Poetry Friday — The Seventh Sonnet

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Remember a month or so ago when I talked about A Crown of Sonnets? 

For those of you who don’t, a Crown of Sonnets is a series of seven complete sonnets, linked thematically and through the repetition of certain lines. 

That’s 98 lines of poetry for you math majors… in rhyme… and iambic pentameter. 

It’s like an extreme sport — snowboarding in the half-pipe when everyone else is cross-country skiing.

Anyway, because I have this diagnosable condition called “flattered to be asked,” I agreed to write the seventh of seven sonnets in a beautiful crown some poet-friends of mine were putting together. 

All well and good until they gave me the first six and I had to start. 

Gulp.

Sonnets are hard to write. But also sort of puzzley fun, and since I don’t play Suduko I thought this exercise might keep my mind nimble. Plus, it just so happens that this past week was the one week in the entire semester that I require my students to write a poem in form. They went off with the look of startled bush babies in their eyes, terrified to face the rigors of sonnet or sestina, vilanelle or pantoum. And I went skulking toward my own. Is that poetic justice, or what?

The upshot is, I did it. And I thought I’d share it with you. I don’t have permission to share the previous 92 lines but suffice it to say that they were about water and butterfly migration and luck and risk and hope and jazz and Amelia Earhart, and they were really, really good. 

Here’s my contribution. And may I suggest giving this a whirl? Maybe not even a whole crown. Just a plain old garden variety sonnet. They are fun. And pretty…
 

7.

Your last indigenous gods will gather,                                         

burning wood and salt-weed in your name.                     

The rite of rising water’s just a game                             

you make a habit of; today’s another                             

chance for us to wax and reach together –                                                                     

the tide goes out and now the chances wane.                 

Oh, sirens on the half shell, who’s to blame                    

for hopes that dash against the rocks or rather                

crack the husks that we have all outgrown?                   

What if it’s luck that pulled us up from crawling,             

luck like treasure pulled us from the seas?                                  

You say that you’d be different if you’d known              

fortune falters (just like darkness falling) –                     

sometimes you feel it lapping round your knees.  

 

School Visit

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I took my little dog & pony show on the road this morning since it’s Children’s Book Week and also because I was afraid of turning into my chair if I sat here working on this revision for even a millisecond more.

So I found myself talking about books and reading and writing with a very perky pack of kindergartners. 

I really like school visits. 
I really, really like the kids.
The hand raisers and the ones who forget to raise their hands.
The wigglers and the rapt.
The shy and the chatty.

To me, they are the ultimate reminder of why I need to get back home and turn into my chair. 
Seriously.
Because there are kids out there just dying to be read to. And dying to read. Y’know that?
And it wouldn’t hurt if we kept filling up their bookshelves with books that spoke to them… inspired them… made them laugh… and made them want to keep a flashlight under their pillows.

My favorite moment today was during question & answer time at the end.
This is always a bit of a gamble because you never know what the kids’ll say.

“I don’t know how to read,” said this little guy, “but I really want to.”
(That about melted me right there, but then he continued…)
“How long have you been reading, ma’am?”

I said that I think I learned to read in 1st grade but that I’ve been read to my whole long life.
He seemed relieved to know that that counts…

Revisions…

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After long talks this weekend with editor, illustrator and self, I’ve stepped back onto that particular carnival ride that is revision. Let’s hope it doesn’t make me queasy like the Tilt-a-whirl.

Here’s the thing about revising a picture book. I need to be both fresh and inspired but also obsessively detailed. Kinda sorta two halves of the brain, don’t you think?

(Let’s not even mention the fact that there’s already a rhyme scheme in place that needs attending to. And, we’re kind of in a hurry if we hope to eventually turn this into a book that actually hits the shelves.)

So, here goes.

