It’s a dang shame we do all the gushing we do behind people’s backs. Worse than gossip, don’t you think? How we’re always raving on and on about how witty or brilliant someone is, how big-hearted or visionary. And I don’t mean just authors. In general, folks are kind of shy about tooting each other’s horns, up close and personal.
So, I want to send a great big shout-out to Michael Buckley for his Sisters Grimm series. We’re on Book 3 and some nights my husband just keeps on reading after the girls nod off because he wants to see what’s gonna happen next. And I’ve honed a very fine Granny Relda accent. A bit Bavarian.
And also to Rick Riordan, ’cause we still can’t stop thinking about old Percy and the half-blood gang. I mean, creating an obsession in the Greek myths amongst the elementary school set? You gotta love him for that.
And also to Cynthia Rylant for making my heart split open everytime I read one of her books. She’s the whole reason I’m writing for kids. Honest to pete.
And also to Alice Munro ’cause she makes my heart split open, too.
I mean, I could go on here but I won’t because I’ve got to get word to these folks directly. ‘Cause that’s the point. Right?
Tra la la la la. I’m in Colorado, which I where I lived for 15-some years of my life and its the home o’ my heart, to be sure. I CRY the first time I see the mountains. Every time.
I flew in a couple of days ago for a wedding and the rental car company saw fit to give me this jaunty little buttery yellow thang, with a sun roof no less. And I’ve read three books and chatted up all sorts of friends and family. And married off a cousin whom I cradled when she was a baby. And cradled another’s cousin infant for the first time. It’s the good life.
The only downside was missing my daughters in their big, final, city-wide swim meet. My husband text-messaged me during the entire thing, especially when our elder water bug won the breast stroke for her age group. Won.
It just bowls me over that they grow up and take on the world like this, our little ones.
So, I know it’s not poetry friday but I found a swimming poem that I thought I’d post, in honor. And pride. And all that…
Swimming Lessons
by Lisa Hammond Rashley
Minnows and their moms hurry in no running no floaties they bob in the shallow end feet lighter than the air outside humid hot hold your nose dunk then sleek heads break water gasp in air
For summer fun and as instruction for my own middle-grade work-in-progress, I’m reading all of this year’s Newbery award and honor winners. I mean, I figure these folks know a thing or two about plotting and dialogue and backstory and the like.
So I just finished Cynthia Lord’s Rules and it’s a beautiful little story that is kind of about autism and kind of about rules but more than anything is about kindness or the lack thereof. Plus, there’s a thread of Arnold Lobel’s Frog and Toad running through the whole thing and that’s just delectable. If you haven’t read it, do. And tell me if you don’t think the running in the parking lot scene is just really, really vivid and moving and exhileratingly sweet.
Now I’m half-way through The Higher Power of Lucky. There’s an appealing bit about how Lucky is all one color — from her eyelashes to her arms, from her hair to her lips — all sort of “mushroomy”. And I really like the notion that she’s living with her father’s ex-wife because of what it says about how tenuous and random families can sometimes be. And dang if that whole “scrotum” controversy isn’t just as ridiculous as I suspected it would be. I read the first 20 pages of the book just thinking, Really?? That’s it??? This is what everyone was so freaked out about? Not Short Sammy being so drunk he fell out of his Cadillac? Not the fact that Lucky spends a good chunk of life eavesdropping on hard luck 12-step stories? But this??? Sigh. Moving onto a higher note, the ex-wife/guardian is French and makes some really charming language missteps like when she talks about almost driving into “a cow and her little veal.”
Hattie Big Sky is next on my pile. And I’m as grateful as ever for all you inspired, smart, creative, careful, passionate writers out there, building good books…
The 4th of July ain’t much if you can’t get out-of-doors. Parades. Picnics. Fireworks. Let’s face it — Independence Day is a fair-weather holiday.
So we were understandablly out-of-sorts this morning when the Texas deluge continued. Parade — cancelled. Picnic — cancelled. Fireworks — on the chopping block. Nevermind the crepe papered bicycles and Betsy Ross hats. The holiday was devolving before our very eyes.
“We could bowl,” I suggested. “Or see a matinee,” said my husband.
“Not very 4th-of-Julyish,” said the girls. And then they cried. It was gonna be a long day.
When I was little, growing up in the mountains, I think it might’ve been the ski patrolmen who shot off the fireworks, from up on Golden Peak. We spread out on blankets on our backs and reveled in the sight — just like millions of other folk all over the country. When a firework sputtered or shot off too low, we’d shout, “Are you still there, Poopsie?!” in high hopes that nobody’d burned their eyebrows or blackened their fingertips. But when there was a particularly magnificent colored star or weeping willow or cascading candle, we’d call out, “Ain’t she a la la!!” loudly and quickly, like it was all one word.
