…. wordsmith.org sends you a word-a-day, with definitions, derivations and excerpts of the word being used wittily in real life. And then you get to figure out how to slide supererogatory into a sentence. All nonchalantly-like.
…delanceyplace.com delivers a little quote or excerpt from some notable non-fiction text that you may or may not have gotten to in college. It’ll make you feel erudite. (Which you can look up on wordsmith.org if you’re wondering…)
… visualthesaurus.com offers a bunch of email subscriptions, on topics ranging from book reviews to teaching hints. Plus, if you pay an annual fee, you can play with the Visual Thesaurus (a sort of solar systemy map of synonyms, plus audio pronunciation and other fun bennies) to your heart’s content.
I did a writing workshop with 3rd, 4th and 5th graders yesterday morning. It was at a lovely school with the most enthusiastic principal, teachers and librarians, all of whom seemed to think it was important that kids belive writing can be fun! Isn’t THAT a novel idea?
We had such a good time together, the kids and I did, talking about metaphors and similes and making things vivid. I had them do one of my all-time favorite exercises:
1. On one little slip of paper, each student writes down an emotional state (lonliness, happiness, jealousy, worry…) All of these get popped in one basket.
2. On another little slip of paper, each student writes down a noun (and I got everything from tennis shoe to mountain, tree to xbox 360). All of these get popped in another basket.
3. Each student picks one slip of paper from each basket and, voila, you’ve got the makings of metaphor. They have to tease out how lonliness is like a tennis shoe, or jealousy is like a tree.
There are always a few writers who raise their hands and say, “My two words don’t work together.” (And this is even — or especially — true if I do this exercise with adults.) But after we work together to think of everything we know about lonliness and everything we know about tennis shoes, they’re almost always able to find some lovely little meeting spot — the center of a ven diagram. And therein lies the poem. It’s a beautiful thing. And, dare I say, fun.
So today, in honor of all that, here’s Metaphors by Sylvia Plath. I’ve always loved this little ditty:
Metaphors
I’m a riddle in nine syllables, An elephant, a ponderous house, A melon strolling on two tendrils.
One of my wee ones was home sick so she heard me do my ‘read every line aloud ten thousand times’ thing.
If she thought I was a little off before, it’s now been formally confirmed and set in stone. I heard her tell her sister, “Mama talked to herself in poems today. Even in the bath!”
Reading aloud is part of my process, to be sure. Good thing I don’t work in a cube where the protocol is to put your phone on vibrate and think to yourself. I really can’t see what works and what doesn’t — I can only hear it.
And it turns out that’s especially true with form poetry.
OK, first of all, I’m a glutton for punishment. I committed to writing an ekphrastic poem (a poem inspired by another piece of art) about a piece in the permanent collection at The Blanton Museum of Art. But it could have been anything! A haiku, for goddsake. A prose poem cut-and-pasted straight from my journal. A list of words that came to mind as I sat there soaking in the image.
But no. Nope. I had to do a villanelle. Which I always encourage people to write because they are so pretty and musical.
Right?
And also, how hard could it be? 19 lines, and a bunch of them are repeats.
Well, the thing is, if you’re going to repeat an entire line it’s got to be, well, good. And also, there’s a rhyme scheme. So once you pick your first couple of lines, you’re stuck with two particular sounds. Or I guess ‘blessed’ with two particular sounds if stars are aligned.
And then, to top it off, I received the invitation to write this poem months ago. Not weeks. Months. But when did I get cracking on it? This week. This week. It is some crazy dysfunctional relationship I have with deadlines…
Wrap all that up and Mama’s talking to herself in poems. Even in the bath.
1. Y’know how little kids call blonde hair “yellow”? I just realized my 9-year-old still does. I love that.
2. How is it that after a 9-mile training run, the next day’s 3-mile recovery run still feels hard?
3. I just discovered Rhymezone.com, thanks to Laura. I’m just gonna put this out on the table as a potential addiction, right here and now.
4. This year’s science fair projects are (drum roll, please): lead testing toys (taller one) and comparing the fat content in various fast foods (smaller one). These are sure to transform the face of healthcare in America. I mean, just in case Hillary doesn’t get to that.
5. I am seriously, compulsively enjoying Kingsley Amis’ The King’s English. Here’s one (of about a zillion) reasons why:
Thankfully
Not an illiteracy in sentences like, ‘After my long walk in the sun I thankfully put down a glass of shandy,’ where the walker/drinker is thankful. But a stark illiteracy in, say, ‘Thankfully, the shandy is well chilled,’ where nobody in particular is thankful. A word like luckily is required instead.
The use of thankfully in a dangling position, however, as in my second example just above, is not a politician’s use like that of dangling hopefully. It makes no attempt to smuggle in more than it says, even though it is a warmer sort of word than luckily. In any case, this is a use that looks likely to catch on further with or without the approval of honest writers, who will go on avoiding it.
So, the other day I got kind of haughty about how clairvoyant I am and, as a result, I was dared to predict the Caldecott, Newbery and Cybils awards.
