Last week I wrote about reading poetry aloud to my introductory poetry class; this week I’m carrying on.
It is a truly beautiful thing to see students — aged 18 to 58 with all varieties of reasons for being there — close their eyes while sitting in an overly air-conditioned community college classroom to listen. They close their eyes!
I read Lee’s work because I think it’s lush and spare at the same time — how does he do that? — and because when you’re ramping up to discuss things as dry as meter and ode and quaitrain and iamb, it feels awfully healthy to balance it out with some heart.
Here’s one of my favorites:
A Story
Sad is the man who is asked for a story and can’t come up with one.
His five-year-old son waits in his lap. Not the same story, Baba. A new one. The man rubs his chin, scratches his ear.
In a room full of books in a world of stories, he can recall not one, and soon, he thinks, the boy will give up on his father.
This week, my elder daughter came flying home from school with “good news, Mama!”
And she proceeded with the big announcement. “Up until now, we’ve been learning to read,” she explained, “but this year we’re reading to learn!”
I mean, this was like winning the lottery. The kids lottery. Nevermind Disney Land or cotton candy or sleepovers on a school night. She’d hit the jackpot here.
First, Yea! for her teacher who put this little p.r. machine into motion.
Second, Yea! This is our kid who’s this psyched about reading. And learning. Double yea!
Third, it’s her birthday. Tomorrow. She’ll be nine. Nine years old. This would be baby #1, the one who turned us into mom and dad. Gulp. And now she’s reading to learn. Which, new shoes and pocketknife aside, is a mighty fine birthday present.
Go get ’em, baby. The world’s your oyster. Or library, as the case may be…
The folks from the city are doing all sorts of repair and reconstruction to our street — and the pipes underneath our street — these days. We live in an older neighborhood downtown and I guess everything’s showing its age.
So, not to complain (’cause I like running water and drivable streets as much as the next gal) but from where I sit you’d think that the trucks out there only drive in reverse.
(Now’s the time to conjure up your own little “beep… beep… beep… beep…” Y’with me?)
And what I’m thinking is, what if we had those incredibly shrill and incessant warning systems installed on our own selves? They could be brain triggered to go off every time we started slipping backwards in our lives, or retreating, or digging into old habits. Maybe we’d annoy ourselves into kickin’ it in and moving forward.
This week I went back to teaching — just one class this fall, in introductory poetry. Usually, folks want to know right off how to get published and rich, but I figure my role is a little less grandiose than all that.
So I focus on all the varied elements of craft — the tools at the disposal of the poet — and I focus on the process and arc of writing — over time — and I focus on reading.
Reading’s my hot-button issue because nothing drives me crazier than a writer who “doesn’t have time” to read book after book of poetry, but wants the rest of us read his or her work — with admiration, enthusiasm and awe.
So I assign a book critique and we take turns reading each other’s work and we use a text book. But my favorite way to sneak new poetry into my students’ lives is to read it aloud — each and every class. I usually just pick a book of my shelf and choose about four poems to share — with very little introduction or commentary. I mean for them to absorb the work rather than study it.
Last week was Maxine Kumin, next may be Adrienne Rich or Donald Hall, Sylvia Plath or Mark Strand. Or maybe Frank O’Hara. Here’s one of my all time favorites:
Autobiographia Literaria — Frank O’Hara
When I was a child I played by myself in a corner of a schoolyard all alone.
I hated dolls and I hated games, animals were not friendly and birds flew away.
We’re four days into the school year over here and we are no longer startling at the school bell or looking at lunchboxes as if they’re unidentified flying objects. In fact, we’re kind of getting into the groove.
I mean, not counting the lost water bottle on Monday, my late pick-up on Tuesday or the tears on Wednesday. We are not in the business of miracles, I’m afraid.
Still, for all my regret at leaving summer behind, I am remembering now the beauty of routine. And solitude. Which, when you work at home with only your own ideas for company, you get a lot of. Lots of folk would rather die than give up the company of the outside world, but I’m not much of a water cooler gal myself. You could take a look at my checkered employment history to see what I mean.