Later, when we moved to the midwest, we celebrated the 4th in my grandparents’ garden — the same place my husband and I would marry a few years down the road. The fare of the day was grilled chicken and root beer — a whole keg of the stuff — and we had a helium tank so we could send balloons off and bet on where they’d land. Sometime, that week or months later, my grandmother would get a postcard in the mail — from Rhinelander, Wisconsin, or somewhere in the U.P. of Michigan, saying our balloon had been found.
So yesterday, I was ready to make something happen. This was meant to be a holiday of pure pleasure and gratitude, afterall, and we were not going to spend our every waking hour on Lego and laundry. We have windshield wipers — we can make it to a fireworks stand just outside of town to buy our body weight in colored sparklers. We can invite two other little ones over for a red-white-and-blue craft, a treasure hunt, and a snack of hot dogs and watermelon. And how about some of those sparklers? It’s not dark but it’s not like the sun’s out.
But then it was! The skies opened up. In a good way. We made our way to Zilker Park to watch the fireworks over Austin while the symphony played The 1812 Overture accompanied by real cannon fire, among other things. The whole city was out, emerging after weeks of rain to celebrate the pitch-perfect night. And my daughters next to me yelled, “Aint she a la la!” over and over again.
I’ve just gotten the very fine news that A Sock is a Pocket for Your Toes will be a permanent feature in a new children’s garden!
Bookworm Gardens, on the University of Wisconsin-Sheboygan campus, is designed to be a playful, natural space where literature comes alive — quite literally. The ‘garden’ will actually consist of multiple, small landspaces — each inspired by and dedicated to children’s books, from Little House on the Prairie and The Secret Garden, to Harry the Dirty Dog and Click Clack Moo.
My book will be part of the ‘education pavilion’, and I’m not quite sure what that means but I’m tickled pink, to be sure.
Bookworm is set to open in 2009, and will play host to concerts, classes and countless hours of delightful unstructured play. And here’s what else:
It’s going to be free. They’d like children to visit often.
They want to encourage a love and understanding of plants and nature, and to nurture a life of reading and imagination.
They want to provide a place for families to reconnect. A place that is naturally wireless.
Plus, they say, “nooks and crannies (will be) plentiful”.
My good ol’ bud W. Joe Hoppe is a poet and teacher here in Austin, remarkable for all sorts of reasons, including his lovin’ dad energy, his amazing full-back tattoo, his wise and talented wife, and his buddist-midwestern-hotrod-classics sensibility.
I could think of no better way to kick off the extended Fourth of July holiday than with this poem from one of his early chapbooks. His newest book is Galvanized. You should get it.
It’d be a Happy Ending — W. Joe Hoppe, 8/30/92
You can put my ashes in a fireworks rocket I’m sure my broke down chemical composition could make some kind of contribution there’s carbon in gunpowder my remains might have some kind of propulsive possibilities But truly what I’d want for what’s left is to be one of those flaming embers part of a sparks shower trailing across the firmament or one bright green yellow red blue white dot bursting and tumbling through the night sky Even just a part of something a circle or a lop-sided heart an angel flaring up some celestial gift drifting down while people lift their eyes and ohhhh as small planes buzz around through the sulfur scented brimstone clouds thinning out through the dark
We are in the midst of the wettest six months
in the history of central Texas.
I kid you not.
We’re walking around with swollen joints
and clothes that smell of mildew
and bewildered looks on our upturned faces.
And you should see our hair!
But, everyone asserts, “We can’t complain…”
Because, really, what is the alternative?
110 degrees and crispy-brown St. Augustine laid across every front yard in town?
We’ll take the rain.
The creeks are full to bursting, the swimming holes are brisk, and the mornings are lazier.
Rain makes a person want to pour a second cup of tea, read another chapter and stay in the ol’ jammies ’til noon.
There’s mud to sweep from the stoop, but why bother?
“Oh, kids books! I’ve got a couple stories I’d like to turn into books one of these days.”
“Kids books are so expensive! You must make a ton of money!”
“Writing for kids. How fun! Your life must be all rainbows and unicorns!”
Ha. Sorta puts a person in a mood. Unicorns must die. That sorta thing.
I know we’re just supposed to smile and nod and say, “Yes, I’ve been meaning to do some brain surgery when my schedule clears up, too…” but sometimes a gal wants to,y’know, express herself a little. I mean, really. Where do people get this idea that being a children’s author is both easy and lucrative?
As for the money, I’m super happy for old J.K., don’t get me wrong, but her bank account seems to have created a rather unrealistic impression about the rest of us.
And the effort — is it Herculean? No. We’re not delivering medicines to dying children in war torn nations. We’re not fighting forest fires, round the clock and past the point of exhaustion. We’re not teaching classfulls of 2nd graders year after faithful year. (Well, actually some children’s writers are doing that, too.)
But “easy”? That’d be a stretch.
There’re the usual struggles — building a titallating plot, creating a sympathetic character, revising every single bloody syllable until the seventeenth draft no longer shares the same genetic material as the first draft.