Well throw down the gauntlet. Far be it for me to ignore a good ol’ fashioned dare. (And yes, if all my friends jumped off a cliff I would, too.)
Coming up with these was a tall order and totally intuitive (if you don’t count my crystal ball from the dollar store) so there will be no reviews or explanations. Just wild guesses. (And I should say, these aren’t necessarily my absolute favorites. I just think they’re gonna win…)
13. A Littlest Pet Shop election, during which nobody (er, nobody’s pet) wanted to be Republican.
14. A ranty email written to a local magazine that purports to speak to and support women but that is filled, cover-to-cover, with ads for cosmetic surgery, breast augmentation, skin peels and other ‘services’ designed to correct our hideous imperfections.
15. The previously-mentioned homemade pizza, which my husband actually cut into shapes (heart and starfish) at the request of his delighted audience. That’s the sign of a good guy, don’t you think?
16. An impromptu musical recital by all four kids.
1. Ratatouille (the movie, not the food — although that does sound like a really yummy Sunday night supper).
2. Kiss Kiss Bang Bang (good, but not quite as good as Ratatouille. And why is it that ever since turning forty, I cannot stay awake for an entire flick? Even if it’s like 100 minutes long. God forbid I try to watch some epic in a single sitting…)
3. Hall closet, bathroom cupboards and one big fat kitchen cabinet — check! We no longer have medicines that expired in 2005 or flip-flops fit for a toddler, and every single laminated placemat (with maps of the world and the alphabet in sign language) has been wiped clean. I’m pretty sure Sara inspired this activity, ’cause when I read about her coffee cup gunk it occurred to me that our gunk is not localized over here. It’s more dynamic — a slow creep, an insidious evolution. But no more!
4. Husband home repairs, including small one’s bedside shelf. This is especially sweet for two reasons. One, her water has spilled off the previous rickety shelf onto her bed approximately 1,000 times. And two, he used some of my granddad’s old tools to fix it and I’m all sentimental about that.
5. Fresh fruit smoothies and peanut butter toast and a really fine decaf latte.
6. Three newly published books, one talk show and a live reading. (We’ve got four girls in house this weekend instead of two, and it is, um, what’s another word for chaos that doesn’t sound as bad?) During the reading, our youngest took the directorial role. I heard her say, more than once, “OK, I’m gonna stop you there. Let’s do that page again.” Y’know how people worry that their second (and third and fourth) children may shrink in the shadows of their first-born siblings? I’m not worried.
7. Discovered erroneous charges on our MasterCard, to the tune of fifteen hundred bucks. One of them was to the Christian Coalition of South Carolina, which particularly cracked me up.
8. Finally finished putting away all Christmasy items ’til next year. Isn’t it funny how when you pull out those mugs in early December you get so nostalgic and happily anticipatory and by January you are just sick to death of the dang things?
OK, you guys. Don’t freak out at my astonishing powers of prediction, but I forsaw every single place in the Iowa caucuses last night. I kid you not.
We had a couple of friends over for dinner last night and when the kids retired to the bedroom to practice singing the Sound of Music soundtrack, we sat at the table and tried to figure out how the darn thing in Iowa even works. Leave it to the midwesterners who act all straight-forward and bread-baskety to come up with the most complicated set of hoops a person would ever hope to jump through.
When we finally realized that true and thorough understanding was futile, we moved on to punditry. This is especially fun when you live in Texas and nearly every race is a forgone conclusion. Which isn’t fun. Especially when you’re not all that keen on the foregone conclusion.
So we wrote down the top three places for each party as we thought they might come in. It was sort of like betting at the Kentucky Derby, only nobody was giving us odds or mint julips.
And I chose, for the Dems: 1. Obama 2. Edwards 3. Clinton
And for the Republicans: 1. Huckabee 2. Romney 3. McCain
Yep, I even got it that Edwards was gonna sneak by Clinton for second. Is that uncanny or what? So, my post can’t be lengthy this morning because no doubt the national media will be calling for interviews soon. In the meantime, it’s Poetry Friday and I think today’s the day for Seamus Heaney’s poem Doubletake. In 381 days we’ll have somebody new in the White House…
Doubletake By Seamus Heaney
Human beings suffer, they torture one another, they get hurt and get hard. No poem or play or song can fully right a wrong inflicted and endured.
The innocent in gaols beat on their bars together. A hunger-striker’s father stands in the graveyard dumb. The police widow in veils faints at the funeral home
History says, Don’t hope on this side of the grave.
Our girls got The Daring Book for Girls for Christmas, and we’ve had some interesting discussions about double-dutch jump-roping and Bloody Mary (Queen of Scots).
But my favorite moment so far has been this:
Yesterday I stumbled upon a frenzied craft session, in which they were making badges to recognize various accomplishments — everything from scooter tricks to a duet on the piano and violin.
“We got this idea from the Daring Book, Mama,” said one.
“They said we could download badges,” said her sister.
“But why download them when you can make ones that are way cooler and more about you?” said the first.