to sea, strolled through a working bayfront, kayaked a bay, and bicycled around town.

Between hikes, bikes, walks and talks, we played poetry poker, wrote on rocks and shells, collected words, and made fruit verse (or, as Ian wrote on his banana peel, “We created edible poetry.”)

Though the week was full of laughs and adventure, we also made room for quiet. We invited our minds to question and wander.

Rayn, 11, wondered why firetrucks are red. Is red, she wrote, the color of trust?

While hiking, Ian, 12, heard nature talking:

The trees make secrets and gossip
as we admire their beauty.

While kayaking for the first time, Kala, 13, reveled in the stillness:

When you bottom out
all you can do is push with your paddle,
or hands, or your mind.

The sound of the birds,
mixed with the beautiful beating hot sky
is almost enough to put you to sleep.

When you catch the breeze you feel fresh.

When you stop to take it all in and close your eyes
you feel like it is all a dream. At any moment you
could wake up and it would be gone.

Between the busy adventures, the Summer Camp Writers crawled into quiet to find beauty tucked around and within them. And I, grateful and encouraged, applauded their every word.


How 'bout you?

I never thought I’d reach this point. A year ago, I was tentatively embracing — a forced hug, really — the creation of this blog. I got in the groove and grew to enjoy the format. Now I maintain a steady flow of postings and follow other blogs, too.


How about you?

Like a good book, a great movie, or a new cool dive, it's nice to savor a discovery but even better to share it with others. In that spirit, here are a few of my regular reads:

How to Party with an Infant
http://partywithaninfant.blogspot.com
Kaui Hart Hemmings, author of The Descendants, offers sassy observations on literature, life and modern motherhood.

200 Words
http://jackcantey.wordpress.com
A photographer and poet, Jack Cantey’s tanka poetry packs a punch.

The Found Poetry Project
http://www.foundpoetry.org/blog
Writers Timothy Green (editor of Rattle) and Megan O’Reilly Green find poetry everywhere, and encourage others to do the same.

How about you? Care to share your favorites?

Big, new normal

Several years ago, a friend turned me onto Iconoculture, a consumer research company that delivers a savvy, sharply-written newsletter that informs, questions and illuminates.

Today, after a full day of summer camp kids, I returned home, dove into a tall drink and a bag of chips, and discovered I am (frighteningly) not alone in my tendency to binge.

We Are All Fat Now

By Josh Kimball

The economy continues cascading. Unemployment’s ugly, retail sales are rank, the housing market is still homely. But there’s one reliable metric in America; one number that, year over year, keeps right on growing — our waist size. Lost, as our attention focuses on more immediate events, is an unsettling phenomenon that isn’t new, but isn’t going away, either: the fact that we’re still fat.

According to statistics released this month by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 26% of adults in the U.S. were obese in 2008 (WebMD.com 7.8.09). Not only is that national number higher than in 2007, obesity is holding steady or growing in each and every state of the union.

Five or more years ago, the “globesity” epidemic was on many lips, as experts pondered the effects on our health foremost, but also contemplated what a larger populace would mean to society at large. Beyond healthcare and food, what does a spreading population mean to how we travel, how we work, how we play? Seven years later the conversation has slowed, but our growth hasn’t.

The future, though, holds some tasty nuggets of possibility. Might morphing cultural factors finally cut into our collective growth? Would a long-term shift in our broader consumer culture mean we not only buy less, but eat less, too? Might finally adding to our savings accounts correspond to a greater investment in our health? Our path out of this recession may eventually be tied with our long-term physical health. Or maybe this is just the way things are — the big, new normal.

Under the Influence

What are your influences?

That's always the question writers get asked, or ask of others. In seeking an answer to how the magic happens, 'influences' are shorthand for how do you do it? We want the recipe, or at least a taste, for what shapes and impresses those we admire.

Though no one is asking, I've been contemplating poets that move and mark me. There are poets — Tony Hoagland, Adrienne Rich, Julia Levine — whose work I read again and again, hungry to absorb and understand the agile way they thread emotion and message with a subtle but strong stitch.

Today, when I stumbled into this Tony Hoagland poem, I fell happily under the influence again.

How It Adds Up

There was the day we swam in a river, a lake, and an ocean.
And the day I quit the job my father got me.
And the day I stood outside a door,
and listened to my girlfriend making love
to someone obviously not me, inside,

and I felt strange because I didn’t care.