Deep breath.
Deep swig. (Relax, folks, it’s tea…)
Dig deep…

Robert’s Snow: Final Week of Blogging for a Cure

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This week marks the grand finale of the winter wonderland that has been oft-referred to as Blogging for a Cure. But folks, don’t forget that the real snowstorm begins when the blogging ends. Starting November 19th, the Robert’s Snow online auction will accept your bids for these amazing flakes. (You can view all of the 2007 snowflakes here).

It could go unsaid but it shouldn’t, that the biggest snowforts in the snowstorm go to Grace Lin for not only launching this project with her husband Robert a few years back, but for having the, well, grace, to carry on without him, in his honor, this year. And to Jules and Eisha from Seven Impossible Things Before Breakfast for organizing this powerful media blitz with such care and pizzazz. And, naturally, to the illustrators who are all crazy-talented and generous and doing their own little part to save the world.

Here’s the schedule for Week 5, which starts Monday. This schedule links to the participating blogs, instead of to the individual posts. You can find links to the posts themselves, and any last-minute updates, each morning at 7-Imp as well as a special page containing a comprehensive list of links to the all profiles so far.

Monday, November 12

Tuesday, November 13

Wednesday, November 14

Thursday, November 15

Friday, November 16

Saturday, November 17

Sunday, November 18

Poetry Friday — Happiness

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This week I’ve been thinking about illness and health. 

I guess there’s something about my age that makes my awareness of it keener than its been before. 

Maybe because I’ve got my own higglety-pigglety little cricks and creaks these days. 
Maybe because my parents are older and my grandparents are gone. 
Maybe because my children are vigorous, tall, rosy and robust — and I cannot fathom what life would be like if it were otherwise. 

Health is one of those things that I used to take for granted and now I’m busy taking tinctures and doling out vitamins and knocking on wood every chance I get.

So this morning I found myself with Jane Kenyon, a poet I go to for beauty and comfort and emotional resonance over and over and over again. Every so often I post about Books I Wish I’d Written, and I mean it as a form of flattery rather than greed or jealousy. There is a lot of poetry I wish I’d written, but Jane Kenyon’s is pretty high up on the stack. 

There is a poignancy to nearly every word she ever wrote — 
whether describing love or long grass, shopping or melancholy. 
There is a specificity that’s exquisite and yet, a simplicity that’s intimate and almost relaxed. 
There is an honesty that is both brutal and tender.

The surface story of Kenyon’s life looked charmed. 
She lived as a poet on a farm in New Hampshire with the love of her life, another poet.
Is that the writer’s dream, or what?
But illness haunted Kenyon like a needy dog. 
She saw her husband through numerous rounds in the ring with cancer.
She suffered an often crippling depression.
And in the end, she died in her 40’s of leukemia.

I remember when she did. I’d plucked my copy of The New Yorker out of the mailbox and begun to read, from back to front, and kept encountering poems by Kenyon. I was delighted. Until I got to the very first one that included a note of her passing. That my reading had been elegiac I had no idea…

Kenyon wrote about all of this — about being a worried wife, about depression, about dying. 
She is how I’m thinking about illness and health and happiness today. 

Happiness
There’s just no accounting for happiness,
or the way it turns up like a prodigal
who comes back to the dust at your feet
having squandered a fortune far away.

And how can you not forgive?
You make a feast in honor of what
was lost, and take from its place the finest
garment, which you saved for an occasion
you could not imagine, and you weep night and day
to know that you were not abandoned,
that happiness saved its most extreme form
for you alone.

Read the rest of the poem here…

 

Gettin’ Organized

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This morning I met with a writer pal of mine. 
We try to get together once a month — sometimes to critique each other’s work, sometimes to celebrate, sometimes to brainstorm, sometimes to cry. 

Today I showed up with the nightmare previously known as my filing system. 
Not my whoooole filing system. Oh, no. 
I left the taxes and report cards and committee minutes and freelance folders at home to molder. 