That counts for something, right?
Plus, I know we’re an immediate gratification culture and that we could all use a little patience, but Whoa Boy, this industry takes that to an extreme. We wait months to hear back from agents and editors, and then it’s often with a form-letter no. We wait weeks to communicate with the agents and editors who are already ‘ours’ and we wait years (school kids always think I’m kidding when I tell them this) for our books to come out, even after we’ve finished every last little touch of our work.
And how about marketing? Didja know we needed to be marketing agents of our own employ? At first I thought I just needed to order bookmarks. I could handle that. But we’re talking blogs and bookstores and press releases and holiday fairs and all flavors of things we’re not exactly trained to do. And these efforts can take over your life if you don’t watch out. I mean, it takes hours to do a mailing to all the independent booksellers or all the local librarians. It takes a good dose of courage to show up for a signing that may or may not be attended by anyone other than your children and your neighbor. And I don’t know what you need to write a confident and compelling press release about yourself without feeling like you want to die. Being your own spokesperson isn’t all it’s cracked up to be.
Especially when you’re your own chef and cleaning lady and launderer and driver and nanny and personal shopper, too. One of the trickiest wickets we negotiate, us childrens’ writers, is the fact that our work and our lives are so entwined, right here, up close and personal. My office, my dog. My desk, my washing machine. My kids, my kids, my kids. Today, for example, no revision because of swim team, a sewing project and the garbage disposal repairman. Tomorrow, a sleepover. And what day isn’t laundry day? Sigh. Creating boundaries and clarity? Now that’s Herculian.
But here’s the thing (and don’t tell this to the surgeon or the software designer): I think that the muddle of it all may also be the best part of my life’s work. I don’t go away for 10 or 12 hours everyday; this summer, even my teaching’s online. I work in the midst of my family. They steal my tape and stapler, but they also leave love notes on my desk. I get to go to swim team and help wind a bobbin with new yellow thread. I get to read a chapter book aloud over lunch.
My office, my dog. My desk, my washing machine. My kids, my kids, my kids…. Not easy, not lucrative, but totally worth it.
A few weeks back, I wrote about the last lines of poems, how they ask questions, reveal problems, uncover grief and loss and hidden holes in the ground.
Ever since, I’ve been meaning to get back to first lines. What happens here, in the beginning, if all the grand epiphanies are saved for the end?
First lines, I think, say, “Here is how I see the world, in this moment…” They serve as the poet’s manifesto. They are declarations and scene setters.
Frost says that poetry “…begins with a lump in the throat.”
I think he’s right. The world at this moment is always enough to put a lump in your throat:
” From how many distances am I to arrive…”
“There are no perfect waves…”
“The roldengod and the soneyhuckle, the sack eyed blusan and the wistle theed…”
“You weren’t well or really ill either…”
“Now between your eyes the furrows shine…”
“The walls of the house are as old as I think of them…”
“Paradise lasts for a day…”
“fortunate man it is not too late…
I like a lump like that last one. Maybe it’s never too late.
The first lines I used here are from the poems: Emergence, W.S. Merwin 9/30, William Carlos Williams A Nosty Fright, May Swenson The Embrace, Mark Doty The Waiting, li-young lee Old Sound, W.S. Merwin A Day Like Rousseau’s Dream, May Swenson The Woodthrush, William Carlos Williams
I ran out of gas today. On the highway. With the kids in the car.
Yes, the warning light was on. Yes, I had my wallet with me. Yes, I had passed numerous gas stations without stopping.
I know. Duh. You barely have to get out of your car anymore, what with Pay-at-the-Pump and all. So. I have no excuse.
The upside was a kindly roadside angel — a car salesman on his way to work — who shoved his recycling bins into the trunk, made room for my girls and me, drove us to a gas station, waited while I bought and filled a little red gas can, drove us back to my abandoned vehicle, and risked his rump pouring the gas in while I acted as a flag girl directing traffic.
All’s well that ends well.
But it got me to thinking about what kind of folk drive around on fumes with the warning light on. I mean, are we risk-takers or responsibility-avoiders or hope-mongers or cheap-skates or day-dreamers or what?
And I don’t know about you, but I do this empty tank thing metaphorically, too. I keep on trucking when the engine’s thumping. Take on more miles than I’m up for. Space out on the nitty gritty because I’m busy looking at the scenery. Or thinking through a plot. Or eavesdropping on the funny conversation in the back seat.
I did not love having to ditch my van, hazard lights blinking, on the side of the road this morning. But mostly I sort of enjoy the flow of a life without the latest maps and tool kits. Keeps me on my toes — and think of all the material I’d miss!
In my mother’s day card, my older daughter described me as “flexible”. “In yoga, and the other way, too,” she said. And now she and her sister are on that path, thanks in part to today’s adventure.
(Next year she’ll probably describe me as Spin Doctor, but I can live with that…)