There was the morning I was born,
and the year I was a loser,
and the night I was the winner of the prize
for which the audience applauded.

Then there was someone else I met,
whose face and voice I can’t forget,
and the memory of her
is like a jail I’m trapped inside,

or maybe she is something I just use
to hold my real life at a distance.

Happiness, Joe says, is a wild red flower
plucked from a river of lava
and held aloft on a tightrope
strung between two scrawny trees
above a canyon
in a manic-depressive windstorm.

Don’t drop it, Don’t drop it, Don’t drop it—,

And when you do, you will keep looking for it
everywhere, for years,
while right behind you,
the footprints you are leaving

will look like notes
of a crazy song.

How It Adds Up by Tony Hoagland.
Reprinted from What Narcissism Means to Me (2003)

Letter never sent

"I wrote you a letter, actually. Two. Though I didn't know where to send it."

She said nothing in response to the opening.

"How did it make you feel?"

"On the surface, calm. Deeper than that, abandoned."

—from Abandon, a novel by Pico Iyer

For years I've written letters. Some get sent. Most do not.

A few years ago I began using letters as a writing prompt with students: Write a letter to your younger self. To someone you love. To someone you don't.

The exercise is cathartic, and creates a calm but poignant sadness. And almost always, the letters I do not send are seeds for the letters I finally do.

Tender willing

Today the world is full of words. Every line a message, every phrase a faint clue in a map made just for you.

A poem — read at the right time, in the right light, and then read aloud a second time to be sure the magic is real and not some trick of mood and light (but all art, she says, is trick, all timing and tender willing) — plucks a string still so long that just the pull is a motion aerobic in its relief.

It adds ups.

These words float across water like cotton from the tree. They skim the surface of invitation, land lightly in a pose of patient calm.

This landscape of message and meaning, direction and delivery, does not disturb as much as nudge -- just enough -- the root of desire. Calls to you softly, says grow.

For the love of static

I’m freshly restored from a journey to the heartland. The good life was wonderfully devoid of schedules, plans and urgent emails. Going unplugged has become so rare, and is so initially unsettling, that I think I need to do it more often.

Turns out, I’m not alone in my aversion to constant connection.

Following my ‘Goodbye Facebook’ post last month, several people responded with applause. Some had contemplated dropping out, and felt empowered to finally do so. Others admitted they had never joined the flurry and felt vindicated in their wallflower disposition.

As I discover the tech fatigue of others, I feel puffed up with a sort of self-satisfaction (that is sure to bite me back at any moment). Today, I was giddy to find a Poets & Writers interview with Howard Junker, editor of venerable literary journal ZYZZYVA. In this excerpt, the bold emphasis is all mine.

PW: [Were your] values tested when, as an editor, you had to follow the technological advances of the past decade or so?

Howard Junker: At first, tech was my friend. Desktop publishing was a godsend. E-mail was great. The Web started out great, but digital has been totally disruptive. The low-end workhorses of words on paper, like newspapers, are already destroyed. The luxury items, like lit mags, can survive as toys for the rich — Glimmer Train, Tin House, Zoetrope — or as enticements, like stadiums and museums, in universities. But the Twitter sensibility has no room for literate articulation. To read and write you have to enjoy being alone, quiet, and static. That's not what tech fosters. I like blogging as a daily yoga. I post every day, as a personal exercise, not as a marketing tool.

To see

"It is crucial that a poet see when she is not looking — just as she must write when she is not writing," writes Linda Gregg in her essay The Art of Finding. "To write just because the poet wants to write is natural, but to learn to see is a blessing."

The sun broke through the June gloom today. As if obeying stage directions, the coastal clouds parted to shine summer solstice bright.

At Cape Perpetua, I walked from forest to sea. As a new season revealed itself, I joined in its vigor. I was bright-eyed at all I had forgotten: chest-high fern, thick skunk cabbage, and tidepools still but lively. I took photo after photo but could not capture the thin salt layer clearing my head, or the lulling traffic of wave after wave meeting rocky shore.

Though I had seen so much, I could not convey the change of season, the change in me. On this first day of summer, I'm still learning to see.

Goodbye Facebook

It was fun at first. I was found and friended. I delighted in gaining the attention of people I had forgot (old boyfriends, tenuous high school pals, the friend of a friend of a neighbor I barely knew).