Today I was reading some bits of Aldo Leopold’s Sand County Almanac, which you oughta read if you haven’t. He was the quintessential naturalist and the Almanac is nothing short of poetry. And, let’s face it, it’s another book I wish I’d written. I have my grandparents’ copy — meaningful because ol’ Aldo was from Wisconsin which is where my grandparents lived their lives, surrounded by lakes and birch trees, and because they held it in their hands and the paper smells like their house. It makes me feel like they’re a little less gone.
Now I don’t know about your routine, but I’m an early riser myself. I don’t do all my writing at the crack of dawn, but I’m not much for sleeping in when the air is crisp and dusky and only the cats are out. So here’s the bit that really struck me about the Almanac today, the part that articulates why I love what I do, why getting up in the dark is a beautiful thing, why sitting or walking with only my own thoughts for company is, often, company enough.
Too Early — an excerpt from Sand County Almanac by Aldo Leopold
Getting up too early is a vice habitual in horned owls, stars, geese, and freight trains. Some hunters acquire it from geese, and some coffee pots from hunters. It is strange that of all the multitude of creatures who must rise in the morning at the same time, only these few should have discovered the most pleasant and least useful time for doing it.
Orion must have been the original mentor of the too-early company, for it is he who signals for too-early rising…
Early risers feel at ease with each other, perhaps because, unlike those who sleep late, they are given to understatement of their own achievements. Orion, the most widely traveled, says literally nothing. The coffee pot, from its first soft gurgle, underclaims the virtues of what simmers within. The owl, in his trisyllabic commentary, plays down the story of the night’s murders. The goose on the bar, rising briefly to a point of order in some inaudible anserine debate, lets fall no hint that he speaks with the authority of all the far hills and the sea.
The freight, I admit, is hardly reticent about his own importance, yet even he has a kind of modesty: his eye is single to his own noisy business, and he never comes roaring into somebody else’s camp. I feel a deep security in thie single-mindedness of freight trains.
A couple of weeks ago, I shared some of the books I wish I’d written, which is my idea of a favorites list. And one that I can keep adding onto. Forever. Satisfying, hunh?
So, as the second in an occasional series, here are a few more.
I wish I’d written last year’s middle grade and young adult award winners, and in that group I’ll include:
The Higher Power of Lucky by Susan Patron — winner of the 2006 Newbery Medal, thanks to a well-spun tale and a really fine set of details (the knots, the backpack, the red dress) that serve as cairns throughout the whole book. A good thing when you’re in a windstorm in the desert. I wrote about Lucky way back in June but it can’t hurt to say it again…
Rules by Cynthia Lord — a 2006 Newbery Honor Book, and mighty touching without the sap. That’s the take-away lesson on this one. If Lucky’s got the details, Rules has got straight-forward heart. Just the way I like it. I wrote about Rules back aways, too…
Hattie Big Sky by Kirby Larson — another 2006 Newbery Honor Book, and today’s Little House. Right? I mean, really, I felt all cold and in the need of biscuits just reading it. I’ve no doubt that the book’s bred a whole new group of girls who want to step straight out of their suburban bedrooms into big sky land, and that’s a desire I think is worth conjuring up. So, I wish I’d written it, and I also wish I’d gotten to take a train to Montana the way Kirby Larson got to.
Looking for Alaska by John Green — the winner of the 2006 Michael L. Printz award and boy oh man did this one make me weep. Read it pretty much cover to cover on an airplane and, well, hello Holden Caulfield. The humor, the angst, the heartbreaking beauty of the great perhaps. I have to admit to loving the first half more than the second — I hope that’s not sacrilegious to say — but the whole dang book captures what it feels like to be sitting inside your own head at 18. Captures and still makes it palatable. Which is saying something.
This list is admittedly incomplete since I’ve somehow failed to read Penny from Heaven by Jennifer Holm, but I am now hanging my head in shame, moving it to the top of my pile and I’ll betcha anything I’m gonna wish I’d written that one, too.
Our kids went back to school this morning. Did yours?
Sheesh, that is a rude awakening after a summer full of sleeping in — the alarm at 6:45 (even if it is set to sing like little birds) — the sandwich making and cereal bowls — the backpacks and sneakers.
But suddenly there we are, standing in front of school as fresh as daisies, with a 1st grader and a 3rd grader at the ready. Which makes me want to check the dates on their birth certificates since I swear they were just born.