Today I targeted my revision and submission folders, and if you’re rolling your eyes thinking, “Why doesn’t that nutbar get a clean, efficient Excel spreadsheet like the rest of us” can you kindly hold that thought for now? It’d make me feel better.

I don’t know how I let things accumulate like this, but let me tell you that it was a pile to behold. Notes and revisions from various manuscripts, assorted editorial rejections — opened but still in envelopes, my most recent book contract, three different submission logs (not one of them up-to-date), emails from friends about their agents. You get the idea. I think there was probably a gum wrapper or two in there, too.

So if you can believe it, I plowed through most of the stuff right then and there. All that’s left to do is integrate and update the logs so that I can feel good about putting my work out there in the world again. When you don’t know what’s where it’s hard to know what’s next. Y’know?

I have a feeling that the ‘assorted editorial rejections’ were why I’d neglected this teeming mass for as long as I did. Like if I didn’t record and file them, they hadn’t really happened? When did I stop looking at rejections as an opportunity for revision or a nudge to submit to someone else? Did a rock actually roll onto my head or did I crawl under it of my own volition? 

Sigh.

Here’s the thing. In each manuscript’s folder are numerous rejections, which for sure means I’ve been productive in the sending ’em out department. So there’s that. And many of those rejections include invitations to submit more work. I used to just jump on that sort of response but I’ve apparently gotten a little lazy, so I’m back on task there. Plus, a few stories need to be revised unless they want their share of rejections to grow, so I’ve added revisions to the to-do list, too. 

And then there are the folders for the books that’ve sold. Two out of three of them have their own little pile of no-thankyou notes.  That’s what spurs me on, really. Knowing that we don’t usually make the bell at our first rodeo. Still, there’s always another bull and I’m polishing up my boots. After I put these damn logs into Excel…. 

Goal!

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The other night, my husband and I (and my mom, when she could get a word in edgewise) had a rather heated discussion about kids and sports. (Actually, we mostly referenced a particular kid and a particular sport, but I think our finely-wrought arguments could be extrapolated out and applied to the larger questions at hand.)

So, in very compressed little nutshells, here’s where we fell:

One of us thinks that pretty much all kids can get better (maybe even get good at) any chosen sport with some amount of focus and effort. And if a kid is stuggling, falling behind or sitting on the bench, a little elbow grease oughta fix that. (By the way, this line of reasoning didn’t come with the contention that kids shouldn’t quit sports they hated, just that they may grow to like something more as they improved.)

The other one of us counters that not all sports are for all kids, and that part of what kids do in trying out different extra-curriculars is discover which things they love and are good at (working with the presumption that we tend to love that which we’re good at) and which things aren’t a proper match. And that, not unlike dumping a sketchy boyfriend, it’s a good idea for kids to move beyond certain ill-suited sports (or activities) so that they don’t end up feeling like inadequate klutzes themselves.

(One of us may dispute the other one’s account of this discussion, but since I’ve currently got the pen in hand, let’s go with this …)

Both of us, by the way, love physical activity for a variety of reasons, including health, fresh air and fun, for us and for our little ones. We do, though, tend to choose rather different activities ourselves – one of us being more team oriented and competitive than the other. Maybe we bring our own leanings or baggage to this little chat, maybe not. 
(Well, okay, we do. Duh.)

So, where do y’all stand on this? As parents (or teachers or coaches), what’s our job? To say ‘stick it out’ or to say ‘why not move on’? To say ‘you’ll get better’ or to say ‘there are others who are better’? To say ‘I love this sport – try it with me’ or to ask ‘what sport do you love’? To say anything or just to ask and receive?

And also, doesn’t this really transcend the track, field and stadium and address questions of what we choose to apply ourselves to in general? Are we always the best judges of what we’re good at? (I mean, all the writers I know judge their work with utter arsenic, so where’s the objectivity there? And yet, if nobody’s passing you the ball and you don’t know why, maybe there’s not arsenic enough.) Do we grow in strength and character working at what we’re not good at or do we grow in strength and character recognizing what we’re not good at? Do we tend to be good at what we love and love what we’re good at, or is that myth? What do we believe about any of this, and what do we teach our kids – about interests, passions, effort and esteem? 