But after my year-long stint, Facebook is now too much and not enough. Too much information and not enough substance.

I had to give it up: the status reports, the pithy replies, the clever repartee, the family photos, the incessant checking of other people's quizzes. I didn’t care really, but I couldn’t turn it off. Facebook became my tawdry tabloid, delivered all day, every day. I was an addicted voyeur.

I had real Facebook friends, to be sure. The same ones I telephone and email. For months, we crowded into the Facebook booth instead, sharing the high of fresh quips and bright banter. Just like in real life.

But Facebook glaringly confirmed what I already knew: I’m not a ‘social networker.’ I don’t have a 'platform.'

To be clear, I’m no Luddite. I appreciate and use modern technology. Running my own marketing communications business, I know well the value of modern media tools. In my personal life, however, I don’t wish to live the odd combination of transparent and calculated.

So, today, with reinforcement from a friend (no really, an actual, live friend whom I talk to on a regular basis and — gasp! — see in person), I quit Facebook.

With just a couple of clicks, I slipped out of the party. As with any good gathering, nobody noticed my departure. The party chatter continued as my 75 friends maintained an enviable pace of meandering amusements.

So long, my somewhat social network. It’s late. I’m tired. I’m returning to the antiquities of telephones, emails, and in-person gatherings in which real, live people share actual conversation.

Five years ago, when my husband and I were contemplating a move that would take us from urban center to remote, small town, a friend cheered us on. “Remote,” he said, “is the new luxury.”

With this recent disconnection, I’m going remote again. Accessibility has created a charade of meaningful connection. Within the one-line updates and clever banter, I’ve discovered I don’t really need to know so much about so little.

More fibs

The fibs keep coming!

The six-line, 20 syllable poem has a count of: 1/1/2/3/5/8. While the traditional fib is just six lines, many have opted to expand the form and link the stanzas.

"I promised myself to fib at least once a day," says Auburn McCanta, who regularly writes for the Huffington Post and her own blog. She shares her first fib here.


On Pie Day

Spoon

Bowl

Apples

Cinnamon

Crust with butter dots

The scent of a mother’s lined hands

Soft

Green

Apron

Wrapped like wings

Around small shoulders

Drying off a girl’s cloudy tears

--- Auburn McCanta

Summer travel produces poetry

Oh the beauty, the horror, the long whine of the family road trip. Who hasn't endured this summer nightmare? Emily Andrade beautifully distills the experience in this found poem, which originally appeared at the Found Poetry Project.

The Ten Commandments (of traveling with my parents)

1. Don’t snap your gum.
2. Don’t ever drive that close to a semi again.
3. Follow that car!
4. Don’t put your fingers on the window.
5. Watch out for elk.
6. Tell me where we are.
7. Be ready with the money before we reach the toll.
8. Don’t eat mother’s tuna sandwich.
9. Please, don’t kill us.
10. Pass me that lotion.


Written by Joseph and Sharon Andrade
Minivan trip to San Bernardino, CA, from Indianapolis, IN, Spring 2005
Found by Emily Andrade

Emily explains her found poem: “Original quotes from Joseph and Sharon Andrade during a minivan trip to San Bernardino from Indianapolis, Indiana for my Uncle Ruben’s funeral in the spring of 2005. Formed into poems by Emily Andrade, who was taking notes and a strict diary of the trip. Joseph and Sharon did not know they were being recorded and Emily did not know she had poems until the end of the trip. (A special thanks to the Andrade parents, who made these poems possible.)”


Fibbing along

Recently enamored with the short form poem, last week I shared my love of the fib. Named after the mathematical Fibonacci sequence, the fib is a six-line, 20 syllable poem with a count of: 1/1/2/3/5/8.

Jill Reedy Groseclose took a try and produced a modified fib.

“[It’s] one syllable short,” she says of her first fib. “Kind of a theme in my life...”

In this poem, Jill, who is my cousin, fills family references into just a few lines, giving a nod to our mothers (both voracious readers), to our grandmother (a master crossword-er), and to our recent reconnection.

An
Instant,
Serendipitous,
To find you so in love
With words, Their shape and sound

I
Love
Them too!
Malleable and enduring
Are the words our inheritance?

The poem is a loose interpretation of a traditional fib. But I like that the piece bends the rules to represent its “fibness.” Isn't a fib, after all, just a soft fabrication of malleable facts?

Thank you, Jill.

Keep those fibs coming!