I get all knotted up over days like this. I mean, I really really really-to-the-power-of-ten want my writing routine back. And it is rather nice to have wiped the kitchen counter and realize nobody’s mucking it up all day. Plus, I go back to teaching on Wednesday and my syllabi aren’t finished and I need this time to get a grip.
But the thing is, I really like my kids. To hang out with. And I really like summer. Swimmin’ and road trips and big ol’ stacks of books from the library.
You know how dads of yore used to warn their progeny to prepare for the hard, cold reality of life? Well, I’m not that keen on hard, cold realities. I like warm and lazy. Slow and dreamy. Fun and funny.
But not to worry. It’s still about 100 degrees here so I’m in no danger of catching a chill. And I’m working on a picture book revision with my dog at my feet and a couple of mini-Tootsie Rolls at my elbow. And tonight, no doubt, the girls will buzz like fireflies with the news of the day. That is sure to be fun and funny.
We’re piling into the car again (I know, gluttons for punishment) and heading to the beach for our last summer hurrah. School starts Monday and we like to eeeeek every last bit of vacation out of the calendar. We’re headed toward:
One house, eight adults, ten kids and a whole pile o’ boogie boards.
No doubt I’ll have some adventures to relate upon our return on Sunday.
Yesterday my husband and I celebrated our anniversary — a decade-plus-three — and can I tell you? It’s better than just a plain decade, even though those round numbers pack a lot of punch. There’s something satisfying about having been together for so many years (I know, those of you who’ve been married for 30 are laughing at my naivete) that we can start to recognize the arc of our relationship. We can see where we’ve been and what we’ve created and it ain’t half bad. We looked at our wedding snaps last night and, okay, so we look a little different but honestly, we still have that much fun.
When we got married, I was writing and Kirk was playing music and we had enough time to read the entire New York Times over brunch-’til-two on Sundays. Since then, we’ve absorbed a couple of advanced degrees, several careers and, well, kids. Which, in case they haven’t told you, changes everything. But the smartest thing we ever did was promise to be the safekeepers of each other’s creative life. The theory was that we were less likely to fight about needing our own time or space to create, and less likely to abandon our own creations if we weren’t our own managers. When we concocted this idea, we were still pre-kids and we didn’t have a clue what we were talking about. But, y’know, it turns out to hold water.
If I’m losing my freakin’ mind because I’m half-way through a piece and can’t find a way to finish (this is hypothetical, mind you), Kirk turns me toward the desk and takes the kids away for the day. Which is nicer than calling the folks with the white coats, don’t you think? And when we share calendars, I ask if he’s got a night in there to pick with friends. When we hike (or pull weeds or clean), we let a little distance grow between us so we can properly daydream. Our date nights often consist of funny, out-of-the-way gigs or poetry readings or plays. Our TV is usually off. We never question each other’s bookstore bills or the need for new guitar strings. (I did, admittedly, have to gulp a few big gulps over a recent guitar purchase (and I don’t mean strings, I mean the whole instrument) ’cause it was a little bit more than a stack of books but I’m over it and the guitar is home here, where it belongs.)
This is not to say it’s been all milk and honey. We’ve had some doozies over the years, about chores and money and whether or not to adopt another cat. But not about whether the time spent following that funny little inkling in our guts is necessary. Or valuable. Or right. That’s understood.
It’s a good idea to have a champion. Or a super hero, as the case may be. I recommend it.
Happy Anniversary, honey. Remember this, from our wedding ceremony?
It is our inward journey that leads us through time — forward or back, seldom in a straight line, most often spiraling. Each of us moving, changing, with respect to others. As we discover , we remember; remembering, we discover; and most intensely do we experience this when our separate journeys converge. — Eudora Welty
“There are many miracles in the world to be celebrated and, for me, garlic is among the most deserving.” — Leo Buscaglia
It’s raining in Texas today, which is a fine thing since I had a huge bag of basil threatening to go brown on me and I’ve made mince of it — along with a handful of pine nuts, some hard cheese and olive oil, and a generous dose of garlic.
Really, with those ingredients, pesto qualifies for perfect food status, don’t you think?
Dinner will be delicious and our house smells just right …
