Tough time sorting out where to go next with your plot? 
What to do with your characters? 
At logger-heads with your editor?

Check this out. It is just too hilarious not to link to.

TGIF… 

Last winter I sat on a panel of judges for The Balcones Poetry Prize, sponsored by the college where I teach. We read more than 120 books of poetry — all published in 2006 — which makes me think it’s not true, people saying, “Nobody publishes poetry anymore.”  Which makes me glad. That it’s not true, I mean.

I loved a lot of what I read, and I loved that it was my responsibility to sit and soak up poetry on certain chilly afternoons. With a hot chai in one hand and the dog at my feet. That is the kind of responsibility I much prefer to laundry.

The prize was awarded to Lorna Dee Cervantes for her weighty collection Drive: The First Quartet, which is really like five books in one — written over a period of 25 years. So first of all, it’s a massive undertaking. 300-some pages of poetry. I get a little weak just thinking about numbers like that. And then there’s the breadth of styles and subject matter — long, skinny poems in memory of David Kennedy… thick narratives about a barrio childhood… short, squat, spontaneous pieces that shine like beach glass buried in coarse sand. All the finalists were very fine, but this book was the right choice.

So yesterday, Ms. Cervantes came to give a reading at the college. I took my elder daughter with me and sat in the back of the theater and listened to poems about politics and poverty and love and rage. My daughter chewed her chocolate chip cookie and drew an elaborate picture of houses on stilts and I listened. 

If you’d like to hear her voice, here’s a little snippet I found on YouTube….

If you’d prefer to just read, here’s something for you, poetry and cat lovers alike:

Baby Doll Dress

How I hated those pasty faces
that drag of fray on the cuffs,
that cracked tear of the chipped glass,
staring, that fake blue of the sea.
All my dolls were naked, stripped
of their mute and crippled artiface.
And the grey cats were gleaming
in their lace and buttoned collars,
in their bonny bonnets & braided silk trimmings.
What elegant teas we had, hunger
our only mistress of manners,
seated like Mad Hatters, my tuna-
tamed tigers and I.

 

 It’s darn hard to think up anything nice to say about cancer, except that the astrological sign is devoted to people who bring together families. And actually, in a weird, sad, twisty way, I guess the illness does, too.

Also, another nice thing? We’ve gotten better at kickin’ it, thanks to some awfully clever doctors and scientists.

But still, sometimes its pervasiveness really rocks my feet right off the ground. I think, This can’t be right. Do other folk know this many people who’ve been up against cancer? And then I’ll ask around, and it turns out they do.

For me, for starters, I’ve got my dad and my dad-in-law, two uncles, my aunt, my grandfather, my grandmother, her brothers. My dad’s best friend, my college roomate’s dad, a boy on my daughter’s swim team. Three mothers from our one little pre-school. Three siblings from my hometown. I could go on, but you get the idea. I’ll bet you’ve got a list of your own.

Some of the people on my list are gone now, some are cancer-free, and others are still duking it out with the disease. Year after tired year.

And that’s where the “kicking it” part comes in. These folks kind of need a cure. a.s.a.p. 
So do the people who will be diagnosed tomorrow, or next Wednesday or sometime next year.

There are a lot of different ways for us (those of us who aren’t world renowned research specialists) to help. 
We can run and walk. We can point and click. We can live strong.

Also? We can buy snowflakes.

The deeply talented children’s author and illustrator Grace Lin just lost her beloved husband Robert to cancer. He was 35. Early on in his battle, he and Grace founded Robert’s Snow: for Cancer’s Cure. They raised a lot of money when he was alive and now the project continues as his legacy. You should read all about it yourself – it’s a powerful thing – but I’ll give you the upshot. Hordes of wildly creative and generous children’s book illustrators (more than 200 this year!) design and paint wooden snowflakes and then the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute auctions them off. You get an extraordinary work of art and the docs at the cancer institute get back to work.

This year’s auctions take place November 19-23, November 26-30 and December 3-7. And even before that, you’ll be able to learn all about this year’s artists because the children’s literature blogging community is making a great big push to get the word out, in honor of Robert and in solidarity with Grace.

The amazing women over at 7 Impossible Things Before Breakfast have taken the lead on this. You can read more there. And, I promise, I’ll keep you posted.

In the meantime, it kinda goes back to what I was saying the other day, don’t you think? 
Spending time — the coin of our life — carefully. 
With intention, joy, love and gratitude. 
Let’s squeeze as much of that out of it as we can…

This morning I gave myself an instrumental playlist — some Hawaiin slack key guitar, a couple of pieces from the Il Postino soundtrack, and a little jazz.

I wanted to be able to properly curse the ragweed while I ran, without lyrics getting in my way. But lo and behold, last night’s rain dampened the ragweed. Sneezes were few and far between, and curses were not necessary. So instead, I thought about stuff.

Like: it’s that time of year again. And I don’t mean ragweed season, though that’s significant, to be sure. I mean, the wild ramp-up from the lazy-hazy days of summer to that time in midwinter when nobody can stop to have a cup of coffee or a glass of wine with anyone else because we’re all too freakin’ busy, and the kids’ events and programs, which we (ahem) signed ’em up for, have taken over our lives, and we’re binging on vitamins, minerals and caffeine when really all we need are a nap, a bath and a good game of cards. Y’know? That time of year.

So here’s the thing. I’m not doing it this year. No, I really mean it. This summer I turned down a nice job offer, and doing so reminded me that we really do have a say in how we spend our days. And that over-committing is a choice (albeit a lousy one). And that sometimes what our kids really need, even more than learning to walk tightropes or becoming tri-lingual or trying out for the Olympics, is space. Space and time. And I’m pretty sure that’s what we really need, too. 

It’s like a knee joint, right? What a clever machine, but if the cartilage pops or gets all worn down, it’s gonna be bone-on-bone and that ain’t pretty. (Sorry for the clumsy analogy, but remember, I was running when I was sorting all this out so it seems apt.)

Now friends, what’s the magic answer, other than knee surgery? How do you stay productive (like, I’ve got four manuscripts that deserve my attention, and a husband, a couple of daughters and three pets who’d all like a piece of me, too) and at the same time, stay breathing and balanced? How do you know when to say yes and when to say no? How can you be sure to get enough sleep? How do you build enough time for day-dreaming into your writing life? And what about the naps, the baths and the good games of cards?

There was a poet once who said something about time being “the coin of your life.” I’d like to become even more mindful of how I’m spending mine. How about you?

My heart aches, bidding goodbye to Madeleine L’Engle, author of the beloved Wrinkle in Time and many other books… including my personal treasures, the memoirs A Circle of Quiet and The Summer of the Great Grandmother. Ms. L’Engle has died at the age of 88. 

Here is a short piece from The Times.

 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 love poetry.

This Wednesday, it was Li-Young Lee and The City in Which I Love You. 

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.

Read the rest of the poem here…

 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.

You think?

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

I hated dolls and I
hated games, animals were 
not friendly and birds
flew away.

Read the rest here…

And thanks to Literacy Teacher at Mentor Texts & More for hosting the Poetry Roundup today. Head on over and get your fix…

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