And sorry for the cloak and dagger phrasing here but I can be rather, um, convincing. So… I thought I should step out of the way and let you speak for yourselves. No doubt I won’t hold my tongue for long 🙂

It’s Still Snowing

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Welcome to another week of eye candy. Or eye snow as the case may be. I’m pretty sure ya’ll know by now that Robert’s Snow is an online art auction benefitting the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute. You can view all of the 2007 snowflakes here but if you want more than that, check out the very fine profiles of the artists and their work at a blog near you! (With thanks, of course, to Jules and Eisha at Seven Impossible Things Before Breakfast).

Now without further ado, here’s the schedule for Week 4, which starts today. This links to participating blogs instead of to individual posts. You can find links to the posts themselves, and any last-minute updates, each morning at 7-Imp.

Monday, November 5

Tuesday, November 6

Wednesday, November 7

Thursday, November 8

Friday, November 9

Saturday, November 10

Sunday, November 11

Thanks this week to Tricia at The Miss Rumphius Effect for her html wizardry. And also, don’t you LOVE the name of her blog??? Now go on, go check out this weeks’s featured flakes and get ready to bid! It’s a good way to plant some seeds of your own.

Joy like a Fountain

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I’ve got this little song stuck in my head. 

I heard it on a very fine Elizabeth Mitchell CD (and can I just get a big hoo-rah for people like her who truly understand that kids do not want or need insipid schlock in place of music?).

So, this song I want to learn on my dulcimer.
Which I haven’t exactly mastered. But I might, for this little ditty.

I’ve got peace like a river in my soul (repeat, in all sorts of lovely melodic riffs)
I’ve got love like an ocean in my soul (again with the lovliness)
I’ve got joy like a fountain in my soul (and so on)…

Isn’t that just enough to make you want to throw up your arms and suck in the blue sky with vigor?

We’ve had a blue-sky-with-vigor kind of weekend here. 
My mom’s visiting and is currently cutting out a pattern with elder daughter, who’s quite the seamstress. 
Afterwhich she’s going to make a special dessert with younger daughter, who’s quite the chef. 
Already this weekend we’ve been to the Texas Book Festival, with all its usual wit and wisdom, and to the Westcave Preserve, home to an ecosystem so precious and fragile that you have to hike with a guide to ensure you don’t disturb things. And we’ve eaten take-out Chinese and frozen custard and drunk a few bottles of nice white wine. And we’ve walked the dog and played numerous card and board games and hung out at a couple of parks and just generally loved life. In a peaceful, non-rushy-around kind of way. The gods of the clock even granted us an extra hour of goodness today.

Tomorrow, though, is a Monday. 
Mom leaves on a crack-of-dawn flight. 
The girls will come home with homework in their backpacks. 
And the calendar is populated with, well, obligations. 

So my thought is to keep some peace like a river and maybe a dash of joy like a fountain and most certainly love like an ocean in my soul. This week. And next week. And through this next stretch of time (sometimes referred as holiday hell). Right? Suck it in, friends. With vigor….

Poetry Friday — Walking

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My daughters’ GranPam (aka my mom) arrived last night, to much fanfare. 

She’s signed up to read in both girls’ classes today, 
and tomorrow are the final soccer games of the season.

In the meantime, she and I are headed to the lake to walk. 
It is beautiful here — my favorite time of year — crisp and blue.

I’ll leave you with this appropriate poem by Denise Levertov. I love this one…

Looking, Walking, Being
by Denise Levertov

I look and look.
Looking’s a way of being: one becomes,
sometimes, a pair of eyes walking.
Walking wherever looking takes one.

(Read the rest of the poem here…)